Under the guidance, sponsorship and presence of Professor Dr. Alia Abbas Ali Al-Attar, President of the Northern Technical University, and under the slogan
“No to attacks on the Qur’an and religions… No to attacks on homelands and people.” The Peaceful Coexistence Unit, in cooperation with the Media and Government Communication Department at the University Presidency, organized a dialogue session entitled: “Contempt of Religions between Extremism and Freedom of Expression.” The session was chaired by the President of the University, in which she spoke about the role of universities Today in promoting society and preserving it from negative phenomena, stressing the importance of activating psychological counseling and educational guidance to build the moral aspect of youth, stressing the directives of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research in this regard. The President of the University affirmed her condemnation of all actions that would diminish respect for religions, directed by the necessity of returning the social and religious legacies of our society based on respect, love and spreading peace. A representative of the Sunni Endowment Department, Sheikh Dr. Mazen Al-Kalak, participated in the session, who spoke about the need to adopt moderation and reject Violence in the face of these movements, pointing to the importance of intensifying seminars, workshops and conferences in order to educate young people not to drift into the current of intellectual extremism, while Father Raed Adel – representative of the Syriac Catholic churches of Mosul – talked about the need to differentiate between freedom of expression and extremism, adding:
Freedom of expression is a positive state developed by thinkers and philosophers, and it was approved in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights according to controls and restrictions, the first of which is not to harm or offend people and societies or national security. The dialogue session included reading the written texts of the three heavenly books, the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur’an, and the Qur’an was carried and the phrase: “No, no, to aggression against the Qur’an and religions… No, no, to aggression against homelands and people.”