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IARF
presence at the 2004 Parliament of the World's Religions,
Barcelona,
Spain, July 7th—13th.
The International Secretariat planned a limited but carefully
targeted presence at the Parliament which endeavoured to produce
materials of lasting value.
The pre-meeting at Montserrat monastery was attended by General
Secretary Andrew Clark, and present at the Parliament itself
were at least twelve IARF member organisations, including
five current International Council members - some of whom,
along with IARF staff present, played key roles in other symposia
and seminars.
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· Engagement
Session: 'Religious Freedom for All'
Kevin Boyle, presently Professor of
Law at Essex University, was director of its Human Rights
Centre, and Senior Adviser to Mary Robinson (UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights) during 2001-2002.
Prof. Boyle gave a lecture entitled
'Religious Freedom for All' that was a
critical tour d'horizon of Religious Freedom
around the world, touching on its recognition as a human
right and the prevalence of its denial. An international
panel of two young adults and two Council members then
illustrated general principles with their own or their
organisations' specific experiences. There was an Open
Space session afterwards that raised some
lively discussion.
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Professor Boyle
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· RFYN
(the Religious Freedom Young Adults Network)
Under Ramola Sundram's leadership, and with the special
presence of an RFYN Filipino leader, Morse Flores, there
were two major presentations: The first, an Interactive
Best Practice session titled 'Interfaith Education
in Action: a Young Adult Perspective', was part
of a co-operatively produced Interfaith Education Symposium,
and conveyed - using first-person accounts, a Powerpoint
presentation of a recent project, and some dramatization
- the kinds of methodology used in the typical RFYN programme;
the second, titled 'Young People and Religious Freedom',
was a training
session with a small team of RFYN international members
as presenters (here,
Teresita Guintaos of Philippines). This was very well
attended, with consecutive translation into Spanish, and
broke down into a smaller intensive Open Space discussion
group afterwards.
Members of RFYN also played a lead role in one
of the performances of the Parliament closing ceremonies.
· Exhibition
on Religious Freedom
IARF was one of only a handful of issue-based exhibitors
(among a total of approximately 45). Our exhibit was entitled
'The New Millennium - Some examples of the denial
of religious freedom, so far', and presented summaries
of our reviews of the global situation of religious freedom
since 2000 (see 'Global Issues' on this site), in the form
of labels on a wall-sized world map. This made a visual
impact, with country-specific information available in a
'single take', supplemented by concise profiles of our work.
The booth
also carried our recent literature, and attracted a range
of enquirers from the steady flow of visitors through the
exhibit hall; some had little acquaintance with the concept
of religious freedom as a human right, others were old hands.
Some snapshots from the Parliament:
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