Officials from the MoI and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with community leaders at an honouring ceremony yesterday.
Doha: On the occasion of the Qatar Human Rights Day and the International Day for Tolerance, the Human Rights Department of the Ministry of Interior (MoI) held yesterday a ceremony to honour the heads of the Arab and non-Arab communities residing in the country, at the Officers Club of the General Directorate of Civil Defence.
The honouring ceremony was attended by Col. Saad Salem Al Dosari, Assistant Director of the Human Rights Department at MoI; Abdullah Mahdi Al Yami, representative of the Human Rights Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Capt. Dr. Abdul Latif Hussein Al Ali from the Human Rights Department at MoI; and a number of officers and community representatives.
Speaking at the ceremony, Col. Al Dosari affirmed the keenness of the Ministry of Interior to participate in these celebrations, as an embodiment of its contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights through its security and service work, as well as within the framework of its social responsibilities. This necessitated that the communication with communities should have an existing organisational framework in the MoI, namely, the Community Reach out Office at the Public Relations Department and similar lines of action in the departments concerned, which resulted in many of the Ministry’s awareness-raising and cultural activities in the community.
The Assistant Director of the Human Rights Department at MoI pointed out that the main objectives of communicating with the communities are to educate the communities about their rights and obligations under national laws and the legislative tools of the MoI emphasising their clear role in construction and development.
He stressed the respect for the cultural identity of the communities and their freedom to worship and practice their religious rites in the appropriate manner established by law, the respect of the members of the communities for the national value system and the Qatari cultural heritage, and the identification of the actual and fundamental needs and problems of the members of the communities in their relationship with the Ministry’s agencies and work to overcome and solve them.
The community partnership in maintaining security is achieved on the basis that combating crime and achieving security is the responsibility of everyone, citizens and residents, and achieving these goals will contribute in an effective way to enhancing the social and cultural integration of the population, he added.
Abdullah Mahdi Al Yami thanked MoI's Human Rights Department for organising this ceremony, and denoted the concerted efforts of the human rights authorities in the country and their continuous cooperation to achieve common interests. He stressed the commitment of Qatar to the human rights conventions, noting that Qatar is one of the countries that are well known in this field at the international level.
Al Yami added that all communities in Qatar are respected and valued as partners in society and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is entrusted with the commitment to international agreements and they are in continuous communication, coordination and meetings with the concerned authorities in the country to fulfil these obligations.
