European Humanist 2019 2020 Federation Annual Report REASON FREEDOM SOLIDARITY © European Humanist Federation, 2020 [email protected] www.humanistfederation.eu Twitter : @EU_Humanists Facebook : European.Humanist.Federation OUR VISION & MISSION We work towards the establishment of a more humane society where the many worldviews and life stances can co-exist and people are able to live their lives to the fullest. A world that is rooted in the values of humanism: freedom, equality, solidarity and respect for human dignity. Our mission is to achieve changes in European and international public policies when our values are at stake and to enable humanist organisations to do the same. We provide information, support and advocacy channels to our member organizations. We provide support to European Humanist professionals who promote our values through engagement in education, and non-confessional services, such as humanist ceremonies (weddings, funerals) or moral support. Our work is structured on four strands: European Union As an official partner of the EU under Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Council of Europe With the participatory status at the Conference of INGOs. OSCE Through participation in the Human Dimension Implementation Meetings (ODIHR). United Nations With the consultative status at the Economic and Social Council of the UN. CONTENTS FOREWORD BY THE PRESIDENT 5 OUR MEMBER ORGANISATIONS 7 OUR PARTNERS: MULTIPLYING OUR IMPACT 8 STRENGTHENING OUR NETWORK 10 DEFENDING FREEDOM OF THOUGHT ACROSS EUROPE 11 CLIMATE CHANGE ON THE AGENDA 14 STANDING BY NON-BELIEVER ASYLUM SEEKERS 16 SAFEGUARDING FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION 19 TOWARDS A MORE SECULAR STATE, IN ALL ITS FORMS 22 RESISTING OBSTACLES TO SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS 26 ADVANCING IN EQUAL RIGHTS FOR LGBTI PEOPLE 30 END-OF-LIFE SELF-DETERMINATION: MOVING FORWARD 32 RESOURCES & PUBLICATIONS AT A GLANCE 33 PROVIDING HUMANIST SERVICES 35 FOREWORD by Giulio Ercolessi Lethal epidemics have exterminated humans for millennia. It was only in our time, due to scientific progress, free scientific research, human development, universal healthcare systems, modern civilisation, that we thought we could finally be forever free from such scourges. According to most scientists, the present pandemic has been the result of a well-known phenomenon: the spillover infection, occurring when a pathogen is transmitted from a species to another. Most scientists also believe that this probably happened in a Chinese market, where a huge number of wild animals are kept and slaughtered on the spot, in cruel and appalling hygienic conditions, as we all had the opportunity to witness in recent years, long before the pandemic, in a number of Tv documentaries. China made a lot of economical and technological progress in recent years, but little progress was made in the field of food safety or in that of building a more open and free society. As it had happened many a time in our own societies in the past millennia, and until just a century ago, the lack of modern hygienic conditions was probably the main cause for the spillover, and the authoritarian character of the Chinese political system was the main cause for the deadly delay in the internal and international response. Yet, the current debate following the pandemic in our countries does not ascribe the pandemic to this failure, or to a historical delay of China in meeting modernity in the field of food safety and democracy. On the contrary, it is modernity itself that is being blamed for the pandemic. It appears useless to remind that the so called “Spanish” flu a century ago caused the death of possibly 50 million people out of a world population of about just two billion, and the infection of a quarter of the world population of the time. Or that even then it probably took just three months to cross the oceans. “Mother Nature is revolting against Modernity” is the current leitmotiv: as if infectious diseases were a typical character of modernity, rather than being an exceptional event precisely and only in modernity. I certainly don’t want to underestimate the importance of the damages we humans are causing with the irrational exploitation of natural resources and far from me the intention to make a plea against environmental awareness. (continued on next page) 5 Annual Report 2019 - 2020 The point is that a mistrust of all the aspects of modernity, including scientific knowledge on the one hand, open societies and liberal democracy on the other, are becoming “common sense” among many of our fellow citizens. Fake science is rampant, and powerful political charlatans are often among their most active propagators. And the recipe to defend ourselves is closing the frontiers to any