Our international work

Laws that criminalise apostasy (leaving a religion) and blasphemy are among the most significant threats to the rights to freedom of religion or belief and to freedom of expression for the non-religious as well as religious minorities worldwide. Apostasy or blasphemy are punishable by death in 12 countries: Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Malaysia, the Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen. More than 40% of UN member states have blasphemy laws on the books, and 57% of the global population lives under them.

However, in many countries, threats to the non-religious are not limited to state persecution. Hostility, hatred, and violence, including vigilante justice, can also come from individuals and groups who wish to suppress freedom of thought, or censor perceived negative discussion, portrayal, or critique of religion. The existence of blasphemy and apostasy laws are also used to justify mob violence against ‘non-believers’. For example, in Bangladesh humanist bloggers Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman, Ananta Bijoy Das, Niloy Neel, and Nazimuddin Samad, and the secularist publisher Faysal Arefin Dipon, were all hacked to death with machetes. As a result, the humanist blogging community in Bangladesh has entirely collapsed, or fled abroad.

We also campaign internationally on all areas of our national policy remit where relevant. There are also several areas that, while being less prevalent within the UK, remain a high priority globally – such as persecution for accusations of witchcraft, and caste discrimination. We frequently advocate more broadly for the rights of the non-religious and religious minorities, and against the discrimination and persecution they face; for women’s rights, particularly sexual and reproductive health; for LGBT rights; and for children’s rights, particularly to their right to a comprehensive education. We support policies that seek to provide all human beings with a dignified quality of life, especially through interventions targeted at the relief of child poverty, providing universal education, and the eradication of major infectious diseases.

In depth

Blasphemy laws and the right to freedom of religion or belief

The rights to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) and to freedom of expression are mutually reinforcing. The exchange of ideas is necessary for a plural, tolerant society to flourish because it allows for religious hatred to be challenged. These rights exist to protect people from undue interference in expressing their beliefs, from discrimination, and from other forms of harm. They do not protect ideas or objects, nor do they protect people from feeling insulted when their ideas – including their religion or beliefs – are challenged.

However, blasphemy laws do just that. They stifle not only the right to freedom of expression but the right to FoRB itself. FoRB doesn’t only protect those who hold religious beliefs. It protects humanists and atheists to hold and express their beliefs too.

The United Nations’ Rabat Plan of Action is the most comprehensive and authoritative document produced to date on the relationship between freedom of expression and FoRB, including the extent to which ‘offensive’ expression on grounds of religion can be protected or prohibited. It is highly regarded by the UN Human Rights Council, the UN General Assembly, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination as well as UN special mandate holders. The threshold it sets is necessarily high to prevent the criminalisation of even hostile criticism of religion or belief, but low enough to make sure adherents are not prevented from manifesting their beliefs through abusive attacks. The Plan identifies a six-part threshold test for criminal incitement: (1) the social and political context, (2) the status of the speaker in society and to whom the expression is directed, (3) the intent of the speaker, (4) the content and manner of the expression, (5) the reach of the expression, and (6) likelihood of causing imminent harm. Significantly, the plan says that blasphemy laws should be repealed to avoid stifling healthy debate and dialogue about religion, and suppressing the right to FoRB itself.

Humanists at risk

The position of most non-religious people around the world is perilous. As Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief from 2016–2022, said:

‘In my observations, humanists, when they are attacked, are attacked far more viciously and brutally than in other cases.’

The persecution is so severe that the number of non-religious people in the world is consistently underestimated and there is simply no reliable data outside of the West. The reasons are numerous but mostly it is because even admitting to non-religious beliefs is dangerous. Those willing to say they are non-religious make up a much smaller minority across countries with serious FoRB violations than there are Christians. In some countries – like Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Afghanistan – the population willing to declare they are non-religious is essentially non-existent, and in many others it is very small indeed. To illustrate this, in 2019 it was reported that Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion has been anonymously downloaded some 13 million times in Arabic, but the Arab world, according to Pew figures, had only 1.9 million non-religious people.

