Batool Khalid
King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) holds a conference including more than 200 persons, leaders, religious institutions, policymakers, government actors, representatives of international organizations, civil society, media, educators and dialogue practitioners. The conference will be held with the cooperation of experts of institutions of religious and human values, and social media influencers to discuss the roles of each of religions, media, and policies to resist hate speech and to promote peaceful coexistence. It will take place in Vienna from 30 October to 31 October 2019.
The International conference main aim is to exchange opinions and experiments between its attendants to activate cooperative mutual effort to fight hate speech. For it became a real threat to the social cohesion of many societies worldwide. Many international organizations and governments summon each other to develop initiatives, action plans, and legislations, for the good of resisting hate speech and advocating peaceful coexistence; in parallel with the action plan of leaders and religious authorities adopted by the UN office on genocide prevention in 2017 with the cooperation of many active members around the world, including KAICIID.
The center’s efforts complement the efforts and the international action plan including one of the UN to resist hate speech that issued in 2019. As a result, the center ensures that the themes of the conference support strategies and developed action plans by the international organizations and the UN; by focusing on identifying motives of the hate speech, activating the role of policymakers and religious leaders to apply them; in addition to the functionalization of media and education as essential means to expand the culture of peace, coexistence and social cohesion. Also, to discuss the most suitable ways in the cooperation to activate the action plans in this domain. In other words, the themes of the conference aim to raise awareness of the public to the importance of addressing hate against any religion or ethnicity; to find effective solutions including dealing with social media recognizing the right way to use it; to share experience with the local, regional, and international organizations and activist governmental institutions concerned with combating hate speech. And finally, to work with policymakers and religious leaders and institutions to take action against those who incite hate speech.
The Secretary-general of the center, Faisal bin Abdulrahman bin Muammar, emphasized the importance of this conference to introduce the civilizational and historical legacies of the concept of the international peaceful coexistence along with a statement of the dangerous effects of the hate and extremism on societies. He highlights the roles of law and regulations to protect people from hate speech and the awareness of education as the key pillars of society. For they construct a strong society and create a collective identity free from hate and extremism, besides their role in establishing the concept of peaceful coexistence and shared citizenship.
Ibn Muammer stressed the importance of community awareness by using a discourse characterized by the respect of the others, acceptance of diversity in the fields of religion, media and politics. And that they should highlight the studies and practical programs to implant the diversity culture and coexistence, and live in the light of shared citizenship to defeat racism and hate. He added they adopt different methods and effective mechanisms to combat hate discourse at the national and global levels, supported by international regulations, laws, and initiatives.
Ibn Muammer pointed to the center support to hundreds of initiatives and social media campaigns to achieve their goals, to encourage the cooperation between religions followers, create peace, promote diversity and shared citizenship, and combat hatred and extremism. The International conference will show experiences and learned lessons where the attendants will provide their experience and experiments at the grass-roots level to identify their tireless efforts in peacebuilding.
