Freedom award recipient Bartholomew praises Fethullah Gülen's peace efforts

PRLog (Press Release) - May 15, 2012 - Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew praised well-respected Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen for his peace efforts around the world after receiving one of the Roosevelt Institute's Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Awards. The award ceremony for the 2012 Four Freedoms Awards was held on Saturday at the Nieuwe Kerk in Middelburg, the Netherlands, with the attendance of Dutch Queen Beatrix and Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

13 May 2012 / BASRI DOĞAN, MIDDELBURG

Bartholomew was among the recipients of this year's Four Freedoms Awards, which are presented each year to men and women whose achievements have demonstrated a commitment to those principles which President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed in his historic speech to Congress on Jan. 6, 1941 as essential to democracy. The awards were founded to celebrate the four freedoms espoused by Roosevelt in his speech: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.

During Saturday's ceremony, Bartholomew received the Freedom of Worship Award while former President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva received the International Four Freedoms Award. Al Jazeera was honored with the Freedom of Speech and Expression medal, while the Freedom from Want Award was given to women's activist Ela Ramesh Bhatt of India and the Freedom from Fear Award was awarded to Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain al-Shahristani.

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