HE the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Doha International Centre on Interfaith Dialogue (DICID) Dr Ibrahim bin Saleh al-Nuaimi stressed the centre's work has been well-focused since its first conference in 2003, for the sake of humanity, which is currently in dire need of the values of love and dialogue, religious and human tolerance, and confronting all manifestations of extremism and hatred, and what results from these.
In a speech during the conference's opening session, Dr al-Nuaimi said that, out of its awareness of the danger of hate speech, the centre has called — multiple times through the conferences it held, for the necessity of adopting a plan to confront it through the view of religion, legitimacy and morality, stressing that the aspired stability of humanity depends on the extent of efforts exerted at the level of individuals and institutions, to consolidate a culture of peace and tolerance.
Dr al-Nuaimi explained that this session of the conference comes within the framework of the process started by the centre in many previous conferences — representing an opportunity to gather a group of scholars of religion, as well as academics and heads of dialogue centres from around the globe, particularly those interested in the issue of interfaith dialogue.
There are seldom platforms in which enlightened minds meet and different views are expressed, where participants unite to reach one goal, despite the differences in visions and perceptions, he noted.
Dr al-Nuaimi said the aim of such meetings has always been to seek common ground, bringing together the participants on the basis of fixed religious values in the monotheistic religions, in an attempt to find solutions to meet the challenges that prevent peaceful co-existence, in a world that has been filled with various turmoil, starting from ideological delusion and extremism, followed by terrorism, and ending with armed conflicts and wars that world is suffering from.
He added that the world is experiencing a real crisis that is embodied in the emergence of violence in all its forms, pointing out that at times, this issue has reached the point of crimes that robbed the lives of many innocent souls in conflicts that have no justification.
Dr al-Nuaimi said some people may think that poverty, ignorance and persecution are the main factors that explain the spread of terrorism, with little awareness that extremism, fanaticism and the spread of hate speech are in fact the causes that fire up these conflicts.
He concluded his speech by saying that such actions were the conference's motivation to raise the issue of hate speech, which increases by the day with magnified negative effects, adding that this scourge has been used in different names, such as racism, religious sectarianism, partisanship and populism, which certainly poses a great danger on humanity, a flagrant violations of religious values, and a clear violation of human rights principles.