30th Session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities – 22 to 24 March 2016
Intercultural and inter-faith dialogue: The Congress proposes the creation of a toolkit to prevent radicalisation at local and regional level
Strasbourg, 22 March 2016 – In the current context of rising extremism, it is essential to promote intercultural and inter-faith dialogue in towns, cities and regions to prevent radicalisation. This was reasserted by members of the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities meeting in session in Strasbourg (France) today. They adopted a resolution on the creation of a toolkit for use by local and regional elected representatives. In presenting the resolution, Bert Bouwmeester (Netherlands, ILDG) and Josef Neumann (Germany, SOC) said that the toolkit would comprise both digital resources and examples of good practices and would be available in 36 languages on a dedicate website.
The toolkit will contain factsheets with links to key texts by the Council of Europe, experts and academics, a leaflet setting out The 12 Guidelines for inter-faith dialogue at local level, and a booklet presenting the Guidelines on preventing radicalisation and manifestations of hatred at grassroots level. It will be supplemented by a video to encourage elected representatives to use these resources when organising intercultural and inter-faith activities.
This initiative is part of the Congress’s strategy to combat radicalisation at grassroots level, adopted in February 2015, with the aim of fighting religious radicalisation and stimulating and encouraging intercultural and inter-faith activities at local level.
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Presentation of the Congress Strategy to combat radicalisation, by Leen Verbeek
For further information: Please consult the Congress website and the 30th session file.