Pakistan is still persecuting atheists and religious minorities with blasphemy charges, often trumped up because of personal disputes, which can result in life imprisonment or the death penalty. Here are two current examples: an illiterate Christian couple facing death by hanging for allegedly sending a...
Atheist Ireland today sent this submission to Dr Fernand de Varennes, the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues. He is preparing a report for the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, about the significance and scope of the four categories of minorities (national or...
A recent case at the Workplace Relations Commission has found that Yellow Furze National School in Meath discriminated on religious grounds against a family that had no religious belief. The school claimed at the WRC that the case was unfounded. Most schools are unable to...
The Workplace Relations Commission has found that Yellow Furze National School in Meath discriminated on religious grounds against a family, in a case that Atheist Ireland raised publicly last September. The school is under Catholic patronage, and it gave homework passes to children who attended...
The Catholic Church is still trying to undermine the right of parents to opt their children out of religion classes. They are now trying to ensure that the arrangements for opting out are kept secret and that parents are not consulted. This is contrary to...
Despite what some people think, the Education (Admissions to Schools) Act 2018 has not removed the religious discrimination in access to schools in Ireland. Minority faith primary schools and any religious secondary school can still give preference to co-religionists. And Catholic schools can still refuse...
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael’s proposed framework for government aims to create a new social contract. This should treat everybody equally regardless of their religious or nonreligious beliefs, and without giving privilege to any religious or atheist organisations. To do this, we must reconsider our...
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael’s proposed framework for government aims to create new, credible, quality-of-life measures of individual and societal wellbeing and progress. They are correct to focus on economic recovery, healthcare, housing, education, climate action, young people, and global citizenship. They are also correct...
Some of us have our freedoms temporarily constrained in order to protect people from the Covid pandemic. We should consider ourselves lucky compared to Soheil Arabi. Soheil is a 34-year-old Iranian blogger with a young daughter. He has been jailed and tortured since his arrest...
A recent article by Hemant Mehta tells us that atheists can now solemnise marriages in Michigan after the State dropped its opposition. Up to now Michigan only permitted religious solemnisers and denied the authority to solemnise marriages to atheists. Meanwhile, the Irish law on solemnising...
