Chronicle
29 July 2004
Publications
May 2004: Published ERRC report, "Stigmata: Segregated Schooling of Roma in Central and Eastern Europe".
Campaigning, Conferences and Meetings
April 2-4, 2004: Organised a training seminar "Monitoring Roma Rights" for Romani activists, followed by a round-table "Roma and the Police", Samara, Russia.
April 13, 2004: Sent materials regarding the situa-tion of Roma in Kosovo during and after the March ethnic tensions to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe discussing the situation in Kosovo in the Second Part of its Plenary Session, between April 26-30, 2004, in extraordinary pro-cedure.
April 14, 2004: Submitted materials pertaining to the obstacles and discrimination facing Roma in Greece in their access to fundamental social and economic rights to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, at its 32nd session, April 26-May 14, 2004, reviewing Greece's initial report on its compliance to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
April 16, 2004: Submitted written comments per-taining to the matter of Coercive Sterilisations of Romani Women in the Czech Republic to the Committee Against Torture on the Occasion of its Review of the Czech Republic's compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment at its 32nd Session, 3-21 May 2004.
April 16-17, 2004: Participated in the Conference "Good Practices in Promoting Romani and Mi-nority Women in the Political and Democratic Processes: Experience of Romania in the OSCE context", organised in the framework of the Stability Pact by Romani CRISS in partnership with the Chamber of Deputies of the Romanian Parliament, the Roma Party in Romania, Project on Ethnic Relations and European Roma Information Office, Bucharest, Romania.
April 19-20, 2004: Presented ERRC advocacy work with the Council of Europe at the seminar "Implementation of Human Rights: the Efficiency of Justice in the Council of Europe and its Member States", organised by the Netherlands Ministry of ForeignAffairs and NJCM, Dutch Section of the International Commission of Jurists, The Hague, Netherlands.
April 22-23, 2004: Organised a training for NGOs on the effective implementation of anti-discrimination legislation, a roundtable discussion for parliamentarians and a training for judges and lawyers on the same issue, Riga, Latvia.
April 23-24, 2004: Participated in the conference "Roma in an Enlarged European Union", organised by the EU, Brussels, Belgium.
April 29, 2004: Presented Roma rights issues at the seminar "Old Region, New Institutions: Hungary, Romania and the Slovak Republic" at Södertörns högskola, Stockholm, Sweden.
May 3-4, 2004: Held open meetings with civil society activists in Brno and Prague, Czech Republic, to discuss common action on the issue of coercive sterilizations of Romani women in the Czech Republic.
May 7-8 2004: Participated in a workshop organ-ised in the framework of the joint project of the ERRC, Interights and Minority Policy Group "Implementing anti-discrimination law in Europe", Istanbul, Turkey.
May 12, 2004: Held, jointly with local partner Romani Yag, a training for Romani activists on monitoring the human rights situation of Roma in Ukraine, Lviv, Ukraine.
May 13-14, 2004: Held press conferences in Sarajevo and Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, to promote the ERRC Country Report "The Non-Constituents: Rights Deprivation of Roma in Post-Genocide Bosnia and Herzegovina".
May 14, 2004: Held a workshop on Roma rights with the youth network of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights Republika Srpska, Bijeljina, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
May 14, 2004: Sent materials pertaining to the rights deprivation of Roma in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Advisory Committee of the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities.
May 17, 2004: Gave a lecture on "Anti-discrimination law in the new member-states of the EU", Luxemburg.
May 18, 2004: Spoke on Roma rights at the conference "Strenghtening Jewish Organisations in the New European Union Member States", organized by Centre Européen Juif d'information and the European Council of Jewish Communities, Budapest, Hungary.
May 22, 2004: Delivered an open lecture at the Istanbul Bilgi University (IBU) on strategic litigation in Central and Eastern Europe, Istanbul, Turkey.
May 26, 2004: Hosted a visit to the ERRC offices by Romani Rose, the Chairman of the Documenta-tion and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma.
May 27, 2004: Participated in a discussion on Roma in Hungary, organised by the Institute of Interna-tional Education, Budapest, Hungary.
June 2, 2004: Participated in the side-event "Promoting Entrepreneurship and Opportunities for Economic Development amongst Roma and Sinti", organized in co-operation by the OSCE OCEEA, ODIHR Contact Point on Roma and Sinti Issues and the Pakiv-European Roma Fund, as part of the Twelfth Meeting of the OSCE Economic Forum "New Challenges for Building up Institutional and Human Capacity for Economic Development and Cooperation", Prague, Czech Republic.
June 3, 2004: Provided a presentation on "Romaphobia" within a seminar entitled "Islamophobia and its Consequences on Young People", co-organised jointly by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) and the Directorate General Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe, Budapest, Hun-gary.
June 4, 2004: Held, jointly with local partner Romani Yag, an advocacy training for Romani activists on the human rights situation of Roma in Ukraine, Odessa, Ukraine.
June 7, 2004: Presented ongoing ERRC work to-ward a report on Roma in an Enlarged European Union by the European Commission at a meeting of the Social Platform, Brussels, Belgium.
June 7-9, 2004: Co-organised, together with the Council of Europe, the 8th study session on the European Convention on Human Rights for law-yers involved in the provision of legal assistance to Roma, Strasbourg, France.
June 9, 2004: Attended a conference on anti-racism organised by the Irish Presidency of the Eu-ropean Union, Dublin, Ireland.
June 14, 2004: Met with the Czech Ombudsman to discuss action to provide redress for Romani women coercively sterilised by Czech doctors, Brno, Czech Republic.
June 15-16, 2004: Participated in a meeting on racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic propaganda on the Internet and hate crimes, organised by the OSCE, Paris, France.
June 18, 2004: Submitted a collective complaint against Italy under the Revised European Social Charter presenting ERRC documentation of systematic violations of the rights of Roma in Italy to adequate housing.
June 21, 2004: Participated in a workshop on health care organised by the World Bank and the Open Society Institute, Budapest, Hungary.
June 22, 2004: Lectured on Roma rights at the EuropeanAcademy of Bozen/Bolzano, Italy.
June 24-26, 2004: Organised a roundtable discussion on Roma-police relations and a training seminar "Roma Rights Defence: Strategies and Methods" for Romani activists, St.Petersburg, Russia.
