Cooperation
with other Interfaith Groups
In 1993 the IARF held a three-day Congress in Bangalore,
India and then co-sponsored a four-day centennial observance
of the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago
with the World Conference on Religion and Peace, the World
Congress of Faiths, and the Temple of Understanding. IARF
members from South Asia were able to attend the 1993 Congress
in larger numbers than ever before, and new member groups
in Russia and Korea were also represented. Also that year
the IARF Japan Liaison Committee hosted an international
conference and arranged for visiting IARF members to take
part in an ancient Shinto ritual at the Ise Shrine. In
1994 the IARF published in India the Proceedings of the
1993 Congress and the International Interfaith Centre
established in Oxford by the IARF and the World Congress
of Faiths published materials from the 1993 centennial
observance under the title, Visions of an Interfaith Future:
Proceedings of Sarva-Dharma-Sammelana.
After the 1993 Congress the IARF Secretariat moved to
Oxford, where it shares office space with the International
Interfaith Centre, the World Congress of Faiths, and the
UK representative of Rissho Kosei-kai. The International
Interfaith Centre sponsors an autumn lecture in Oxford
and annual conferences on resolving religious conflict.
Between 1993 and 1996 the IARF established regional offices
in South Asia, Europe, the Philippines, and New York,
and Buddhists from the Republic of China, Israeli Jews,
Palestinian Christians and Muslims, and Reconstructionist
Jews joined the Association.
Dr. Gianfranco Rossi began to represent the IARF in
Geneva at the UN Commission on Human Rights, and Sue
Nichols, an IARF representative to the UN in New York,
organized and served as the first president of the Non-Governmental
Organizations Committee on Freedom of Religion or Belief.
In 1994 an IARF European conference was held in Cluj,
Romania on the topic "Human Rights in Europe" and its proceedings were published and are available.
In 1995 the IARF Japan Liaison Committee and the IARF
Japan Chapter co-sponsored a concert in Tokyo to raise
funds for the victims of the horrendous earthquake in
Kobe, Japan.
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