Politicians around the world are using religion to restrict reproductive rights, a recent report has found. Welcome to Gilead: pronatalism and the threat to reproductive rights warns “extremist, religious, nationalist currents” leading to clampdowns on reproductive rights in countries like Poland are “spreading across the globe”. The report, published by (...)

The European Secularist Network takes note of the election of Ms Roberta Metsola as President of the European Parliament. The choice by the majority of MEPs of a President known for her principled opposition to sexual and reproductive rights sends a negative signal to European women, at a time when (...)

The time-honoured festival of Christmas is Europe’s most popular holiday. A strange provision in a European Commission guideline seems to want to erase it… “Wish “Merry Christmas”: Use “Happy Holidays” instead, a more open and inclusive greeting for people who do not celebrate Christmas”. This incongruous recommendation was included in (...)

The European Parliament will soon elect a new President. Under a political agreement at the beginning of the legislature, it would go to a member of the European People’s Party, which has seen fit to put forward MEP Roberta Metsola, known for her very conservative positions on access to abortion (...)

Thousands of migrants and asylum seekers (mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria) are stuck on the EU-Belarus borders without adequate access to services or assistance. Some have been stranded in the border areas for weeks because of ‘pushback’ policies by Polish, Lithuanian and Latvian border control and coercion by Belarusian (...)

Today, 10 December, is the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The secularist movement shares its values of freedom, equality and solidarity.  The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a “common standard of achievement for all peoples”. It is not only addressed to States, but (...)

Humanists International just published the 2021 edition of the Freedom of Thought report. This new edition shows that discrimination, and in some cases persecution, of humanists, atheists and other non-religious persons is still rife. Apostasy is prohibited by law in 17 countries, and punishable with death in 12 of them. (...)

On October 28, a campaign endorsed by the Council of Europe and the European Union appeared on social networks (Twitter and Tik Tok in particular), officially intended to fight discrimination against veil-wearing Muslim women. But when reading the messages, it quickly becomes clear that this campaign also promotes the wearing (...)

There is mounting evidence of illegal push-backs and mistreatment of people seeking refuge in the European Union by Member States. These acts are contrary to the values of humanity and solidarity defended by the Centre d’action laïque (CAL). They are also in flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention on Refugees, (...)

UN Special Rapporteurs Karima Bennoune (Cultural Rights) and Ahmed Shaheed (Freedom of religion and belief) have paid tribute to Samuel Paty, a French teacher who was murdered by an Islamist fanatic on 16 October 2020. Samuel Paty was murdered following a social media campaign that misrepresented his attempts to teach (...)