The academic Will Gervais and others have studied these problems in the United States, using a clever technique to enable people to covertly reveal their actual views. They found that the share of the population who are non-religious rises by 20%. They are now repeating this study in other countries, with results forthcoming.

This invisibility is compounded for women. Intersectional discrimination, gender-based violence, and social stigma likely push non-religious women even further underground, often preventing their experiences from being seen or heard.

Examples of cases

Nigeria

In 2022, the President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, Mubarak Bala, was sentenced to 24 years in prison for a Facebook post deemed blasphemous. He was first arrested in 2020. His case was persistently marred by procedural irregularities. He was detained without charge for over a year and denied access to his lawyers, family, and medical attention for extended periods. Even once charged, his trial was repeatedly delayed and the charges against him were duplicated. Before his trial, the Abuja High Court ruled that he should be released on bail but this was ignored by Kano State authorities. When the trial came, under duress, Mubarak pled guilty to all charges against him. His sentence was drastically reduced to five years by the Court of Appeal, and he was released in August 2024 but had to remain in hiding. However he should never have been arrested for peacefully expressing his humanist views.

Also in Nigeria, Leo Igwe, the founder of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, has faced lawsuits and attacks by actors in opposition to his campaigning to protect children from ‘witchcraft’ accusations and his promotion of humanism generally.

Hungary

Gáspár Békés is a founding member of the Hungarian Atheist Association. In 2021 he was fired by Budapest City Hall because of his secular journalism and activism, and subsequently targeted by dozens of media outlets from print to radio to TV stations. He received threats against his life, which the authorities have repeatedly refused to investigate. Békés pursued a number of defamation lawsuits against various media outlets, and against Budapest City Hall for wrongful termination. In 2022, a court found that he had been discriminated against, that his dismissal from Budapest City Hall was unlawful, and that he should be compensated for loss of earnings. A retrial in 2023 found in Békés’ favour once again, further ordering that he be reinstated to his post. However, in 2024, this verdict was overturned by the Metropolitan Court of Appeal. Despite supporting the legal arguments of Békés’ defence – that his personal beliefs could not influence public policy as he did not have decision-making authority – which should have been sufficient to rule in his favour, the Metropolitan Court of Appeal decided that the lower court had not sufficiently examined the evidence against him. The Court had introduced new evidence to make this finding, which is contrary to judicial procedure.

India

Between 2013 and 2015, three prominent humanist rationalists were assassinated, reportedly for peacefully challenging Hindu nationalism and harmful religious practices. In 2016, it was discovered that Narendra Nayak was also a target for assassination, as a result of his advocacy upholding secularism in India. He was subsequently placed under police protection. In 2021, he became the victim of a viral smear campaign in which violence was incited against him. Yet in 2023, the Karnataka State authorities removed his security detail despite there being no decrease in the threat to his life, leaving him vulnerable to attack.

Also from India is award-winning atheist filmmaker Leena Manimekalai. In July 2022, her project ‘Kaali’ was exhibited at the Aga Khan Museum as part of the ‘Under the Tent’ programme organised by the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). The image Manimekalai shared of her film’s poster went viral on Twitter and resulted in death threats, doxxing of her family, and calls for her arrest were trending on Twitter in India. The High Commission of India in Ottawa successfully called for the withdrawal of her film. Rather than defending her artistic freedom, TMU removed Manimekalai’s name from the ‘Under the Tent’ programme, and the Aga Khan Museum issued an apology for any offense the film had caused. In addition to this, Manimekalai was summoned to a court in Delhi in connection with a civil complaint made against her. At least nine legal complaints have been made against her, initiating police investigations into alleged breaches of the Indian Penal Code including ‘deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings’ and ‘promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion’.