infected “stranger”. It is quite obvious that confinement was unfortunately necessary, a necessary evil to circumscribe the infection, but the sinister aspect of this debate is to be found in the frequently jubilant remark that “Nothing will ever be like before”. Our open societies should become closed communities, where solidarity is to be granted only to the members of our own tribe. Asylum seekers and migrants are kindly requested to die, possibly in silence, as we now have more important issues to deal with. Don’t visit “foreign” countries this summer, and even the other Europeans should not mind to come, visit and mix with us for the time being. The enemy is cosmopolitanism. Stringent social control is welcome by many of our fellow citizens, relinquishing any right to privacy as an outdated need appears quite fashionable. Total control of the rulers over the ruled is welcome if that is the price to pay for safety. No trade-off between freedom and security: the latter should prevail always, Hobbes enjoys his apparent final revenge over Locke. This pandemic has just been the powerful accelerator of trends that the populist and authoritarian wave, its leaders and followers, were already fuelling. Their fight against the historical project of the Enlightenment needs to meet our response. Our mission is to defend and further develop freedom, human dignity, human rights, the rule of law, our democracies. That is what generations of humanist and progressive predecessors of ours were instrumental in creating, against the ideas and the structures of the closed communities of our pre-modern past; that is what deserves to be preserved and still provides a universalistic vocation to our civilization. Giulio Ercolessi resigned from his position as President in May 2020, and was succeeded by Michael Bauer, board member of Humanist Association (D) and EHF Vice President since 2015. Guilio Ercolessi played an important and eloquent role in representing European humanism and advocating for the rights of humanist at the EU and the Council of Europe. We thank him for his many years of commitment to EHF. 6 Annual Report 2019 - 2020 OUR MEMBER ORGANISATIONS Allianz vun Humanisten, Atheisten an Agnostiker Humanistisk Samfund Lëtzebuerg Humanists UK Asociația Umanistă Română Inmedia[s]reslaica Associação República e Laicidade La Ligue de l’Enseignement Associació per a l’Humanisme Malta Humanist Association Associazione Luca Coscioni per la libertà di ricerca National Secular Society scientificai North East Humanists Ateistisk Selskab Polish Humanist Association Atheist Union of Greece Polish Rationalist Association Bund Freireligiöser Gemeinden Deutschlands Private: Associazione del Libero Pensiero “Giordano CAVA – Centrum voor Vrijzinnig Humanistische Erfgoed Bruno” (CVHE) Private: Centro Studi Piero Calamandrei Center for Civil Courage Private: Galha – LGBT Humanists Central London Humanist Group Private: Humanistisch Vormingsonderwijs (HVO) Centre d’Action Laïque Private: Humanistisch Vrijzinnige Vereniging Conway Hall Ethical Society Prometheus Society of Slovakia (Spoločnosti Cyprus Humanist Association Prometheus) Dachverband Freier Weltanschauungsgemeinschaften RIKZ.Z (Raad voor Inspectie & Kwaliteitszorg niet- (DFW) confessionele Zedenleer) deMens.nu Romanian Secular-Humanist Association (ASUR) Egalité Laïcité Europe (EGALE) Russian Humanist Society ETHOS- Etika Tolerancia Humanizmus Občianstvo Sidmennt Sekularizmus South West London Humanists Europa Laica Stichting HSHB Freidenker-Vereinigung der Schweiz FVS/ASLP Union des Familles Laïques Fundacion Ferrer Guardia Union Rationaliste Giordano Bruno Stiftung Unione degli Atei e degli Agnostici Razionalisti Good Sense Vapaa-ajattelijain liitto ry Human-Etisk Forbund Humanismo Secular Portugal Humanist Association of Ireland Humanist Society Scotland Humanist Union of Finland Humanist Union of Greece Humanisterna Humanistisch Verbond Humanistische Vereinigung Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands Humanistischer Verband Österreich 7 Annual Report 2019 - 2020 OUR PARTNERS: Multiplying Our Impact The EHF actively collaborates with EU-wide organisations and networks, because certain issues deserve joint action. We are members of the High Ground Alliance for Choice and Dignity in Europe, which advocates for a European legal and political landscape that secures and enables the full realization of human, sexual and reproductive health and rights and religious liberty, specifically those of women and LGBTI people. We are also funding members of Civil Society Europe, a European platform that aims at facilitating and enabling horizontal and vertical dialogue between European CSOs and policy-makers and help strengthening CSOs in their activities and relations with the institutions. Abortion rights