The struggle for a secular society is something that has different meanings in different parts of the world. The World Humanist Congress, held once every three years, brings together more than 1,000 delegates from 67 countries.
The event, held in Oxford over the weekend, included speeches from Philip Pullman, Richard Dawkins and Taslima Nasreen, and provided a chance for dialogue between humanists from a hugely diverse range of countries.
The Nigerian Nobel Laureate and humanist, Wole Soyinka, was awarded an International Humanist Award. Although he could not collect the award in person, due to ill-health, he recorded a video message:
"The conflict between humanists and religionists has always been one between the torch of enlightenment and the chains of enslavement. Those chains are not merely visible, but cruelly palpable. All too often they lead directly to the gallows, beheadings, to death under a hail of stones. In parts of the world today, the scroll of faith is indistinguishable from the roll call of death."
The poet and playwright, who won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature and has dedicated his life to humanist goals such as freedom of expression, also spoke about Boko Haram, the Nigerian militant group.
"We have to ask such leadership penitents: 'Were there times when you kept silent while such states of mind, overt or disguised, were seeding fanaticism around you? Are you vicariously liable?' The lesson of Boko Haram is not for any one nation. It is not for the African continent alone. The whole world should wake up to the fact that the menace is borderless, aggressive and unconscionable."
The other recipient of an International Humanist Award was Gulalai Ismail, the Pakistani human rights activist. Ismail is the founder and chair of Aware Girls, a charity which promotes the developmental and human rights of young women in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of northern Pakistan, and elsewhere. This is an unstable region of Pakistan, and Ismail has faced direct threats for her work; her family home was recently threatened by masked gunmen. Now 26, she established the organisation when she was just 16. Collecting her award, she said she wanted everyone in the world to have freedom of thought and expression.
