Mr. Faisal Bin Muammar, Secretary General of the Center, said that the International Conference will provide a precious opportunity to exchange views and experiences among a large number of individuals, institutions, religious leaders, policy makers and international organizations from all over the world, to promote joint action and promote social cohesion and coexistence. Understanding and dialogue for building peace among followers of religions and cultures. He added that the conference will focus on a number of key themes, including:
- Launching a regional dialogue platform for institutions and religious leaders , and it will the first of its kind in the Arab region.
- Ways to promote social cohesion, shared citizenship and peaceful coexistence among followers of religions and cultures through dialogue.
- Cooperation between religious leaders and institutions and policy makers and methods to enhance such cooperation.
- The New media and its role in promoting peaceful coexistence and citizenship.
Bin Muammar further explained that this conference comes after the success of the conference entitled “United Against Violence in the Name of Religion” in 2014, which was an exceptional event in the dialogue between the followers of religions and cultures, bringing together a large number of religious leaders, institutions, prominent figures, policy-makers and the international and local organizations which are active in the field of dialogue, who launched “Vienna Declaration.” This declaration emphasized the need to work together to foster shared citizenship that promote diversity as a basis for peaceful coexistence of among the followers of different religions on the one hand, and the followers of the same religion on the other. The conference also resulted in the implementation of a number of programs in partnership with various religious institutions and international organizations working in the field of dialogue among the followers of religions and cultures. The most recent of which was the adoption by the United Nations this year (2017) of a global plan to activate the role of religious leaders in preventing incitement to violence leading to Genocide. The Center also launched a number of initiatives and programs in the areas of promoting peaceful coexistence and social cohesion, fostering cultural and religious diversity, positive use of social media as a space for dialogue, and activating the role of individuals, leaders and religious institutions in supporting the efforts of policy-makers to promote a culture of dialogue and cohesion.
