Some time ago I read an article about women in the Congo being raped, beaten, murdered – and about some who survived to helped other victims. They were working together to save lives without making distinctions between different ethnic groups. I read a heart-warming story of the two leaders, one a Hema, the other a Lendu.

Hunger continues to haunt communities in eastern Uttar-Pradesh. Every year people die from starvation and from diseases like malaria, and Japanese encephalitis.

An illustrated version of this article is available here.

The Ugandan Humanists (UHASSO) have developed a range of projects to benefit local communities – each a demonstration of Humanism in action.

Following discussions in which IHEU representatives played an important role, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has strongly supported the separation of religion and state [1].

In 1997 some Norwegian parents started a court case to try to gain the right to withdraw their children from KRL classes (Christian, Religious and Life Stance Education), which are very much slanted towards Christianity. This case subsequently went through every level of the Norwegian courts (with the parents being supported by the Norwegian Humanist Association), but without success.

Regulations have come into effect to ban discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in the provision of goods, facilities and services, premises, and education throughout the whole of the UK.

Early in 2007, Mina Ahadi, together with a group of colleagues, set up the Central Council of ex-Muslims in Germany. After declaring that her motive was to help people to leave the religion if they wanted, she was put under police protection as a result of anonymous death threats.

Since the launch of the Brussels Declaration in defence of a secular Europe and Enlightenment values (see the April 2007 edition of International Humanist News), supporters have continued to add their signatures. You may still do so, and we hope that you can recruit plenty of other like-minded people to sign as well. The address is http://www.visionforeurope.org.

By the Universities Tests Act of 1871, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the UK became ‘freely accessible to the nation’. There was to be no discrimination against Catholics, Jews, Non-conformists and agnostics or atheists (except against women), and no obligation to subscribe to any religious belief (except for professors of divinity) or attend any form of public worship.