The Humanist Movement in Sweden and the International Humanist community call upon the Swedish authorities to reopen the case of Khalid Saeed from Pakistan, whose application for a residence permit in Sweden has been rejected by the Migration Board. He could now be sent back to Pakistan with his entire family.

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is calling for Sweden to provide asylum to Khalid Saeed, a Pakistani atheist and apostate from Islam who fled his homeland to live in Sweden.  Khalid’s initial request for asylum was rejected by Swedish authorities because they did not accept that his outspoken atheism had made it unsafe for him and his family in Pakistan.

There are more godless groups in the world than ever before. The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), the world union of Humanist, atheist, rationalist, freethought and ethical culture groups, now has 117 member organizations from 38 countries. At the World Humanist Congress in Olso, five new member organizations joined the IHEU, taking it to the highest membership figure in its six decade history.

At the World Humanist Congress, held every three years, the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) gives awards for outstanding service to Humanism. At the August 2011 Congress in Oslo, IHEU gave awards to activists and leaders from India, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA.

The June issue of YouthSpeak is now available online. This issue of the magazine from the International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organization (IHEYO) includes articles of interest to Humanists of all ages and in all locations.

The World Day of Social Justice, observed this year on Feb. 20, is an urgent call for all countries to take decisive and concrete steps to promote the UN's mission for human rights, human well being and human dignity. The recent astonishing and historic events in the Middle East and North Africa testify to the crucial importance of social justice.

In October 2010, the UN Human Rights Council working group on the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action held a two-week workshop which discussed, inter alia, “structural discrimination”. The report of that workshop was presented to the plenary of the Human Rights Council on 22 March 2011. Strangely, the report contained no mention of what is unquestionably the most widespread, pernicious and deeply-rooted example of structural discrimination on Earth: I refer of course to the caste system.

In a morning-long debate on traditional values at the Human Rights Council on Tuesday 22 March 2011, the Pakistani delegate, speaking on behalf of the 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) was allowed by the president to overrun his allotted three minute by a further seven in order to express his outrage at an incident reported just that morning. Was it the massacre of peaceful demonstrators in Damascus? No. The killing of peaceful demonstrators in Yemen or Bahrain? No. His diatribe was against the burning of a copy of the Quran in Florida.

When IHEU were prevented on a technicality from delivering a speech on blasphemy and violence in the name of religion at the 16th session of the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, Center for Inquiry kindly agreed to collaborate and deliver a statement jointly crafted by the two organizations. Unfortunately, Georgina Hutchinson, CFI main representative in Geneva was unable to deliver the speech when the session ended early on Friday 11 March, and the speech was actually delivered by Jack Jeffery of IHEU at 9:15 this morning. Here is the speech in full.