Award for Cardinal Etchegaray and Mufti Ceric

The Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mustafa Ceric and the Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Etchegaray were chosen as laureates of the 2003 UNESCO Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize.

UNESCO on 24 March 2004 announced that the international jury, presided by former US Secretary of State and Nobel Peace laureate Henry Kissinger, had chosen Mustafa Ceric, Grand Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Cardinal Roger Etchegaray as the laureates of the UNESCO Peace Prize that was initiated in 1989. The Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize is awarded annually.

The Prize honours people, organizations and institutions which have contributed to the promotion, research, safeguarding or maintaining of peace, mindful of the Charter of the United Nations and the Constitution of UNESCO. It Prize is named after the first president of Côte d’Ivoire, Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

Announcing the jury’s decision, Mr Kissinger declared: "These two religious personalities have been chosen in recognition of their action in favour of inter-faith dialogue, tolerance and peace. The jury believes reconciliation of religious views to be one of the great challenges of our age.

This is a particularly important challenge for the country of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the creator of the Prize, where the reconciliation of Muslims and Christians is very important if bloodshed is to be avoided. But we have considered the importance of religious reconciliation for the whole of humanity."

Supporting interfaith dialogue

The Executive Secretary of the Prize, Alioune Traore, explained that "by making this choice the Jury sent out a strong signal to the international community in favour of inter-faith dialogue, an essential fundament of peace and understand among peoples and nations."

Born in Espelette (France) in 1922, Roger Etchegaray was ordained in 1947 and became a Cardinal in 1979. Etchegaray presided the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 1984 to 1998.

Since 1984, he carried out numerous missions to crisis areas for the Pope. He took part, for example, in negotiations to end the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in May 2002, and travelled to Iraq in 1986, 1998 as well as in February 2003.

Mustafa Ceric was born in 1952 in Veliko Cajno, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has been the Reis-ul-Ulema, President of the Council of Ulema, Grand Mufti of Bosnia-Herzegovina, since 1993.

Ceric graduated from the Medressa in Sarajevo and Al-Azhar University in Cairo, after which he returned to Bosnia, where he became an imam. He then spent several years as Imam of the U.S. Islamic Cultural Center, during which time he earned a Ph.D. in Islamic Theology at the University of Chicago.

Ceric is also a member of the European Council of Religious Leaders, which was established in 2002 and which is an affiliate of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. Dr. Mustafa Ceric is one of Europe’s leading Islamic clerics.

Call to curb Islamic extremism

Ceric has warned of Islamophobia in Europe and around the world. Not just since the Madrid bombings has Ceric been warning European governments that they must do more to support Islam if they are to curb Islamic extremism.

The date of the ceremony at which the Euro 122,000 Prize, peace diploma and medal will be awarded is to be determined after consultation with the laureates.

The international jury is composed of eminent personalities including the former President of Portugal Mario Soares, Nobel Peace Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, former President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, and the former French Justice Minister Jean Foyer.

The 2002 Prize was awarded to Xanana Gusmão, President of Timor-Leste. Nelson Mandela and Frederik W. De Klerk (1991), Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat (1993), King Juan Carlos of Spain and former US President Jimmy Carter (1994) are among the former laureates of the Prize.

Source: UNESCO Press Release