A panel of Christian and Muslims gathered to affirm that all people can be both citizens and believers, and that being a citizen – or being a person of faith – are not mutually exclusive identities. This is a point made in a final statement released from the conference “Being Citizens of Europe and a Person of Faith: Christians and Muslims as Active Partners in European Societies.” Concerning the question about forsaking religious identities, conference members stressed that the prohibition of wearing or displaying religious symbols in public places, the neutralizing religious festivities, or concern that such religious displays would go against the principles of the secular state. A panel at the conference affirmed that they rejected “militant and hostile forms of secularism which create discrimination among citizens and leave no space for religious belief and practice.”
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