Concordats are agreements between sovereign states and the Roman Catholic Church. A new web site, Concordat Watch keeps track of these agreements and includes a detailed explanation of the background to concordats.

At the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Tuesday, 15 April, states belonging to the Organisation of Islamic Conference demanded that Holland prosecute one of its MPs for "defamation of religion". The very next day, 16 April 2008, Keith Porteous Wood raised the alarm about the threats these nations are posing to freedom of expression in a speech in Brussels attended by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

IHEU has welcomed a final report by the outgoing Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion, warning of the risk of religious violence in India.

A video of the "ambush" of IHEU at last week's session of the United Nations Human Rights Council is now available.

In a follow-up to IHEU’s written statement to the UN Human Rights Council describing Islamic efforts to undermine the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Roy Brown, IHEU’s main representative at the UN in Geneva prepared an oral statement (below) for Council debate on 13 March 2008 but was prevented from giving it in full because of repeated objections from two Islamic delegations.

IHEU has used a meeting with UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief Asma Jahangir to highlight human rights problems in India. At a meeting in Mumbai on 11 March 2008, IHEU International Director Babu Gogineni made a presentation to Ms Jahangir on separation of religion and state in India and the rights of Humanists.

The “Arab Charter on Human Rights” came into force on 30 January 2008. In response, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, has stressed that the Charter is incompatible with international standards for women's, children’s and non-citizens’ rights, and in that it continues to equate Zionism with racism.

The Secretary-General of the OIC has announced that the OIC is considering the creation of a body to draft an "Islamic Charter of Human Rights" conforming to the values and principles of Shari’a and to promote human rights in its 56 Member States.

The English version of this article is available here. L’Union mondiale pour le judaïsme et L’Union internationale humaniste et laïque ont demandé un avis au conseiller juridique de Louise Arbour sur le conflit possible entre la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’Homme et la Déclaration du Caire sur les droits de l’homme en Islam.

IHEU has responded to claims that the “Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam” is “not an alternative” to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but “complementary” to it. In a written statement to the UN Human Rights Council, IHEU opposed any resolution that seeks to limit the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration. We now have the official UN publication of the statement available for download -- see below.