Moisiu meets with Muslim leaders

TIRANA, April 21 – President Alfred Moisiu met with leaders of the Muslim community in the country and other countries. An international simposium on “Universal love and pity of Muhammed Profet a.s.” was held last Friday with the participation of local and foreign Muslim representatives. The simposium discussed on how to better tell people the mesagges of peace, fraternity and coexistence. Moisiu stressed the religious tolerance and coexistence in Albania urging the holding of the same kind of seminars in the country. Muslims are thought to make up about two-thirds of Albania’s 3.2 million population, although no census of the country’s religious groups has been take since before World War II. Albania also has large Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic communities. Religion was banned in Albania from 1967 until 1990 by the late Communist dictator Enver Hoxha. All mosques and churches were closed, pillaged, torn to the ground or turned into stores or sports arenas. Hundreds of Muslim and Christian clerics were imprisoned or executed. (Tirana Times Staff)