'The Istanbul Process': Hillary Clinton Hosts Summit On Religious Intolerance

By Josef Kuhn
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON (RNS) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrapped up a summit of international leaders this week to explore specific steps to combat intolerance, discrimination and violence on the basis of religion or belief.

The closed-door meeting on Wednesday (Dec. 14) was the first of an ongoing series called "The Istanbul Process." Representatives came from 30 countries and international organizations, including Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

"We are working together to protect two fundamental freedoms -- the right to practice one's religion freely, and the right to express one's opinion without fear," Clinton said in her closing remarks.

The goal of the Istanbul Process is to produce a list of best practices for preventing religious discrimination and violence. Ambassador Michael Kozak, a deputy assistant secretary of state, acknowledged that the list would be helpful primarily for countries that already have the political will to protect religious freedom but need practical guidance to do so.

Nevertheless, Kozak said, it could also put pressure on repressive regimes to loosen up.

"By itself, this isn't going to change their minds. But ... the more countries you get starting to do things in a good way, the more isolated the others become, and then movements develop in their own countries," Kozak said.

The Istanbul Process grew out of a resolution adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council in March and then by the U.N. General Assembly in November.

Resolutions in the previous 10 years had supported legal measures restricting the "defamation of religions." The more recent Resolution 16/18, however, broke with that tradition by calling for concrete, positive measures to combat religious intolerance rather than legal measures that restrict speech.

"It is important that we recognize what we accomplished when this resolution ended 10 years of divisive debate where people were not listening to each other anymore. Now we are. We're talking," said Clinton.

The new resolution has faced criticism from conservatives who think it amounts to a concession to Islamic countries, and will result in the curtailing of any speech that is critical of Islam.

After Clinton's speech, Andrea Lafferty, president of the Traditional Values Coalition, said her organization has been denied entrance to conferences and hotels for fear of "incitement to violence," a phrase used in Resolution 16/18.

"We remain concerned about the use of that language," Lafferty said.

Kozak tried to dispel her fears.

"That whole issue of incitement got debated a lot, and we were clear all along that what we meant by incitement was when ... the speech is part of an act," he said. "It's a very narrow concept."

Comments

[Destro Panne]

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[Naveen Seo]

07:24 AM on 12/20/2011

Thank you for sharing this information.
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[Bob Metcalfe]

03:01 AM on 12/16/2011

Now all they need is tolerance for the irreligious. Harder methinks.

[suebeedue]

05:48 AM on 12/17/2011

Why is that? Do you feel their is no tolerance for the irreligious? How is that manifested?

[Bob Metcalfe]

12:31 PM on 12/17/2011

By trying to get religious observance legislated, by violence and discrimination against atheists. by excluding atheists from meetings like this.

[TarinF]

11:17 PM on 12/15/2011

This video makes it look easy: just invite some people over for a chat! As someone trained in interfaith dialog, I can assure viewers that it isn't.

Interfaith dialog is not simple, and is rarely well accomplished without the participation of at least one leader from each faith (not necessarily clergy) who has had specific training in the activity. For example, well-meaning people can plan a get together, and wish to concentrate on the positive, as the video emphasizes; however, it's impossible to ignore or avoid things that may cause difficulty (such as an unintentional verbal gaffe), and positive ways to handle these situations must be established early. Trust is also hard to establish among strangers, so it's important to start out slowly.

There are resources for those wishing to create dialog groups. A number of theology schools, for instance, have centers for interfaith understanding. I encourage interested parties to contact one of these, or a trained person, to get the ball rolling. This is not do-it-yourself territory.

One excellent resource for women is Daughters of Abraham Women's Interfaith Book Group. This effort began with one group of women as a response to 9/11, and now has groups in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Montreal, Des Moines, Baltimore, and other cities. Their website is here: http://www.daughtersofabraham.com/index.html. Another very important group -- one of the first, and most solid -- is The Dialogue Project in New York City. See http://thedialogueproject.org/index.html.