By Liviu Olteanu, PhD, Secretary General of the International Association for the Defense of Religious Liberty
The Secretary-General of the AIDLR talked with ANNA RURKA, President of the Council of Europe’s Conference of INGOs , during the World NGO Day Seminar: ‘From the Past to the Future: A Living Civic for a Living Democracy’, on the subject of the AIDLR’s cooperation with the CoE
Brussels, 28th February 2020
“A Living Civic for a Living Democracy”: The Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe, organized at the Council of Europe’s office on 28 February 2020. During that seminar held in Brussels, the President of the Conference of the INGOs, Ms. Anna Rurka underlined: “A closing civic space impacts all forms of independent civil society and appears to be one of the symptoms of the “ill-democracy”. A rapidly changing political, economic, technologic and social landscape, impacts quite significantly upon the civil society sector. Faced with these changes, civil society organizations constantly look for new solutions to increase their capacities, seek out visibility and partnerships…”. Based on the approach referred to during that seminar, Dr. Liviu Olteanu, the Secretary-General of the AIDLR, with a background expertise on human rights and having extensively worked with the pillars of the Council of Europe, talked with the President of the Conference of INGOs, reiterating to President Rurka the AIDLR’s availability and support; he also expressing an interest to build together with the Conference of INGOs and the Council of Europe, a strong partnership between both organizations, recreating a model of the partnership that exists between the UN Office of Genocide Prevention and the AIDLR. At that same meeting, Dr. Olteanu offered President Rurka the book ‘Dignity, Rights and Justice’, published by the AIDLR, representing the report of the ‘Second Global Summit on Religion, Peace and Security’ hosted in May 2019 at the UN in Geneva.
More information about this meeting could be found here