October 1999
Dear IRLA Board Members:
I hope all of you are well and that you have been receiving the minutes from our meetings. We have several working groups. Every year we have the Legal Meeting, otherwise known as the Assembly of Members; three or four times per year we have Board of Directors meetings; and we also have IRLA ADCOM meetings. Working on special issues, we have working groups such as the India World Conference working group and the Sri Lanka working group. These last few weeks were very active for IRLA and we have been having several meetings one after the other.
Now I would like to share with you a few things about these last few months.
- Meeting of Experts
in Madrid: Religious Freedom and Proselytism We had a good first meeting. The group
chaired by Bishop Gunnar Stålsett did a great job! Professor Alberto de
la Hera proposed that we meet again in January 2000, to finalize the text
of the Declaration. Bert Beach distributed a new version of the draft
for comments and remarks. The next meeting will be held in Palacio-Castillo
de Magalia near Madrid in January 27-30, 2000.
- Seminar in Miami and
Festival of Religious Freedom in Barbados June 14 and 15, Mario Nino organized
a seminar on religious freedom in Miami for Central America. Bert Beach,
Richard Fenn, Jonathan Gallagher, and I were invited to give lectures.
It was a stimulating event and Mario arranged everything very well.
June 17, we went to Barbados for a seminar and a festival on religious freedom. Clive Dottin organized this meeting. About 1000 people attended the festival and among the speakers were government representatives and clergy from the Caribbean Islands.
- Visits
May 28-31, Warsaw - Visit with the director of Poland’s Religious Affairs; the Bishop of Warsaw; the president of the Helsinki Commission; a press conference; lectures on religious freedom; and a visit to Auschwitz. Dr. Lyko, the IRLA-Poland Secretary-General organized everything perfectly. He is a master in public affairs!
June 3-6, Florence Italy - Seminar organized by Dora Pellegrini. Meeting with another Master - Ignazio Barbuscia.
In August, I was in Geneva, where I missed meeting up with Professor Amor!
- Lima: Capital of
Religious Freedom September 2-6, our IRLA correspondent
Melchor Ferreyra, organized a training seminar on religious freedom in
Lima, Peru. Sixty religious leaders, professors, and congressmen attended.
As an invitee and speaker, I had the privilege of visiting the national
congress to spend some time with the vice-president Professor Marcenaro.
A few days later he was in Washington with his wife and we invited them
to visit our office. The good news about Peru is that they are organizing
an IRLA-Peru Chapter and an Institute of Religious Freedom. They also
proposed to have an international congress in Lima in 2001.
- Voted During our
Board Meetings September 30, we voted to add Silvio
Ferrari, Natan Lerner, Rosa Maria Martinez de Codes, and Gerhard Robbers
to our Board of Experts. We accepted two new national chapters: the Cameroon
and the Caribbean regions. We approved the meeting in Madrid for January
27-30, 2000, which will be in Palacio-Castillo de Magalia. The symposium
on Religious Freedom After the Holocaust, will be April 28 and
29. The Tri-Continent Conference will be March 23-25, 2001 in Hamilton,
Bermuda; and the South American Regional Congress will be November 6-10,
2001 in Lima, Peru. You will also notice in the minutes that
we thanked Bishop Stålsett for his good work as president, and voted Bert
Beach in as the IRLA president for 2000. All of the members have appreciated
the good support of Bishop Stålsett.
- In a Few Words...
- World Conference in India - New Delhi November 16-18, 2000. We have received the authorization and the green light from the new government of India. This will be a significant event. Dr. Justus Devadas, our IRLA Secretary General there, is doing a great work.
- Richard Fenn, my Deputy Secretary-General,
met Ambassador Seiple in Washington and New York, attended meetings in
both cities, and is working on the next issue of Fides et Libertas. Richard recently traveled to India for the world conference organization
meeting, and to Sri Lanka to investigate the case of Pastor Alexander,
a Seventh-day Adventist pastor who is being imprisoned there.
- Bert Beach has been invited to give lectures at Newbold College in England, and in many other places.
- Professor Alberto de la Hera and Rosa
Maria Martinez de Codes recently published a book entitled, Encuentro
de las tres Confesiones Religiosas Cristianismo, Judaísmo, Islam with
lectures of the meeting held in Toledo, November 9 and 10, 1998. In this
book you will read the papers of Professor A. Amor, Dr. D. Diene, M. Verfaillie,
and my paper, also. Congratulations to Spain’s Director of Religious
Affairs for this book!
- We welcomed to our headquarters Professor
and Madam Mercenaro, vice-president of the Peruvian Congress; President
of the Republic of The Gambia, A. J. J. Jammeh; the President of the Washington
World Group Limited, Edward J. von Kloberg, III; Mr. Benoit, advisor of
the French National Assembly’s President; the Minister of Foreign
Affairs of Albania, invited by Ray Dabrowski; and the Under-Secretary-General
of the United Nations, Ambassador Joseph Verner Reed, invited by Neal
Wilson.
Thank you for all your remarks and support. Now we are looking to India and praying that the World Conference on Religious Freedom will be a positive contribution to religious peace and mutual respect. We are praying also for a fair trial for Pastor Alexander in Sri Lanka.
Sincerely,
John Graz
Secretary-General