AMSTERDAM, Aug. 3 /Christian Newswire/ -- On July 30, the Amsterdam offices of EuroCongress were vandalized and damaged. EuroCongress is the professional conference organizer for World Congress of Families V -- Amsterdam, August 10-12, at the RAI Centre.
Vandals defaced and damaged the outside of the EuroCongress building by smearing paint and writing various obscenities and anti-Christian slogans.
Dutch Chairman of WCF V, Simon Polinder, reacted, "This is really outrageous. We are organizing an international family congress, with which we intend to bring attention to the positive value of the family. This group evidently disagrees with that goal. Apparently they are not able to enter into a civilized conversation with us."
World Congress of Families Managing Director, Larry Jacobs, expressed shock and outrage at the vandalism. "In 12 years of doing international pro- family Congresses - from Mexico City to Warsaw - this is the first time we've encountered this sort of violence," Jacobs commented.
"We know our opponents disagree with us on a broad range of issues, including: marriage, abortion, euthanasia, parental rights, pornography, and prostitution. What's amazing is that these anti-family activists believe they have a right to engage in criminal acts of vandalism in an effort to intimidate those attending World Congress of Families V."
Jacobs added: "This isn't the first indication we've had of radical opposition to WCF V. The group Autonomous Feminist Action - which calls the Congress a group of "fundamentalistic (sic.) Christians who 'will plead for going back to the Christian traditions of traditional relationship between man and woman (sic.)' - has held organizing meetings against the Congress (Click here: www.worldcongress.org/wcfnl/wcfnl.cur.htm for illustration).
Jacobs pledged: "We will not be intimidated by these uncivilized, criminal tactics. Pro-family scholars, legislators and activists from over 50 countries will attend the Amsterdam Congress. This latest outrage makes it more important than ever to broadcast a positive, hopeful message of the centrality of the natural family to the heart of the European Union."
Regarding the anti-Christian attacks against World Congress of Families, speakers at WCF V include scholars and leaders with Catholic, Islamic, Protestant and secular backgrounds. Speakers such as the Chief Rabbi of the Netherlands, the President of the Pakistan Family Forum, the Archbishop of Utrecht, the former President of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Executive Director of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia represent a sample of the religious diversity at the Congress. In fact, many WCF speakers do not agree on specific religious practices, but do share values and principles regarding family, marriage and children as found in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
The World Congress of Families V takes place from 10 to 12 August 2009 in the RAI Convention Centre in Amsterdam. The World Congress, with participants coming from more than fifty countries from six continents, will deal in many ways with the critical importance of the family for our societies, by way of lectures, workshops, music and movies. The World Congress of Families offers a platform for everybody of goodwill who wants to celebrate the family and discuss family issues in a civilized manner.
For more information on World Congress of Families V, click here: www.worldcongress.org. To arrange an interview with Larry Jacobs, contact Don Feder at 508-405- 1337. To speak with World Congress of Families V in the Netherlands, contact Evert-Jan Brouwer, e.brouwer@worldcongress.nl, tel. 0031-6- 10503828 or Simon Polinder, s.polinder@worldcongress.nl, tel. 0031-6- 19007572.
The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and people of goodwill from more than 60 countries that seek to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the 'seedbed' of civil society (as found in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois (www.profam.org). To date, there have been four World Congresses of Families - Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004) and Warsaw, Poland (2007). A fifth World Congress of Families will be held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 10-12, 2009 ( www.worldcongress.nl and www.worldcongress.org).
