MEETING OF THE BRAZILIAN ROUNDTABLE WITH THE INTERNATIONAL VICE-PRESIDENT

The Roundtable for Religious Freedom met on August 17th. With Dr. Paul Murray, the vice-president of International Roundtable to align the preparations for the Ministerial Conference of the International Roundtables scheduled to take place in Brazil in 2023. 

On that occasion, Dr. Paul presented a brief history of the ministerial conferences that were held in the United States, Poland and, more recently, in the United Kingdom, highlighting the importance of having Brazilian civil society engaged and supporting the event that will take place in Brazil, most likely in Brasília.

The representatives of the entities that make up the Roundtable in Brazil present at the meeting reinforced the importance of holding the event annually, in particular next year, and made themselves available to work, collaborating with the Brazilian Government in the preparation and organization of the Ministerial Conference.

It was agreed that the Brazilian Roundtable will receive, in the coming weeks, the program and other documents from the London Ministerial (held last July) so that they can serve as subsidies to guide the preparations for the Ministerial in our country. The representatives present at yesterday’s meeting made themselves available to participate in the Working Group that will be dealing with this next Ministerial.

The participation of the representatives of our Roundtable was very important to express to Dr. Paul Murray the interest of the Brazilian Roundtable in the Ministerial and so that we could be better informed about the relevance of this event and about the role that we are responsible for as representatives of Brazilian civil society.

It is the intention of the leaders of the International Roundtables to come to Brazil next November in order to discuss with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the new Brazilian Government the question of possible dates for holding the event in our country. On the occasion, the role of the International Roundtables in the mobilization of international civil society to participate in the Ministerial will be expressed, as well as in the organization of this participation and in the cooperation with the host government for the definition of the program.