Greece

In 2017, humanist human rights defenders Panayote Dimitras and Andrea Gilbert filed a complaint with the Department for Combatting Racist Violence against a bishop for inciting violence or hatred after he’d espoused antisemitic conspiracy theories, including on a local TV station. In 2019, the public prosecutor dropped the complaint on grounds that the bishop was only preaching the doctrine of the Greek Orthodox Church. The bishop subsequently filed a complaint against Dimitras and Gilbert, and they were convicted of filing a false complaint in 2022, and handed a one-year prison sentence suspended for three years. They were acquitted in 2023.

However, that same year Dimitras had his bank account frozen by the Anti-Money Laundering Authority amid an investigation into alleged misappropriation of funds acquired by Greek Helsinki Monitor – the organisation he co-founded. Dimitras denies the allegations and believes the investigation is part of a smear campaign in retaliation for his human rights work.

Iran

In 2016, Swedish-Iranian researcher Ahmadreza Djalali was arrested without a warrant three days before he was due to return to Sweden after attending an academic workshop by the University of Tehran and Shiraz University. He was accused of espionage and received a death sentence for ‘spreading corruption on earth’ based on ‘confessions’ obtained through torture. Throughout his ordeal, he has been repeatedly denied urgent medical attention as well as access to his lawyer. His life remains at imminent risk. Dr. Djalali believes he is being persecuted because he refused to spy for the Iranian regime.

Saudi Arabia

In 2013 Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison, 1,000 lashes, an extortionate fine, a 10-year travel ban, and a 10-year ban on media participation for ‘insulting Islam’. His lawyer has also been jailed for 15 years on terrorism charges. He was released in 2022 but is still stuck in Saudi Arabia and unable to join his family who now live in Canada because of the travel ban attached to his sentence. He has no legal recourse to challenge the travel ban aside from a royal pardon. His is the most high-profile of several similar cases.

Also in Saudi Arabia, Ashraf Fayadh, an artist, curator, and poet, was sentenced to death in 2015 as authorities alleged his poems had ‘atheistic’ and ‘blasphemous’ themes. In 2016 after his lawyer argued he was denied a fair trial his sentence was commuted to eight years in prison and 800 lashes. He was released in 2022 after serving his sentence.

Sri Lanka

Rishvin Ismath is the founding President of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Sri Lanka. He has been forced into hiding due to sustained threats since 2016. In 2019 his identity as an ex-Muslim was made public after he appeared before the Parliamentary Select Committee to highlight the dissemination of Islamist extremist messages in school textbooks. He was then forced to relocate for his own security. Despite this, he receives regular threats and remains in hiding.

Pakistan

In 2017, Pakistani University student Mashal Khan was murdered by fellow students merely for referring to himself as a humanist on Facebook. He was shot in the head and then beaten to death by a large group of students (some 31 were eventually found culpable with 26 more also tried). Police stood by and watched the attack, saying there were too many people attacking Mashal for them to intervene.

Gulalai Ismail is the founder of women and girls’ education charity Aware Girls and Global Ambassador for Humanists International. While she was in Pakistan she was repeatedly accused of blasphemy, even taking the unprecedented step of suing one of her accusers. She was subsequently arrested in 2018 after returning to Pakistan from speaking at a Humanists UK event at the Conservative Party Conference; although her arrest was likely more related to her Pashtun rights activism. She was freed on bail shortly afterwards but rearrested in February 2019. The Islamabad High Court found in Ismail’s favour and ordered the Interior Ministry to remove her name from the Exit Control List (ECL) and to return her passport. However, she was again ordered to be arrested that May, her name returned to the ECL, but retained her passport as she went into hiding before escaping Pakistan in September 2019. Ismail is currently an asylum seeker in the US. Pakistani authorities continue to target her family.

