ORAL STATEMENT
Humanists International
UN Human Rights Council, 63rd Session (7th September to 9th October 2026)
General Debate under Item 9: Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Forms of Intolerance, Follow-Up to and Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action
Speaker: Leon Langdon
Mr. President,
We welcome the report of the Group of Independent Eminent Experts on the Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, which notes the rise of “far-right extremism, characterized by exclusionary conceptions of national, racial, religious or cultural identity” and the consequent “normalization of hate speech, misinformation and racially and religiously motivated violence”.[1]
Following this, we bring to the Council’s attention the situation of the non-religious in many countries, who are persecuted for exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief by both state and non-state actors. They are labelled as dissidents, extremists, terrorists, or deviants, and face great personal and social risk. States have also engaged in transnational repression against non-religious activists, with some receiving death threats while in exile or their families being harassed. “Blasphemy” laws, still on the books in over 80 states, are also used to prosecute religious and belief minorities.
Their mere existence is considered a threat to many States.
In this context, Humanists International’s World Humanist Congress recently adopted the Ottawa Declaration on Resistance, outlining many of the challenges described above, and arguing how strengthening human rights institutions to support HRDs can be itself an act of resistance against far-right extremism and authoritarianism, by ensuring that they have a voice when other spaces become too hostile and volatile.
As human rights defenders turn to institutions for a platform and for protection, those institutions must be accountable and accessible, and must serve human rights. We therefore call on States to repeal “blasphemy” laws, to recognize the non-religious among those HRDs targeted by the exclusion the Experts describe, and to ensure that reform of the UN human rights system widens, rather than narrows, the space for defenders to be heard meaningfully.
Thank you.
[1] https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/63/75
'FoRB and Far-Right Extremism', Humanists International