Council of Europe encouraging religious dialogue

The representatives of five religions have been taking part in debate at the Council of Europe, surrounding a freshly adopted report in the human rights defence organisation, on the religious dimension of intercultural dialogue. The report calls for greater efforts introducing this in schools.

Anne Brasseur, who drafted the text for the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly, said: “Education is so important, first through general, normal schooling. I find that each teacher, even in other subjects, must know about different religions, in order to understand the pupils in all their diversity.”

Covering the debate euronews correspondent Audrey Tilve said: “The words tolerance and openness rang out in the assembly chamber, but France has just banned the full face veil and secularity is finding its way into electoral campaigns in Europe; the Islamic representative who attended expressed his concern.”

Professor Mehmet Görmez, the head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, said the report coincided with declarations by a number of European politicians who were competing with each other in declaring that multi-culturalism has failed.

The European Court of Human Rights, enforcer of the Convention on Human Rights, says that France is not in violation in banning overtly religious symbols, such as headwear, for various reasons in various public places, saying that does not impede people’s freedom of worship.

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