Bangladesh

In 2013 Islamists drew up and circulated a ‘hit list’ of 84 humanist and secular bloggers. Between 2013 and 2018 they wantonly murdered people on the list, often hacking them to death with machetes in the streets. While the Islamists worked their way through the list, the bloggers were forced to move abroad, or forced into hiding. The Islamists then became less discriminating in their targets, moving on to murdering others, for example, the bloggers’ publishers, LGBT rights activists, and people like one man who had simply written ‘I have no religion’ on Facebook. For their part, the authorities often jailed non-religious people for ‘contempt of religion’ or ‘offensive remarks about Islam’ – including one man who was jailed after having survived an Islamist attack, only to find himself in the same prison cell as one of his attackers. The result is that the humanist blogging community in Bangladesh entirely collapsed, or fled abroad.

What we’re doing

We are an active member of Humanists International (HI). Our Chief Executive is a Global Ambassador, having been the elected President from 2015 to 2025.

We are members of HI’s European Policy Forum, which works to strengthen human rights advocacy within Europe, including at the European Union institutions and Council of Europe.

We contribute information on the UK for the Humanists International Freedom of Thought Report, and help to promote this important worldwide research. The report has been published annually since 2012 and is the only comprehensive report on freedom of the non-religious globally. In 2020, Humanists International also published a Humanists at Risk: Action Report, focusing in more detail on eight countries, with funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO)

Along with Humanists International, we are among the founding partners of the End Blasphemy Laws campaign, which since 2015 has succeeded in getting Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Malta, France, New Zealand, Canada, Greece, and Scotland to repeal their blasphemy laws. Though Denmark reintroduced a de facto blasphemy law in 2023.

We are the only national humanist organisation that is accredited to speak at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, something we were granted in 2012. Humanists International is also accredited. We use our accreditation to consistently speak out against religious and racial discrimination, for the rights of women and children, against LGBT persecution, and against global poverty.

In 2025, we submitted evidence to the UN Special Rapporteur on FoRB for her report on FoRB and migration. Our response was prepared by Dr Lucy Potter, who worked with Humanists UK to systematically analyse firsthand testimonies of non-religious asylum seekers for her PhD thesis. Her results revealed how decision-makers’ reliance on religious benchmarks consistently undermined the credibility of their claims. In significant recognition of our work, the UN report urges states to make sure their asylum systems can properly understand and evaluate non-religious identities and the specific forms of persecution faced by those accused of blasphemy or apostasy, citing our consultation response.

We have a long history of working with FCDO, regularly meeting with ministers and officials as well as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy on FoRB. In 2025, we welcomed the FCDO’s new ‘FoRB for all’ strategy. We contributed to the development of the strategy, and support FCDO in its implementation.

We also brief parliamentarians on humanists at risk to facilitate advocacy and inform parliamentary debates. Parliamentarians raised the case of imprisoned President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria Mubarak Bala over 50 times before he was eventually freed early from his 24-year jail sentence for blasphemy. We raised the matter repeatedly with the UK Government who took substantial action, including engaging at ministerial level. We also organised protests outside the Nigerian High Commission and met the High Commissioner about Bala’s case. In 2025, the All-Party Parliamentary Humanist Group (APPHG) called for an end to blasphemy laws and for freedom of speech to be upheld at home and abroad at a meeting. MPs and peers heard from Bala in his first speech to the UK Parliament after his release.

We work with other civil society organisations to raise issues of common interest such as the persecution of religious and non-religious minorities across the globe alongside the UK Baháʼí Community, René Cassin, and British Muslims for Secular Democracy. We are active members of the UK FoRB Forum, sitting on its Steering Group and several of its Working Groups.

We keep a watching brief on atrocities and events of global significance. We signed a joint letter to the US Administration condemning its withdrawal from 66 international organisations, conventions and treaties. We have spoken up in solidarity with the people of Iran during protests in 2025-2026 and the Women Life Freedom protests following the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022. We’ve called for a ceasefire in Gaza, and for the UK to respond urgently to the World Health Organisation Director General’s warning that the levels of extreme hunger in Gaza constitute ‘man-made mass starvation’. We support Humanists International’s statement condemning Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. We’ve called for respect for the right to FoRB in China in light of the persecution of the Uyghur population. We urged the UK Government to support the humanitarian needs of people in Afghanistan in the wake of the resurgence of the Taliban.

