Minister of Culture Reaffirms Qatar's Support to Libraries and Freedom of Thought

Doha, June 10 (QNA) - HE the Minister of Culture, Arts and Heritage ,Dr. Hamad Bin Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari, reaffirmed concern and keenness of State of Qatar on the support of libraries, noting that libraries have assumed a high status as part of the cultural activity in the context of the state's keenness on the freedom of thought and access to information . In his speech before the opening session of the first regional conference of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in the Arab region, hosted by the Ministry of Culture under the title "The role of Associations and National Libraries in supporting freedom of access to information under the intellectual property rights " , Dr. Al Kuwari said this conference comes within the activities and events witnessed in the state of Qatar, as one of the fruits of the comprehensive development taking place under the patronage the Emir of Qatar HH Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani and HH the Heir Apparent Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. He said the intellectual creativity, with its distinguished civilizational nature, generates keenness on the need to preserve and encourage it without denying human beings right to have access the information and knowledge as a fundamental right, calling on all concerned parties to join hands in order maintain the rights the enable everybody to create in his field to serve the knowledge and culture without fear so that initiative for free access to information would not be used as a pretext for the violation of the intellectual property rights. HE the Minister said the changes and the rapid developments taking place in the contemporary world of which globalization came to the fore, make it incumbent on the Arab world to be an active partner in charge, saying the issue of the intellectual property has become an important element in the commercial and cultural relations among states and it gains great importance in the draw-up of the international and national policies in the cultural, economic and social domains .(QNA)