The UAE called for an inclusive approach to combat extremism and hate speech at the Global Conference on Promoting Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue and Tolerance in Countering Hate Speech, arguing that religious leaders, women, youth, civil society and technology companies all have concrete roles to play.
Khalifa Shaheen Al Marar delivered the UAE’s statement at the conference, which was organised by Morocco in cooperation with the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect and the UN Alliance of Civilizations. The event was held ahead of the high-level UN General Assembly session in New York.
More than 200 nationalities, one policy framework
Al Marar centred the statement on the UAE’s domestic record, noting that the country is home to more than 200 nationalities living and working within an environment that the government says respects cultural diversity and provides employment and stability. The full text of the statement has been published by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Al Marar pointed to several national and international initiatives the UAE has led or co-authored, including the Document on Human Fraternity, the Abrahamic Family House and the UAE’s role in drafting UN Security Council Resolution 2686 on Tolerance, Peace and Security.
Resolution 2686, adopted unanimously in June 2023, requested UN peacekeeping operations and special political missions to monitor hate speech, racism and acts of extremism within their mandates and to include those issues in regular reporting to the Security Council. According to Security Council Report, the resolution has since been referenced in seven further Council resolutions covering the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya and Somalia.
Institutions built around the hate speech conference agenda
Two bodies the UAE helped establish sit at the centre of its counter-extremism architecture. The Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported that Hedayah, the International Centre of Excellence for Countering Extremism and Violent Extremism, was launched in December 2012 with a focus on preventive measures. The Muslim Council of Elders followed in Abu Dhabi in July 2014 as the first independent international body aimed at fostering peace in the Islamic world.
The Abrahamic Family House on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, brings together a mosque, a church, a synagogue and a Forum for interfaith learning under one site rooted in what the institution describes as the UAE’s values of peaceful coexistence, diversity and dialogue.
In November 2025, Pope Leo XIV praised the UAE as a global model for promoting coexistence and human fraternity during a meeting at the Vatican with Dr Khalid Ghanem Al Ghaith, Secretary-General of the Higher Committee of Human Fraternity. The Pope also affirmed the Holy See’s readiness to deepen cooperation with the Higher Committee, according to WAM.
At the conference, Al Marar tied the UAE’s tolerance agenda directly to the ongoing reform of the UN. ‘As the United Nations undergoes reform and prepares to select a new Secretary-General, promoting tolerance and combating hate speech must be placed at the heart of the organisation’s work and its leadership’s priorities. These efforts should represent key pillars in crisis prevention, the responsibilities of special political missions, peacekeeping operations, and UN representatives,’ Al Marar said.
The UAE’s next formal opportunity to advance Resolution 2686 comes when the Security Council schedules its next implementation briefing, which the Council has convened annually since the resolution’s adoption.
