IHEU has strongly condemned the execution of children in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and Pakistan and the practice of child marriage. In a statement to the annual meeting on the Rights of the Child held at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, IHEU called the continuation of child marriage "a disgrace" and judicial killing of children "the ultimate barbarity".

When I agreed to write about Humanist movements in the Middle East, I thought I had the whole idea in my head. But when I sat down to write, I felt confused. “How do we define Humanism?” The question came to my mind. I started searching, browsing and reading. I realised that it was not only me; the concept is too broad, too undefined.

Thirty years ago when the reign of political Islam officially started in Iran and while the whole world saw what they were told was an ‘Islamic revolution’ on the screens of their televisions, I and many people of my generation, feeling suffocated and oppressed by numerous rules and regulations, started to rebel against the new powers who were crushing our revolution.

In a joint statement with Center for Inquiry, IHEU has condemned abuses of women's human rights, including child marriage and "honour" killings, especially in Pakistan and Iran. IHEU also attacked the culture of censorship that now prevails in the Human Rights Council.

A year after the world was stunned by images of a 17-year-old girl being stoned to death in Iraqi Kurdistan, an international panel will debate the rise of honour killings, violence against women, gender apartheid and political Islam in Kurdistan/Iraq and the Middle East. High-profile speakers will include women’s rights activists, academics and experts from Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran, Sweden, New Zealand and Britain.

Recent reports on the Islamic regime of Iran’s crackdown on women who are ‘badly’ veiled (bad-hejab) and their resistance to the regime’s campaign of arrest and harassment has been reported quite extensively in comparison to other similar events over the years.

A coalition of leading human rights groups from around the world have called on UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour to rebuke Iran for its campaign of Holocaust denial, on the day the UN marks the genocide of Europe's Jews with ceremonies in New York and Geneva.

Available as a PDF file.

IHEU and two other NGOs have issued a press release at the UN in Geneva, demanding that the Iranian President be prosecuted under the Genocide Convention, following his call for Israel to be "wiped off the map". Aussi disponible en franà§ais . Anche disponibile in italiano . New: also available in Arabic .

GENEVA, 27 January 2006 -- The call by the Iranian President for the destruction of the State of Israel in defiance of article 2:4 of the United Nations Charter demands a firm reaction from the international community. On this, the first International Day of Commemoration of Holocaust Victims, we call upon states to invoke the Genocide Convention and bring the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran to trial before the International Criminal Court.

The Rise of a Massive Secularist Movement

Azam Kamguian