Charlie Hebdo staff win top NSS award
The National Secular Society yesterday awarded the staff of Charlie Hebdo the annual Secularist of the Year prize for their courageous response to the terror attack on their Paris office. Just one week...
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UK Jewish faith school row escalates
A while back, the Talmud Torah Tiferes Shlomoh, in Golders Green, above, was branded ‘an inadequate school’ by the education watchdog Ofsted, which found that it spends too much time teaching Jewish...
View ArticleNSS delighted to have Barton on board
The National Secular Society this week welcomed professional footballer and student of philosophy Joey Barton as an honorary associate. The Queens Park Rangers midfielder is a passionate advocate for...
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IHEU condemns slaying of blogger
The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) has issued a statement condemning yesterday’s killing of Ananta Bijoy Das in Bangladesh. Prior to Ananta’s murder, blogger Md Washiqur (or Oyasiqur)...
View ArticleMaking the cut
Again. For the third time this year – and it’s only May – a secular blogger in Bangladesh has been hacked to death with machetes. Ananta Bijoy Das was on his way to work at a bank in Sylhet on Tuesday,...
View ArticleSecular Israeli mum denied child support
The Rabbinical Court of Jerusalem has exempted a man from paying child support to his two daughters because ‘he does not want to fund their secular lifestyle’. The judges accepted the father’s...
View ArticleFFRF’s Anne Nicol Gaylor dies aged 88
Anne Nicol Gaylor, 88, the principal founder of America’s Freedom From Religion Foundation, died on Sunday, June 14, at a hospice in Fitchburg, Wisconsin. She was hospitalised on May 30 after a bad...
View ArticleCollective worship is fit for the scrapheap
Former UK Education Secretary Charles Clarke, above, has called for the abolition of collective worship in schools. A study he has co-authored with Linda Woodhead, professor of sociology of religion at...
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‘Drop case against Pastor McConnell’
The London-based National Secular Society (NSS) has added its voice to a growing number of organisations, both religious and secular, who are calling on the Northern Ireland authorities to drop a...
View Article‘Spiritual care’ costs increase in the UK
Figures published last week in the Independent revealed that NHS Trusts spent over £23 million on religious chaplaincy in the last financial year – the equivalent cost of employing 1,000 new nurses....
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NSS attacks new UK banning orders
Extremism Disruption Orders’ (EDOs) are tough new restrictions planned by the UK Government to curb radicalisation by jihadists. But the new banning orders could be one of the biggest threats to...
View ArticleBlogger slaughtered for ‘blasphemy’
The United States and United Kingdom have condemned yesterday’s killing in Bangladesh of secular blogger and war crimes trial campaigner Niladri Chatterjee, known as Niloy Neel. According to this...
View ArticleUAE enacts stealth blasphemy law
An ‘anti-hatred’ law recently passed by the the United Arab Emirates is designed to tackle ‘discrimination’, but it actively discriminates against non-believers. According to this report, the Vice...
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Butchered bloggers: UK Muslim arrested
Authorities in Bangladesh have arrested three men, including a British citizen – Touhidur Rahman, above – for their alleged involvement in the murders of two secular bloggers. The arrests follow a...
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‘Father, forgive us’
It is a sad fact that the Catholic Church has never been progressive in its treatment of women and still remains mired in archaic and oppressive tradition. Yet Pope Francis is widely portrayed a...
View ArticleSecularist speaker barred from university
Ex-Muslim and outspoken secularist Maryam Namazie, above, has been branded as ‘too inflammatory’ to deliver a talk at Warwick University. Namazie today reports that she had been invited to speak at...
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Death list secularist asks ‘why me?’
Dr Rumana Hashem, above, is amazed to have found herself on a hit-list targeting ‘enemies of Islam’. The London-based, post-doctoral researcher and lecturer is quoted in this report as saying: I am not...
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The Enlightenment keeps on winning
If you study history, you’ll see episodes that changed civilization. For example, in Ancient Greece, for the first time, bright thinkers sought natural explanations for the world around them, instead...
View ArticleIs Israel lurching towards theocracy?
Israel’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation is to consider a bill that could herald the first step toward making Israel a country governed by Jewish religious law. The sponsors of the new bill, led...
View ArticleChurch of the Sword in fresh court battle
New Hampshire’s godless Church of the Sword (COTS) will soon learn whether its bid to be recognised as a ‘true’ religious entity has been successful. The church – famous for its pies and playful sword...
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