The third edition of the Bulletin also features expert commentary from the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Belief, His Excellency Heiner Bielefeldt, who discussed at length the juxtaposition often perceived between freedom of belief and freedom of expression.
The Former National Director of the Canadian Human Rights League, Dr. Karen Mock, provides the second expert opinion by highligthing the importance of sustaining an interfaith dialogue as a mean of promoting reconciliation and peacebuilding at times of conflict and extremism.
In an exclusive video message for Liberal International, Ensaf Haidar, activist and wife of the iconic jailed Saudi liberal blogger Raif Badawi, expresses the importance of joining her husband’s struggle for the promotion of individual liberties and freedom of belief in Saudi Arabia and beyond.
Appealing to the international community, Ensaf Haidar explains Raif Badawi’s vision of liberalism and promoting liberal values in Saudi Arabia. Ms. Haidari calls on liberals everywhere to challenge Islamic states that apply harsh versions of sharia as a source of legislation.
Members of Liberal International’s Human Rights Committee (LI HRC) and Liberal Parliamentarians – spanning 19 countries and 5 regions of the world – convened for a third consecutive year at the UN Human Rights Council, Geneva, to debate the advancement of human rights in an age of disruption.
Discussions centred on the causes and consequences of internal displacement of people, with references to the role of secularism in society and debates on the prevention and elimination of violence against women in international human rights law.
The keynote speech was delivered by the UN Special Rapporteur for Internally Displaced People Dr. Chaloka Beyani.
The delegation was welcomed to Geneva with an evening reception at the Bulgarian Mission to the United Nations. The meetings concluded with a bilateral meeting between the delegates and the forced labour branch of the International Labour Organisation
The next meeting of LI Human Rights Committee will take place on 10 December 2015 at the European Parliament in Brussels under the patronage of LI HRC Member Ilhan Kyuchyuk MEP (MRF – Bulgaria). Under the theme “The Responsibility to Protect Ten Years On: What Next?” LI HRC members and liberal parliamentarians will debate the future of the R2P principle in the context of the Syrian and Ukrainian conflicts alongside the need to strengthen the global response to on-going humanitarian crises and post-conflict settings around the world.
For more information please contact the Head of LI’s Human Rights Programme, Tamara Dancheva: tamara@liberal-international.org
