CBF Forum Calls for Political and Religious Tolerance

May 30, 2008

Author: Staff Writer

Source: SANA’A, NewsYemen

http://www.newsyemen.net/en/view_news.asp?sub_no=3_2008_05_26_7250

The President’s political advisor Dr. Abdul-Karim al-Iryani, head of the Cultural Bridges Forum (CBF) has stressed the importance of religious and political tolerance in Yemen.

Al-Iryani said in a two-day forum on “Religious and Political Tolerance in Yemen”, launched Sunday morning by the CBF in Sheba Hotel in Sana’a, that this forum reflects the urgent need of Yemen to [spread] the culture of tolerance, accepting the other and dumping all attempts to arouse political sectarianism and religious sedition in the country.

Dr. Iryani also reviewed the history of Islamic tolerance and said [that Yemen] was and is still a country of many faiths. He pointed to the saying of Spanish historian Maria Rosa Menocal in “Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain”.