By Hamza Hendawi
THE GOVERNMENT and the University of Cyprus have decided to distance themselves from a seminar on Islam due to open in Nicosia later this month as a result of what the organisers said was a “misunderstanding.”
A statement issued by the organisers, the Nicosia-based Centre for World Dialogue, said the foreign ministry had declined to offer a key-note speaker for the October 30-31 gathering and that the university had asked for its name to be removed from the programme.
The statement appealed to the government and the university to reconsider their positions. “With so many prominent international figures coming to Nicosia we are sure the foreign ministry and the university will want to be associated with the event,” the statement said.
It quoted Hossein Alikhani, head of the Centre for World Dialogue, as saying that the misunderstanding was due to what he called an “erroneous impression” that the seminar would deal with the Cyprus problem.
“The seminar will in fact analyse the global phenomenon of the West having to come to terms with the growing involvement of Islamic groups, in the Middle East and elsewhere, in politics,” the statement said.
“This is a total misunderstanding of what it’s all about,” said Alikhani. “Cyprus is respected by all parties as a platform for free speech. It is the only location in the Middle East where groups and individuals with opposing views can come freely and express themselves freely,” added Alikhani, an Iranian-born businessman who became a Cypriot citizen in 1992. A Muslim Shiite, he has lived on the island since 1980.
No comment was available from the foreign ministry yesterday, but the university’s rector, Miltiades Chaholiades, told the Cyprus Mail that the university had asked for its name to be taken off the programme because it had not taken part in organising the seminar.
“We don’t want to take credit for something that we’ve not done,” he said, adding that no member of the university’s academic staff would be actively involved in the seminar.
However, Chaholidaes did have some words of praise for the seminar, saying the list of participants included “renowned intellectuals”, and he denied that the university had academic or other objections to the event.
Sources close to the seminar, meanwhile, told the Cyprus Mail that the foreign ministry asked organisers this week not to invite academics and experts from the Turkish-occupied north to take part. The ministry, according to the sources, gave no reason for the request.
They added that on Thursday a senior foreign ministry official curtly responded to a request from organisers for the names of ministry officials who might be interested in attending the seminar.
“You can find the names in the telephone directory,” the sources quoted the unnamed official as saying.
A copy of the programme made available to the Cyprus Mail states on the cover that the seminar will be held under the auspices of the University of Cyprus and that proceeds from the meeting will be donated to its Central Library & Research Centre.
The organisers will now have to inform participants who had already received the programme of the change, something that will be done during the seminar.
Chaholiades, the university’s rector, however, said he did not see any problems with the university accepting the proceeds of the seminar as a donation, but added that such offers must go through the proper channels.
Among the distinguished participants to address the seminar are former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto; A’zam Taleghani, the only woman candidate in Iran’s presidential election last May; renowned columnist Eric Rouleau, who was also France’s ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia; and Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University.
“We have chosen the participants carefully. They come from different countries and we made sure that they will not be promoting any vested interests,” Alikhani told the Cyprus Mail in an interview this week.
