Source: World Watch Monitor, September 21, 2017<\/p>\n
The King of Bahrain has sought to promote his country as a global champion of religious tolerance, with a declaration that advocates freedom of religion for all and rejects extremism.<\/p>\n
In the Bahrain Declaration<\/a>, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa \u201cunequivocally reject[s] compelled observance.\u201d<\/p>\n The one-page pledge, which was co-sponsored by the Jewish US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, also calls for the condemnation of terrorism, of stirring up extremism, of suicide bombing, and of sexual slavery.<\/p>\n Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Center\u2019s associate dean and social action head, told World Watch Monitor that Muslim, Christian, and Jewish scholars had looked over the king\u2019s text before it was published. He added that it was the first such declaration by the head of an Arab state. \u201cWe hope to take this text and get sign-offs from leaders around the world of all faiths,\u201d he said, adding that the king had also pledged to build a center akin to the Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb Full story<\/a> points out that this declaration stops short of specifically stating that Muslims can leave Islam for another religion.<\/p>\n \u00bb Also read Saudi Arabia Agrees to Let Women Drive<\/a> (New York Times).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: World Watch Monitor, September 21, 2017 The King of Bahrain has sought to promote his country as a global champion of religious tolerance, with a declaration that advocates freedom of religion for all and rejects extremism. In the Bahrain Declaration, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa \u201cunequivocally reject[s] compelled observance.\u201d The one-page pledge, which … Continue reading BAHRAIN: Arab State Declares Religious Tolerance<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7450,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7449\/revisions\/7450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}