BPUR International had a remarkable week of meetings at the Spring Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on 7-10 April 2025 in Strasbourg, France.
Our founder, Salam Sarhan, held important discussions with General Rapporteur Senator Francesco Verducci and the Secretariat of the Equality and Non-discrimination Committee ahead of Senator Verducci’s visit to London on 29-30 April, where we will hold further meetings regarding the supporting resolution at the PACE.
It is part of our global campaign to enact an ‘International Treaty to Ban the Political Abuse of Religion’, and ahead of our conference in the Italian Senate on 25 September 2025.
The meetings in Strasbourg also included, Chair of the Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group, Frank Schwabe, the Chair of the Spanish delegation, Senator Antonio Gutiérrez Limones, Chair of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination, Catia Polidori and Chair of San Marino Delegation Gerardo Giovagnoli.
As a British initiative, we held several meetings with members and the secretariat of the UK delegation, including Lord Michael German, Baroness Shami Chakrabarti and MPs, Sir Edward Leigh, Dan Aldride, Sam Rushworth and Perran Moon.
BPUR had discussions with leading members of the Swedish delegations, Markus Wiechel, Mattias Jonsson, and Kristoffer Lindberg, as well as with Irish Senators, Pat Casey, Joe O’Reilly, Ronan Mullen and Conor Murphy.
We also held meetings with leading members of the PACE, including former Greece Prime Minister George Papandreou, Laura Castel of Spain, Petra Bayr of Austria, Nina Kasimati of Greece, Ingjerd Schou of Norway and Michael Farrugia of Malta.
