How it all began

The Protestant Superintendent for Carinthia and East Tyrol, Manfred Sauer, explained the history of the origin of Denk.Raum.Fresach during the first meeting of the Board. Even the official Carinthian Exhibition 2011 on “Remain credible – 500 Years of Protestant adventure” was initiated and based on the idea to establish a forum for dialogue devoted to…

Plea against the discouragement

At the first meeting on November 6, 2014 in Villach, the present Board of Trustees members talked about their motivation to contribute to the European Tolerance Talks. The well-known writer Irmgard Bohunovsky meant with a view to the rulung “theocracies” in the Arabic region: “We worked hard for the secular state, for the equality of…

International Day for Tolerance

“On this International Day of Tolerance, I call on all people and governments to actively combat fear, hatred and extremism with dialogue, understanding and mutual respect. Let us advance against the forces of division and unite for our shared future.” Unites Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon In 1996, the UN General Assembly (by resolution 51/95) invited…

ARD Theme Week Tolerance

Since 2006, the German Television Station ARD is organizing a theme week to cover socially relevant topics. This year, the main focus was devoted to “tolerance” of any kind. From 15th to 21th November 2014 all ARD programs, all Third television programs as well as the radio waves and related online portals explored the many…

The Refugee among Us

In early October Denk.Raum.Fresach initiator Wilfried Seywald published a guest commentary on refugee issues in the Vienna Newspaper “Die Presse” in order to get a picture of the mood in Austria. The response was extremely harsh. Dozens of comments, sometimes very violent and spiteful, but negative for the most part, followed: from Communist Manifesto, expropriation fantasies…

Our Mission

Der Denk.Raum.Fresach wurde 2014 als gemeinnütziger „Verein zur Förderung von Toleranz und Integration in Europa“ gegründet – im uralten Bergbauerndorf Fresach in Kärnten. Seine Hauptaufgaben sieht der Verein so: Aufbau eines Europäischen Toleranzzentrums zur Förderung des Dialogs und der Integration von Menschen jeglicher Herkunft, Ethnie, Sprache und Religion. Informationsaustausch von anerkannten Wissenschaftlern, Schriftstellern und Denkern…

Cause of poverty

“Where poverty is, we have the biggest problem. Not where the wealth is”, EP Dr. Hannes Swoboda said at the first meeting of the Board on November 6, 2014 in Villach. The President of Denk.Raum.Fresach and former leader of the Social Democratic Party in the European Parliament, praised the initiative to found the Association for…