02.12.2008.

PROMOTION OF THE PUBLICATION OF TEXTS AND SPEECHES FROM THE INTERNATIONAL REUNION “THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE CHURCHES AND RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN THE SUSTAINABLE PEACE-BUILDING IN THE SOUTH-EAST EUROPE”

The promotion was held on Tuesday the 2nd December 2008, beginning at 18h in Aeroklub (4, Street of Uzun Mirko, Belgrade).

The speakers were Professor Darko Tanasković, H.E. Adem ef. Zilkić, Reis-l-ulema of the Islamic Community of Serbia, H.E. Stanislav Hočevar, the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Belgrade and Mr. Zoran Pusić, the president of the CIVIS association.

At the very beginning, Mr. Pusić explained to the participants the role of the association CIVIS, its membership in the Council of Europe and the hitherto activities of the organization. Then he explained the idea of the international meeting in Strasbourg. He proposed to speak in the future about the improvement of the relations between the organizations of civil society on one side and the representatives of churches and religious communities on the other side. Professor Pusić talked about his impressions from the promotion in Zagreb and expressed his regrets that neither in Zagreb nor in Belgrade there were no representatives of the majority church.

Professor Tanasković, a regular professor of the Philological faculty of the University of Belgrade first praised the idea and underlined that it did not happen so often that the publication of participants’ speeches was published shortly after the conference because this is a a precious document, available in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian languages, as well as in English. He pointed out that the book had to be distributed to as many addresses as possible so that people as well as the expert public could learn about the idea and the message of the Appeal from Strasbourg. Professor Tanasković confessed he was surprised that one NGO came to idea to organize such meeting in Strasbourg and that he was quite skeptic, but that he was pleasantly surprised by its final result and success. “There should be no monopoly concerning the dealing with this issue, on the contrary, all interested people must be encouraged by the representatives of the churches and religious communities to continue to deal with this question”, professor Tanasković emphasized.

The Archbishop Hočevar stated that he came to the promotion because he considered that the initiative to encourage the religious communities and contribute to the peace and better understanding should be saluted, that this conference should not be the last one and that this initiative should continue.

The last speaker was Reis of Islamic Community of Serbia, Mr. Adem Zilkić who emphasized that this idea should be presented to the broader public, that we should return to the same place (Strasbourg) and that more work had to be done concerning the achievement of the peace in South-East Europe. Reis Zilkić thanked the organizers because he was very satisfied with the organization of the meeting in Strasbourg and he praised the publication. 
You can obtain this publication in English or B/C/S if you contact us via e-mail contact@civis-see.org or telephone +381 11 26 21 723.

You can find the publication in the electronic format here

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