The International Humanist and Ethical Union has joined with its member organization One Law for All to hold a Rally for Free Expression in London on 11 February. The rally was organized to respond to the recent spate of attacks on free speech in the UK, including threats and censorship directed at Humanist student groups at the University of London (see IHEU stories at  http://www.iheu.org/humanists-condemn-another-attack-atheist-expression-london-university and at http://www.iheu.org/threats-violence-force-cancellation-university-talk-sharia-law).

Yet another Humanist student group in London is being threatened with censorship for talking about Islam. The London School of Economics (LSE) Student Union has instructed the LSE Student Union Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society (LSESU ASH) to remove cartoons featuring Jesus and Mohammed from their Facebook page. It is the third instance this month of free speech being threatened at a London college.

A meeting at the University of London had to be cancelled yesterday after threats of religious  violence. The talk on ‘Sharia Law and Human Rights’ was organized by the Atheism, Secularism and Humanism Society at Queens College.

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.”

In a morning-long debate on traditional values at the Human Rights Council on Tuesday 22 March 2011, the Pakistani delegate, speaking on behalf of the 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) was allowed by the president to overrun his allotted three minute by a further seven in order to express his outrage at an incident reported just that morning. Was it the massacre of peaceful demonstrators in Damascus? No. The killing of peaceful demonstrators in Yemen or Bahrain? No. His diatribe was against the burning of a copy of the Quran in Florida.

In what looks like a major climb down on the part of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) this grouping of the 57 Islamic states in the UN has tabled a draft resolution at the Human Rights Council: “Combating intolerance …and violence based on religion or belief”.

The friends of Mauritania, mostly Islamic states, who spoke in an hour-long debate in the Human Rights Council Friday, 18 March 2011, would have us believe that this vast but under-populated West-African desert state was a model in its efforts to comply with international human rights law.

In a joint statement by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) and Centre for Inquiry (CFI) at the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday, 15 March 2011,  IHEU main representative Jack Jeffery challenged the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) to broaden the scope of its oft-repeated resolutions on defamation of religion to encompass any actions or conduct leading to incitement to hatred or violence.

When IHEU were prevented on a technicality from delivering a speech on blasphemy and violence in the name of religion at the 16th session of the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, Center for Inquiry kindly agreed to collaborate and deliver a statement jointly crafted by the two organizations. Unfortunately, Georgina Hutchinson, CFI main representative in Geneva was unable to deliver the speech when the session ended early on Friday 11 March, and the speech was actually delivered by Jack Jeffery of IHEU at 9:15 this morning. Here is the speech in full.