THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL

Freedom and Prosperity Center

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND INTEGRAL HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: A NEW PLATFORM TO CHANGE THE CONVERSATION

Rome, June 5^th, 2024

Villa Magistrale, S.M. Order of Malta

BAN THE POLITICAL USE OF RELIGION

It is my great honour to have been invited to address this conference today. Against the tragic background of wars in Ukraine and Gaza, we renewed leadership for conflict resolution and a new conversation to promote the culture of peace. This is why I believe our global initiative tointroduce an international treaty to ban the political use of religion is both timely and essential. 

Our mission captures the spirit of this conference to develop a platform to change the conversation about religious freedom and integral human development.  

Everyone knows that one of the main messages of all religions is to be kind to each other, but unfortunately, religion has very often been used as a weapon. When we look at the world today and in the last few decades, we see that the abusive mixing of religion and politics has been the main root cause of the worst conflicts. 

There have been thousands of attempts to solve this problem. But very often they end up doing more harm than good by giving ammunition to the extremists. I believe we have now the ultimate solution to set global rules to disarm religious extremism, an initiative led by our London based NGO – BPUR International.

Unlike all previous attempts, this historic mission comes from the utmost respect for all religions with a unique understanding of all sensitivities surrounding this minefield and how to build a global and respectful consensus. 

The proposed treaty represents a new approach to introduce clear, simple and indisputable international rules to ban all political uses of religion that undermine human equality; all religious discrimination in rights and duties; all religious exclusion; and all restrictions to freedom of religion and belief. 

These simple terms would apply to all violations without any clashes with religious beliefs. One of the central points of this initiative is the fact that we cannot single out any specific religion or specific country. There is no solution for this problem on any national stage. We need fair global rules for a global problem.

This is not separating religion and politics! On the contrary, we believe such a separation is not only irrelevant, but also impossible, even in most western nations, let alone other parts of the world. We only need to stop the political abuse of religion and all religious discrimination. 

This initiative is building phenomenal support worldwide. Why? Because it is indisputable! No responsible government or person can refuse such fundamental fair rules! No-one can say: No! I want to use religion to discriminate against people! 

We believe that this non-confrontational approach is the only way to build global consensus and help the international community eliminate the root causes of religious extremism and deal with most of the current and future conflicts.

The evidence is here; the support for this initiative is accelerating rapidly among distinguished leaders, officials, lawmakers, philanthropists, influential people, royalty, UN officials, religious leaders from all over the world and international organisations. The roadmap of this historic mission is to secure governmental adoption to table the proposed treaty at the UN General Assembly and we are very close to securing that objective. 

We have advanced engagements with many governments. Large groups of parliamentarians have already asked their governments to adopt this initiative, especially in Morocco, Italy, Bangladesh, Austria, Pakistan and Dubai.

That is only the tip of the iceberg as we have different levels of support in more than 60 other countries. In May 2022 we organised an international conference in Morocco with 7 Moroccan NGOs and the National Human Rights Council. More than one hundred lawmakers, officials and religious leaders met to coordinate the international efforts to enact this significant UN treaty. 

It is very easy for any government to say yes to adopting this initiative because it is unthinkable to say no! It would be very rewarding for any government to lead the world to a better future.

The proposed treaty would certainly make a massive difference to the lives of billions and serve all international humanitarian objectives by eliminating the root causes of many intractable conflicts and a long list of violations of human rights. It would subsequently enhance stability and open the doors for sustainable development. 

Many of the conflicts in the world today can be solved if we all speak with one voice. Every corner of the world will benefit from this treaty. Not only the countries which are imprisoned in the cycle of religious violence. 

How did we miss such a simple solution for so long? If we had had this treaty 70 or 50 or even 20 years ago, we could have prevented the destruction of so many countries and saved millions of lives and livelihoods. This treaty would also reflect on every aspect of life by creating functioning and responsible societies worldwide. 

I commend this initiative to the Atlantic Council. Your leadership would make a crucial difference to this effort to enact a significant UN treaty that would certainly make the world more tolerant, more fair and more peaceful.

Thank you for your time and consideration,