This is a monthly update of news from International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). You can find the full versions of these news stories on their web site. Visit www.iheu.org/newsletter to subscribe. One Law for All – anti-racist rally – London, 7 March 2009The One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law in Britain will hold an anti-racist rally in London on 7 March 2009. The rally, opposing Sharia and religious-based tribunals and laws in Britain and elsewhere and defending citizenship and universal rights, will be held in Trafalgar Square from 3.

This Saturday, the day before International Women’s Day, the One Law for All Campaign against Sharia Law is organising a demonstration and public meeting in Central London. Maryam Namazie emailed: We are looking forward to seeing many of you at the anti-racist London rally against Sharia and religious-based laws in Britain and elsewhere and in defence of citizenship and universal rights in Trafalgar Square from 3:30-4:30pm. You can find posters that have been prepared for the rally by Dan Simon and Reza Moradi on our website.

Cath Elliott has written a piece for the Guardian’s Comment is Free website about a Theos survey on faith and Darwin, which indicates that East Anglia is “full of atheists”. So far from being the Sodom and Gomorrah that religious folk would no doubt have the godless east pegged as, according to the latest British Crime Survey (pdf), “The East of England region had the lowest rates of overall recorded crime and violence against the person and amongst the lowest rates of burglary and offences against vehicles.

Please note that we’re moving from Castle Hill Community Centre to Pinewood Community Hall, on the other side of Ipswich, and from the second Wednesday of the month to the second Tuesday. The usual stuff – reports about our finances, etc., and the election of officers and committee members, then a discussion about our plans for the coming year – we’d love your ideas and suggestions, so please come and share them.

Our March newsletter is online now for you to download. Feel free to give copies to all your family and friends, especially all the “godless” people we hear are in East Anglia. File Attachment: SH&S News March 2009 A4.pdf (634 KB) Not sure about pdf files? No problem!

In response to the article in the latest Newsletter, ‘Replicating the social functions of religious organisations’. Firstly, a quick nod to Margaret. Margaret, I see you often end forum posts and have signed-off the most recent Newsletter with an appeal for more activity. I haven’t (as yet) attended any of the Suffolk Humanist meetings and (until now) haven’t really posted on the forums with any conviction. This doesn’t mean I’m shy or less than a committed Humanist.

Seed magazine’s website has a video of 4.6 billion years of the earth’s history condensed into a minute. The evolution of humankind is a barely discernible blip.

Yesterday, our Celebrant David Mitchell conducted a Humanist funeral for Kate Wasyluk, one of the victims of Scott Nicholls, whose car struck Kate and her friends Emma (who was also killed) and Rebecca Harold, who were walking home from an evening out on 21 February. Nicholls has been charged with dangerous driving, driving while disqualified, and driving without a licence. Nearly 300 mourners attended the funeral at Ipswich Crematorium, where David described the incident as “utterly pointless, utterly random, utterly wasteful”.

Good news! Thanks to the efforts of committee member John Palmer, who scouted the area, we’ve found a new venue for our meetings. From next month (our AGM) we’ll be at the Pinewood Community Hall (owned by the parish council) on Hawthorn Drive, Ipswich, not far from the A12/14 Copdock interchange and Tesco. The car park is in Laburnum Close at the rear, next to Pinewood Surgery. See the events calendar for a map.

Any of our members and supporters who read the Daily Mail may have been alarmed by the article they published on Friday 20 March headed “How cash meant for promoting faith is going to an organisation that campaigns AGAINST Christianity”. It referred to a grant given to the BHA by The Equality and Human Rights Commission. James Chapman, the Daily Mail journalist, could not have got his facts more wrong. The BHA is seeking a correction from the Mail, and has published its own corrections on its website.

Group member and British Humanist Association trustee Michael Imison will offer his ideas about the BHA’s role in society, followed by another point of view from Margaret Nelson, then there’ll be a discussion. What do you think about the suggestion that there should be a “Humanist Movement”? Should Humanists and Secularists try to replicate religious services? Should you be able to have legally-recognised Humanist weddings in England and Wales? What might we do to increase our membership?

