World leaders should initiate more humanitarian actions to spread messages of peace, tolerance and co-existence, HE the Minister of Justice HE Dr Hassan Lahdan Saqr al-Mohannadi urged yesterday.
He was delivering the keynote address at the inaugural session of the 12th Inter-Faith Dialogue Conference. While lauding the Doha International Centre for Inter-Faith Dialogue (Dicid) for holding the conference for the 12th successive year, the minister reminded the gathering that the meeting was taking place at a time when the world faced so many challenges owing to hostile situations in many countries.
Calling upon the global leaders to counter actions of hate and all kinds of extremism,  al-Mohannadi said the need of the hour was to spread messages of harmony and peace among people of different culture, religion, ethnicity and language.
The minister said defamation of religions, beliefs  and other cultures  not only  incited racism and fanaticism  but  also  contributed  to tensions,  hatred and intolerance.
Al-Mohannadi stressed that participants in such meetings should rectify misconceptions and spread the culture of spiritual and intellectual safety among different sections of  society.
Dicid chairman Ibrahim bin Saleh al-Nuami said that under the leadership of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani the Qatar government was keen on promoting interfaith dialogue.
Terming dialogue as an important component to build better relations and peaceful co-existence among people, al-Nuaimi said disrespect being shown to religious beliefs was one of the main challenges facing the co-existence of different faiths.
More than military actions, it required better will and determination among people to fight terrorism and those propagating terrorist actions, he added.