Soteria International hosted on 11 December 2019 a new conference on the series “Spiritual Human Rights”, with the topic: “Base and Debasement of Human Rights  - Rights, Obligations and Society”.

The conference brought together important keynote speakers, experts in the human rights field, sociologists and politicians:

• Prof Massimo Introvigne - Editor-in-Chief - Bitter Winter, Director - CESNUR
• Jens Peter Bonde, Former Danish MEP
• Anette Refstrup - Church of Scientology, DENMARK
• Prof Aaron Rhodes, President FOREF
• Ivan Arjona - European Office of the Church of Scientology
• Advaitananda Stoian – ATMAN Federation
• Konrad Swenninger – Soteria International
• Bashy Quraishy – ENAR, EMISCO
• Calistrat Atudorei PHD
• Prof Alesandro Amicarelli – Director FOB
• Camelia Marin and Konrad Swenninger from Soteria International.

After important contributions presented by the speakers, the debate went smoothly towards the fundament of human rights and their integration in institutional and social system.

The fact that the right to a good healthcare or education and freedom of though, conscience and belief are all important rights in our society it is known and also the fact that they are integrated different. The first should be secured politically, the other fundamentally as unalienable human right.

Within FoRB delicate question – are they inalienable rights because of being part of one’s religious culture (socio-economic religious context) or something more fundamental like that inner spiritual human need, beyond cultural shifting contexts?

In 2018, Aaron Rhodes, international human rights activist, authored a book, "The Debasement of Human Rights: How Politics Sabotage the Ideal of Freedom" (Encounter Books, New York), and this book stroked at the heart of FoRB.

With this conference, Soteria International took the subject to a level of inspiration and debate for researchers, activists and practitioners within the trans-disciplinary field of human rights and spirituality, as it holds that spirituality is a precious and fundamental aspect of human life, and that the sacred is also what helps us find our true potential individually as well as in society.

The contributions of the keynote speakers will be presented soon on our sites.