The weekly Dutch newspaper “Elsevier” published an opinion of Pieter Omtzigt, a Dutch MP and member of the Commission of Europe Assembly, who claims that Albania, Azerbaijan and Turkey, must distance themselves from the Cairo Declaration.
This is a non-binding declaration regarding human rights in Islam, which was also symbolically signed by Albania in 1990, after decades of absolute atheism enforced by the communist regime, which banned any religious practice.
According to the Dutch MP, whose article was published under the title “The Sharia must leave Europe”, says that it is not normal that a member of the CoE recognizes the Sharia as a high-level legislation. For this, he filed a motion in Strasbourg, which will be voted.
To make it more dramatic for a public already overly fed with Muslim scaremongering, the Dutch newspaper has used a photo from the Kruja mosque in Albania.
The best response for the absurd declarations of the Dutch MP were given by his colleague, Johan Tevelte, from the Netherlands-Albania Friendship Association, who has lived and worked for five years in Albania, with the Dutch Organization for Development.
“The Albanian law doesn’t refer to the Sharia or to its principles, but to the best practices of Western democracies. The Constitution clearly states that the government has no religion and that any kind of religious discrimination is not allowed”, he says.
He also clarifies that the Cairo declaration has only symbolic significance. He reminds that Albania has the best example of religious tolerance, unparalleled to other countries.
He says that Albania has a western orientation and doesn’t need to distance itself from a declaration signed 28 years ago, to make sure that the Sharia will have no place there.
“I have lived in Tirana for five years and during that period I have hardly experienced any form of religious intolerance. An example to explain how Albanians deal with religion, was my Muslim neighbor who converted to Christianity through a US sect, “the Resurrection”.
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