Salève Adventist Campus in France Hosts United Nations Experts at the Faith for Rights Program
18 October 2022 |According to EUDNews, Salève Adventist Campus in France hosted visiting experts from the United Nations for the Faith for Rights Program on October 2 and 3, 2022. The meeting “brought together more than thirty participants from Europe, North America, and the Middle East— representing non-governmental organizations, universities and international institutions.”
The Faith for Rights program, coordinated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), is a program that aims to “promote and defend religious freedom for all, and to strengthen the role and responsibility of faith actors in human rights,” according to its founder, Ibrahim Salama.
Those in attendance included Ganoune Diop, Director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, along with his associate, Nelu Burcea. The International Center for Religious Freedom and Public Affairs (CILRAP) was also represented by its head, John Graz.
This is not the first time that Salève Adventist Campus has had the privilege of hosting the OHCHR, with collaborations hosted on the campus in December 2018 and December 2019. These meetings have resulted in documents such as the “The Collonges Declaration,” a statement supporting the practical implementation of 18 previous commitments that link freedom of religion to all human rights, stemming from the Beirut Declaration of 2017.
These three collaborative meetings have been named Collonges I, Collonges II, and Collonges III. With the continued support of JP Lehmann, director of Salève Adventist Campus, the collaboration will continue toward the end of the year, with the celebration of a Human Rights Weekend on December 10 and 11, 2022.
Image credit: Andreas Mazza