"But where there is danger, the saving powers will grow as well." With this Hölderlin verse, gbs spokesman Michael Schmidt-Salomon commented on the remarkable increase in the foundation's activities and the number of supporting members in 2018. In the past twelve months the number of "friends and supporters of the Giordano Bruno Stiftung" has grown by more than 1,500 persons, which means that for the first time, in the "Year of Human Rights", the gbs was endorsed by more than 10,000 supporting members.

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To duly commemorate its 70th anniversary, the Secular Forum Hamburg, with support from the Giordano Bruno Stiftung and other cooperating partners, invites Jacqueline Neumann (Institut für Weltanschauungsrecht - Institute for World View Law) and Michael Schmidt-Salomon (gbs) as speakers to a ceremony at Patriotische Gesellschaft Hamburg on Monday, December 10, 2018 (start: 8 pm, admission 7 pm).

"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good," said Thomas Paine, leading pioneer of the idea for human rights. The press conference on the "Secular Week of Human Rights" on November 12, 2018, at the House of the Federal Press Conference explains the largely overlooked background of the UN Declaration of Human Rights as well as its current threats posed by Trump, Putin, Erdogan, & co. In addition, it examines the practical significance of human rights work by illuminating the fates of those who fled to Germany from political Islam.

Die universellen Menschenrechte sind durch den Vormarsch von Nationalisten und Fundamentalisten weltweit bedroht. Aus diesem Grund erinnert die "Säkulare Woche der Menschenrechte" (Berlin, 11.-18. November) an die weltbürgerliche Haltung, die der "Allgemeinen Erklärung der Menschenrechte" zugrunde liegt. Mit von der Partie sind u.a. Richard Dawkins, Hamed Abdel-Samad, Ingrid Matthäus-Maier, Michael Schmidt-Salomon, Mina Ahadi, Michael Shermer und Philipp Möller.