The new RE syllabus for Suffolk schools was introduced in September 2007. It includes Humanism and secular world views. The idea is that children should learn about religion and its alternatives, not to be religious, though the many church schools in the county do things differently. We’ll be visited by a teacher from a local county primary school, who’ll tell us about her approach. I visited this school a couple of years ago to do an assembly and talk to the older children afterwards.

Our member Tom Boles will boggle our minds with a talk about astronomy, referring to photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope. Come prepared to be awed. We’ll be in the lounge at the Pinewood Community Hall – see map. You’ll find directions with the notice of the May meeting in the calendar.

A popular format that allows you to spend ten minutes talking about something that interests, annoys, or pleases you. It might be something youve read about in a newspaper, or an injustice you care about its up to you. We’ll be in the lounge at Pinewood Community Hall, Ipswich.

Lloyd Stewart is a long serving Detective Constable with Suffolk Constabulary and is the Chairman of the Suffolk BPA (Black Police Association). Lloyd knows about the issues that face our community and our police in terms of race and diversity issues. He hopes to talk to the group about his experiences and about the challenges that face Suffolk Constabulary in dealing with an increasingly diverse community and the pressure of meeting government targets.

If you’ve heard a lot about Humanist ceremonies and would like to know more, come and hear about our religion-free baby-namings, weddings (for heterosexual and homosexual couples), and funerals. Plenty of time for questions.

Our committee “meets” over the phone. The group is widely scattered over a rural area, so having committee meetings face to face, when committee members are all busy people with family commitments, is often inconvenient. The prospect of having to drive long distances, especially in the winter, can put prospective committee members off volunteering. It’s not very environmentally-friendly to drive when you don’t have to, and petrol isn’t cheap. For the past few years we’ve held most committee meetings by telephone conference call, arranged through Community Network, a charity based in London that provides tele-conferences for charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises.

The BBC’s online magazine asks “What do you get if you divide science by God?”, which is possibly one of the daftest questions imaginable. In an article about “the meaning of physics”, Mark Vernon reports: The Templeton Prize, awarded for contributions to “affirming life’s spiritual dimension”, has been won by French physicist Bernard d’Espagnat, who has worked on quantum physics with some of the most famous names in modern science.

A group of Saudi clerics want their government to ban women on TV, writing, We have noticed how well-rooted perversity is in the Ministry of Information and Culture, in television, radio, press, culture clubs and the book fair. Perversity?

The BHA received grant funding from the Equality and Human Rights Commission for a project which aims to increase understanding of the ‘religion or belief’ equality ‘strand’. As part of this, the third in a series of conferences was held in Birmingham on 22nd January this year. We’ve previously posted a report from the Daily Mail, which misrepresented the purpose of this work.  With her permission, here is a report on the conference from Alison Rawlinson from Coventry & Warwickshire Humanists, which was published in their newsletter.

Thanks to Ariane Sherine, for posting the URL on Twitter. If you’re on Twitter, let us know – we might follow you.

If you’re one of those people who likes to save up stuff for the weekend, like washing the car, deafening the neighbourhood with a cacophony of power tool noises (note to my neighbours: SHUSH!), or tackling that annoying stain on your carpet, here’s an excuse to procrastinate; some weblinks to amuse, annoy or inform you. Ariane Sherine of Atheist Bus and Comment is Free fame has appealed for subjects to write about.

The latest news update from the BHA – click on “read more” for the whole bulletin. BHA meets Department of Communities and Local Government Representatives from the BHA met with officials from the Department of Communities and Local Government on Friday to discuss Humanist involvement in their community cohesion work. This meeting was part of a follow up from the successful meeting the BHA had with Minister Sadiq Khan in February where Mr Khan agreed that humanist representatives should be involved in relevant discussions on public service delivery and cohesion initiatives.

The latest issue of Gay & Lesbian Humanist magazine is now online at www.gayandlesbianhumanist.org. With a nod to Christopher Isherwood, we say “Hello to Berlin” – the Berlin Film Festival, to be exact. Some of the mixed bag of fascinating movies that were seen there will no doubt be worth looking out for when they are shown at British film festivals, and we take a look at 21 offerings through the eyes of our man in Germany, Colin de la Motte-Sherman.