Timorese bishop visits Lisbon mosque

05/12/2000 BBC Monitoring Source: RDP Antena 1 radio, Lisbon, in Portuguese 1200 gmt 12 May 00/BBC Monitoring/(c) BBC

Excerpts from report by Portuguese radio on 12th May

[Presenter] Dom Ximenes Belo [bishop of Dili and Nobel Peace laureate in 1996] this morning visited Lisbon's great mosque.

[Reporter] ... Everyone is a brother and that is why the bishop visited Lisbon's mosque today. It was brief visit because the bishop's schedule is very heavy. He was returning a visit which the Muslim communique had paid him a few months ago at his Lisbon residence, at the Salesian order. He spent 30 minutes at the mosque and was accompanied by the mayor of Lisbon, Joao Soares. He stressed that regardless of religious belief everyone must be united in building a new world and especially a new East Timor .

[Belo] Above all with this visit we are thanking the Muslim community. As I said we are going to work together to build a new world, free of violence, free of differences between us. Timor belongs to all of us.

[Reporter] D. Ximenes Belo received a cheque for the reconstruction of Timor from the Lisbon Muslim community.

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