Does Britain have a problem with Islamophobia?
New report shows that sporadic acts of "domestic terrorism" directed against Muslims continue.
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Prominent white supremacist arrested after shootings at Jewish centres in Kansas
The Southern Poverty Law Centre, a US civil rights group, has some background information on the man arrested for shooting dead three people at Jewish centres in Kansas yesterday. Frazier…
Oddly regressive lawmaking in Queensland, Australia
We were interested to note this story concerning the Crime and Misconduct and Other Legislation Amendment Bill currently passing through the legislature in Queensland, Australia. Not the usual ground covered…
Cameron credits Jesus with founding the Big Society
The Prime Minister tells the Downing St Easter reception that Christ invented his flagship policy
Would a Hindu nationalist election victory threaten India’s religious minorities?
As voting begins, the BJP's Narendra Modi leads the polls. These are anxious times for Indian Muslims, reports Samira Shackle
Should atheists ‘get over it’ and accept that Britain is a Christian country?
While I’m sure the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles is a man of many talents, one skill that has always stood out from our vantage point here at New Humanist is…
My Apostasy Story: Clair
As part of our Apostasy Project ex-pastor Clair explains how she went from speaking in tongues to free-wheeling round Europe on a mission of discovery
Saudi Arabia’s “atheism = terrorism” law is part of a wider crackdown on dissent
Saudi Arabia is hardly known for moderate policy making. Law in the theocratic kingdom requires that all citizens be Muslims (an overseas national seeking Saudi citizenship must convert), and religious…
Exam board will no longer permit redaction of questions at religious schools
The OCR examination board has announced that it will not longer permit schools to edit or redact questions appearing on its papers. The announcement follows investigations by the National Secular…
How Turkey’s Twitter ban backfired
How do you police the internet? It’s a question that most governments are confronting in one way or another, from America’s mass surveillance programme, to Britain’s sentences for Twitter trolls,…
How Cosmos moved us all to tears
Neil deGrasse Tyson's remake of Carl Sagan's classic series is worthy of the hype – it even introduced my six-year-old to the vastness of the universe, says Dale DeBakcsy
The strange story of Burkina Faso’s “pleasure hospital” tells us about the difficulties in eradicating FGM
There are currently around 125 million women alive in the world who have undergone some form of female genital mutilation (FGM), a procedure in which female genitalia are altered or…
The fight against blasphemy laws continues
The news that 14 people in Pakistan face execution for blasphemy highlights the ongoing use of such laws by illiberal states
Growing up in the Sagan household
Chris Stedman, Assistant Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University and author of the book Faitheist, has a lovely interview on his blog with Nick Sagan, son of Carl and his second…
Has Pope Francis done anything to tackle clerical child abuse?
The National Secular Society's Keith Porteous Wood argues that the widely-hailed Pontiff has failed to address his Church's greatest scandal