IHEU's International Representative Babu Gogineni has written to President Musharraf asking him to review the case of British Muslim Mirza Taher Hussain. Mirza Hussain has been in detention for 18 years and on the death row for 16 years on murder charges which Pakistani courts too have rejected. Mirza Hussain is scheduled to be executed next month.

IHEU has also asked President Musharraf to revoke the Qisas and Diyat Ordinances, which allow justly-convicted murderers to escape punishment by payment of 'blood money' to the victim's families.

Please write to President Musharraf at http://www.presidentofpakistan.gov.pk/WTPresidentMessage.aspx

Honorable Prime Minister

William Jefferson Clinton
The White House, Washington DC, USA

Dear Mr President

We write as President and Executive Director of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (which has 100 member organizations in over 35 countries, including the USA), to express our deep concern at the invasion of your, and Ms. Lewinsky's privacy.

We consider quite unacceptable the gross interference of both State and judiciary in what are essentially matters of personal morality. Whether the person involved is a private citizen or the President of the United States is immaterial. The public persecution and humiliation to which you are being subjected reminds us humanists of the terrible practices carried out by the Church in the Dark Ages - and the cruelties perpetrated by some theocratic regimes in today's world.

The International Humanist & Ethical Union has been deeply disturbed by the recent developments related to the publishing of the novel "Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie.

The conduct of the fundamentalist Islamic leader Ayatollah Khomeini and that of the Islamic Republic of Iran must be denounced by every member of the world community, irrespective of religious creed or ideological conviction.

We regret with deep dismay that the Soviet government has not permitted Andrei Sakharov the right to travel to the United States in order to receive the "International Humanist Award" during the Tenth World Congress of the International Humanist & Ethical Union meeting in Buffalo, New York.

Mr Sakharov is an outstanding humanist and a strong defender of human rights arousing the conscience of all of humankind.

To the Presidency of Yugoslavia

To the Presidency of Serbia

We have been informed that Mr Miodrag Milic was arrested on 25th July 1986 and is - as of 28th July 1986 - serving an eighteen month sentence.

The imprisonment of Mr. Miodrag Milic is in violation of the articles 166, 167 and 169 of Chapter 3 of the Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

As the rights laid down in the articles of Chapter 3 of this Constitution are also to be found in the United Nations Covenant on Political and Civil Rights of which your country is a State Party, Mr Milic imprisonment constitutes a violation of this International Covenant.

The President of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

On August 8, 1985 the Supreme Court of Serbia reduced the sentences against Miodrag Milic and Milan Nikolic to 1.1/2 years' and 8 months' imprisonment respectively. In spite of the more lenient character of this judgement, this act still continues the conflict for the realisation of the specific rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic (art. 166-169) and disregards international conventions (UN Charter, UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Helsinki Treaty).

Whereas the International Humanist & Ethical Union fully supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and

Whereas this Declaration guarantees the right of every individual freely to choose his or her place of residence, and

Whereas Andrei Sakharov and his wife, Ms Bonner, are now deprived of this right and are in internal exile at Gorky in the USSR, and

Whereas the USSR is a signer both of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the clauses of the Helsinki agreements dealing with Human Rights,

The International Humanist & Ethical Union, assembled at its 8th World Congress in Hanover, Federal Republic of Germany, August 1-5, 1982,

Considering that PLO members arrested in the Lebanese war by Israeli Defence Forces are captured under war circumstances and not because of specific terrorist acts,

Resolves that all PLO member arrested by Israeli Defence Forces in the Lebanese war should be recognised as prisoners of war and treated according to the Geneva Convention.

The Honourable Cvitjetin Mijatovic, President
SFR Yugolsavia
The Presidency
Belgrade, Yugslovia

Dear Sir,

The IHEU wishes to register an emphatic protest against the treatment of one of its chairmen, Mihailo Markovic, and six of his fellow-professors at the University of Belgrade.

The institution of suspension and dismissal for political reasons is in contradiction with the international legal obligations of Yugoslavia, by signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1975 Helsinki Covenant on Security and co-operation in Europe, and the Covenant of the International Confederation of Labour no. 111.