We also support policies that strengthen accountability for international crimes. We briefed parliamentarians to support legislative changes that would close loopholes that allow individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes – who are not UK nationals or residents – to enter the UK without facing justice. In 2021, we supported an amendment to the post-Brexit Trade Bill that would have enabled the High Court to determine whether another country is committing genocide, thereby mitigating the risk of the UK forming trade relationships with genocidaires.

Appendix: Past work on this issue

  • In 2024, we helped draft a statement published by multinational alliance Article 18 (formerly International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance) highlighting the persecution of the non-religious and calls for their protection. We did however disagree with a recommendation calling on states to allow humanists to pass their beliefs on to their children. In line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects the child’s right to choose their own thoughts, conscience and religion or belief, we campaign for children to have access to objective information about religious and non-religious beliefs to help them fully exercise this right.
  • In 2022, the UK hosted the annual global Ministerial Conference on FoRB. We were heavily involved, from being on the steering group that oversaw it, to speaking both in the main conference, and organising various fringe events. At the opening plenary, our Chief Executive Andrew Copson – in his capacity as then President of Humanists International – spoke alongside then-Foreign Secretary and future Prime Minister Liz Truss, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi, and global Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh leaders. A video contribution was also made by then Prince – now King – Charles.
  • However, after the Conference was over, the UK Government unilaterally amended a multilateral statement on women’s and girls’ rights, issued as part of the event, to remove references to ‘sexual and reproductive health and rights’ and ‘bodily autonomy’. We spotted the change and coordinated a joint statement calling on the UK Government to reinstate the original statement. The joint statement was supported by 20 human rights, pro-choice, and international aid groups, as well as the Norwegian and Danish governments. Although we weren’t able to get the change reversed, some months later the government organised a new multinational statement at a different international conference on preventing sexual violence in conflict, committing signatory states to ‘promoting and defending comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights for all’. In other words, it effectively backed down.
  • In 2021, the APPHG heard moving testimonies from three victims of non-religious persecution in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria, as well as from the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief on the extent of the problem more generally and the UK Government on what it is doing to tackle it. Each speaker highlighted a worrying rise in state-sponsored persecution and mob violence against the non-religious.
  • In 2019 we submitted evidence to the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee about non-religious persecution across the globe. We highlighted shocking examples where non-religious people are murdered for their beliefs and called on the UK Government to take heed of our evidence and act to protect those at risk.
  • In 2018 the APPHG alongside the All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief and the All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group heard from President of Humanists International Asif Mohiuddin, a Bangladeshi humanist blogger who was repeatedly stabbed by Islamists and then imprisoned by the Government for blasphemy. The same year, Humanists International board member Gulalai Ismail, who had fended off repeated false accusations of blasphemy, spoke at a Conservative Humanists fringe event at party conference of the active persecution humanists face in her home country of Pakistan. She was arrested on her return (see Examples of cases, above).
  • In 2017 we hosted Humanists International’s International Conference on populism and extremism, and in 2014 we hosted a hugely successful World Humanist Congress in Oxford.
  • In 2014–2015, we put pressure on the UK Government and through the UN Human Rights Council to see an end to the attacks on Bangladeshi bloggers. We also hosted three of the bloggers – Asif Mohiuddin, Bonya Ahmed, and Arif Rahman – in speaking out at events in the UK, as well as arranging meetings with them and relevant government ministers and special advisors.

Past interventions at the UN Human Rights Council

As mentioned, we are the only national humanist organisation that is accredited to speak at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. We regularly intervene at its sessions, which happen three times a year. Past interventions include:

Page last reviewed: 10 February 2026