One in five Icelandic Members of Parliament (MPs) went to a Humanist event to mark the opening of parliament on October 1. The number of MPs choosing to attend the Humanist event instead of the traditional Lutheran Mass in the National Cathedral has been increasing since the first Humanist event four years ago. Hope Knutsson reports:

The National Secular Society (NSS), an IHEU member organization, has submitted an intervention with the European Court of Human Rights to argue that Britain’s equality laws should be upheld and not compromised by religious exemptions. The NSS is thought to be the only intervener arguing that the controversial employment cases of Eweida, Chaplin, Ladele and McFarlane were correctly dismissed by the UK courts.

George Thindwa, leader of the Association for Secular Humanism (an IHEU member organization) in the Southern African republic of Malawi, has reported a dramatic encounter with witch hunters last week. Despite his arrest for intervening in a live witch hunt, he was able to send us the following report  and photographs of this horrifying event:

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) has called on the African Commission on Human and People's Rights (ACHPR) to work for the abolition of blasphemy laws throughout the continent. Speaking on Saturday, April 30th, at the 49th session of the ACHPR in Banjul, The Gambia, IHEU representative Leo Igwe said that blasphemy laws “justify and sanctify tyranny, hatred, intolerance, forced conversion, intimidation and violence.”

Today at the United Nations, IHEU focused attention on the connection between corruption and human rights abuses. In a statement to the 16^th session of the UN Human Right Council (HRC) in Geneva, IHEU representative Roy Brown highlighted the “insidious plague” of corruption worldwide and suggested the Council form a working group to address the problem.

On January 11, 2011, I led a team of police officers who rescued an 8 year old girl, Esther Obot Moses in remote village, Nsit Ubium, in Akwa Ibom State in Southern Nigeria. Esther, according to locals was accused of witchcraft and abandoned by her family.

IHEU representative Leo Igwe has been imprisoned and beaten by police while rescuing two children accused of witchcraft. The incident, in Uyo Akwa State in Southern Nigeria on January 11, is the latest installment in an on-going campaign of harassment against IHEU’s representative for Southern and West Africa. Following interventions by IHEU, Igwe was released after spending a day and night in jail.

Leo Igwe, IHEU’s representative for West and Southern Africa, is working to combat widespread human rights abuses caused by belief in sorcery and superstition. On November 11, 2010, he raised the issue of ritual killing and human sacrifice at the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, with the following statement.

In response to a campaign by Humanists, the government of Malawi has promised to review the cases of more than 80 people imprisoned for witchcraft.