NCHR celebrates International Day for Tolerance

The National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), today celebrates the International Day for Tolerance.

NCHR stresses that tolerance is the respect, acceptance and appreciation for pluralism, which defines our world culture nowadays. Tolerance is to celebrate the several rich forms of expressions, ways of managing our life affairs, various opinions and views about beliefs, ethnicities and policies.

Moreover, NCHR highlights the importance of appreciating the beauty of the diversity of human behaviour, and freedoms, and that the growing violence witnessed by numerous societies have strengthened the importance of tolerance. That being said, tolerance, which embodies the respect for others rights and freedoms, is not only an ethical duty, but it has become one of the key requirements of the contemporary era. Therefore, states have the responsibility to draft legislations ensuring equality in enjoying human rights, supporting tolerance and denouncing violence. Under this framework, education constitutes a key tool that paves the way to achieving this objective.

NCHR points out the importance of promoting tolerance principles, and therefore, educational policies and programmes should contribute to boosting understanding, solidarity and tolerance among individuals.

Furthermore, NCHR commends the fact that the Egyptian society’s embracement and inclusion for all segments of the community across many decades, as it has always embraces the values and principles promoting religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence. This has been a key source of the strength of the Egyptian society, and one of the main causes of the state of stability and development witnessed by the country, which includes the promotion of religious freedoms to everyone, the presence of a culture of dialogue and understanding among followers of different religious, and the efforts aimed at addressing hate speech and extremism.

The International Day for Tolerance is an annual observance day declared by UNESCO in 1995 to generate public awareness of the dangers of intolerance. It is observed on 16 November.