Close to 800 people turned out in central London last week for Humanists UK’s 2019 Voltaire Lecture, part of the Humanists UK annual lecture series. This year, the lecture was given by geneticist and Humanists UK patron Dr Adam Rutherford, who spoke in the proud humanist tradition of anti-racist campaigning with a stirring and all-too-relevant […]

The UK Government has announced it is conducting a review into how the Home Office assesses asylum claims on the basis of religious, non-religious, or LGBT asylum, following Humanists UK’s work to raise the issue in Parliament. Humanists UK, the national charity working on behalf of the non-religious, welcomed the review, adding that many non-religious […]

Scientist, writer, and broadcaster Alice Roberts has today launched a new, ‘massive open online course’ (MOOC) on humanism introducing participants to humanists from around the world to hear their stories and explore their beliefs and values. The new course, launched in partnership with social learning platform FutureLearn, called ‘Humanist Lives’, has been developed by Humanists […]

A Birmingham school facing protests around the teaching of LGBT issues has reportedly seen 600 pupils withdrawn from the school today in an alarming escalation which is placing children’s safety and education at risk, Humanists UK says. Education publication TES today reported that 600 pupils have been taken out of Anderton Park Primary in Birmingham […]

Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor David Gauke has signalled his personal support for reform of the UK’s assisted dying laws, adding that he is in ‘favour of reforms in this area’. His comments, which appeared in the print version of The Express yesterday, are the first time such a senior Government minister […]

Norfolk County Council has given the go-ahead for a new Catholic primary school, which can legally select 100% of its pupils on the basis of faith, to open on the site of an independent school in Swaffham, Norfolk. The decision comes as 14 bids for a new capital funding scheme for similarly selective voluntary aided […]

Home Office caseworkers have begun receiving mandatory training on religion or belief asylum claims from Humanists UK experts, in a move that will improve officials’ understanding of humanist and non-religious asylum applications. Humanists UK, the national charity working on behalf of the non-religious, is one of a number of religion or belief groups which helped […]

Weddings conducted by Humanists UK celebrants in England and Wales grew in 2016 from the previous year, with Humanists UK now conducting more weddings than the Baptists for the first time in history – therefore becoming the fifth biggest provider of faith or belief weddings. According to the latest official figures, the number of weddings […]

Wales Humanists has called on the Welsh Government to stop violence against children, urging the Government to ban all physical punishment of children in Wales. In its response to the Welsh Government consultation on ‘reasonable punishment’ in Wales, Wales Humanists said that, just as adults have legal protection from assault, children should have the same […]

A Pakistani humanist who received death threats from his family after renouncing Islam, and whose original asylum claim was rejected by the Home Office because he didn’t identify Plato and Aristotle as humanists, has been granted asylum in the UK. Humanists UK member Hamza bin Walayat applied for asylum on the grounds that he would […]