SPI Coalition member Rationalist International has announced the Rationalist International Conference to take place April 23-24, 2016 in Tallinn, capital of Estonia. This will be the first major international secular event in the Baltic countries.
The SPI Coalition member Atheist Alliance International is based in California but works for “a secular world where public policy, scientific inquiry and education are not influenced by religious beliefs, but based upon sound reasoning, rationality and evidence.” Many of its own group members are also coalition members of the SPI.
The AAI is running a campaign to end the persecution of “Child Witches” in Uganda. Locals pretending to be “faith healers” gain prestige and money by starting witch hunts that end with dead and mutilated children. You can contribute to help end this tragedy.
AAI Member and SPI Coalition member, the Atheist Foundation of Australia “recognises scientific method as the only rational means toward understanding reality.” They run the AtheistAus Podcast and recently criticized Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull for equating the Paris attackers with atheists.
Indonesian Atheists is also an AAI Member and SPI Coalition member, is active on their Facebook group, and the Atheist Association of Finland is joined by several other Finnish groups, including Vapaa-ajattelijat (the Union of Freethinkers of Finland), a coalition member that recently spoke to pluralism in Finland, abandoning its past of cultural uniformity.
Atheist Ireland is one of the most active members of both AAI and SPI, and we have brought you many of their stories in 2015. Recently they welcomed changes to the Irish Employment Equality Act that removes discrimation against LGBTA people, while protesting that “schools remain legally entitled to discriminate against employees on the grounds of religious belief or lack thereof”.
And finally in Turkey, the Association of Atheism (Ateizm Dernegi), also a member of SPI and AAI, recently celebrated World Human Rights Day, helped bring soup to the homeless, and will volunteer time at a teacher’s nursing home next week.