Deusto participates with Bilbao City Council in a new meeting of the Religious Diversity Participation Forum

Bilbao City Council has held a new meeting of the Religious Diversity Participation Forum, attended by 17 communities representing 11 different faiths. The session was chaired by the Councillor for Human Rights, Coexistence, Cooperation, and Interculturality, Iñigo Zubizarreta.

The meeting focused on two main items. First, a presentation of the results of the training provided to municipal staff on managing religious diversity in Bilbao, delivered by the Human Rights Institute in collaboration with the Pluralism and Coexistence Foundation. Second, the council proposal requesting the development and approval of a Municipal Secularity Regulation, and the amendment that was ultimately approved, which calls on the City Council to continue working with the Religious Diversity Participation Forum.

The Forum is one of the measures set out in the Third Municipal Plan Bilbao: Intercultural City, aimed at achieving positive management of diversity—whether of origin, ethnicity, culture, language, or religion—to promote social cohesion and intercultural coexistence in the city. Thanks to the establishment of this forum, Bilbao City Council develops policies related to the public management of religious diversity at the municipal level, aiming both to understand the socio-religious reality in Bilbao and to ensure recognition—that is, to foster collaboration between the public administration and the various religious entities and communities.

In the Religious Diversity Participation Forum, alongside representatives from the Deusto Human Rights Institute and the Ellacuría Foundation, participate representatives of the Catholic Church, the Evangelical Council of the Basque Country, the Philadelphia Evangelical Church, the Spanish Evangelical Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Assalam Mosque, Bader Mosque, Al Furkan Mosque, Rekalde Mosque, the Mourides Brotherhood, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Bahá’í Community, the Hindu Community, Taoists, and the Buddhist Community.