Human Rights

ICHD Policy Brief

European Democracy Assistance after EU Enlargement

Editors: Jacek Kucharczyk and Jeff Lovitt

A paper by the working group assembled by the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (CIPDD)

Monthly analytical bulletin on Moldova, issued by Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul", Chisinau
(in English and Romanian)

Centre for Public policy PROVIDUS, Latvia, has published Learning to welcome: the integration of immigrants in Latvia and Poland, a publication that includes research about the legislation that influences the integration of immigrants – labour-market access, family-reunification conditions, anti-discrimination and political participation. The first part of the publication includes a review of EU standards and national policies found favourable for promoting these integration principles, based on the Migrant Integration Policy Index. This part also compares the state of integration policies in Latvia and Poland in a European context. The second part consists of a research paper on the integration of immigrants in Latvia, and the third part includes a study on the integration of immigrants in Poland.

The full text of the publication is available online at the PROVIDUS website: http://www.providus.lv/public/27166.html

Monthly analytical bulletin on Moldova, issued by Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul", Chisinau
(in English and Romanian)

This publication is based on a research project entitled “Public Perceptions of Labour Migration within the EU. The Case of Polish Labour Migrants in the British Press” funded by the Foundation for Population, Migration and Environment (PME).

Project co-ordinator: Justyna Frelak
Additional research: Miroslaw Bieniecki, Anna Korolec

Monthly analytical bulletin on Moldova, issued by Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul", Chisinau
(in English and Romanian)

Monthly analytical bulletin on Moldova, issued by Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul", Chisinau
(in English and Romanian)

Monthly analytical bulletin on Moldova, issued by Institute for Development and Social Initiatives (IDIS) "Viitorul", Chisinau

(in English and Romanian)

The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of the European regional policy and the European integration of Bulgaria on the political mobilisation, social-economic status and the perception of two compact Muslim groups – Turks and Muslim Bulgarians (Pomaks), who are the local majority in the Kardzhali and Smolyan districts of the South Central Region of Bulgaria – about their place within united Europe.

Between April 13 and 25, 2004, the Institute for Public Affairs conducted a survey that mapped the social and political climate in Slovakia before the upcoming 2006 parliamentary elections as well as basic patterns of electoral behaviour.The data were gathered by the FOCUS agency through its network of trained interviewers from a representative sample of 1,242 Slovak citizens older than 18, using the method of face-to-face interviews.The survey was supported by the Open Society Foundation.

In the spring of 2006 IMIR’s team conducted research in the Ardino municipality in Bulgaria as part of an international project prepared and financed by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The objective was to examine the relationships between different communities, while focusing on minority rights protection in a municipality with a reversed demographic proportion – the national minority in this case is the local majority.

In this paper I intend to analyze how was the intentional resurrection of the pre-1945 memory among Croats and Serbs exploited and used to destroy first the common Yugoslav memory and then to push the whole country into a devastating war. As Paul Connerton points out, each new beginning, and especially a creation of a new nation-state, cannot happen without recollection of the past and without feeding on the old memories.1
When the wars fought in the 1990s have finished and especially after the fall of the nationalistic regimes in Serbia and Croatia, the new democratic governments had the chance to reveal the truth about the recent events and thus seriously limit the damage done by the new myths and the new “official memory,” in which both Croats and Serbs were presented as victims. Instead, the new governments opted for the conformist approach, unwilling or unable to go against the nationalistic tide, and as a consequence, Croatian and Serbian war criminals are today still largely seen as national heroes. Therefore, the mistake committed by the Yugoslav authorities after the World War II, is being committed again. This paper will thus also deal with the memory of the 1990s wars, shared today by majority of Croats and Serbs, and which could represent a time-bomb, threatening to go off again sometime in the future.

The National Annual Report 2005 presents information on the situation in Slovenia in the field of racism and xenophobia and on the development of policies, measures and initiatives in the field of combating racism and discrimination.

The report ends with separate sections on manifestations of Islamophobia and antisemitism.

The following paper will analyze the case of Albanian emigration to Greece, as the Albanian immigrants in Greece make for another striking example. Rarely immigrants from one country represent such a high percent of all immigrants in another country as do Albanians in Greece. According to a 2001 census, there were 797,091 foreign nationals residing legally in Greece. Of this number, 55.6% (443,550) were Albanians. When the estimation about illegal immigration is added to this number, we get an approximation of over a million immigrants in Greece, of which over 600,000 are Albanians. The paper will present the reasons for Albanian mass emigration to Greece, analyze the positive and negative effects of this emigration on Greece and Albania, and discuss the attitudes of Greek society towards the Albanian immigrants.

This book is divided into three main parts;

• In the first part, I speak about one important human right long neglected in Slovenia: the right to obtain information. For more than a decade, this right amounted to no more than a declaration in the 1991 Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia without any possibility of being exercised in practice, since a law that would regulate the content and the method of exercising this right did not exist.
• The second part is dedicated to the right to privacy and the mechanisms of its protection when it is invaded, unjustifiably or disproportionately, by the media. Only recently has the protection of this right received more emphasis in situations in which it had to be weighed against the right to freedom of expression.
• In the third part, I look into the mechanisms of self-regulation and self-control in the media. This chapter is also an attempt to resuscitate the initiative to establish a press council in Slovenia.

The purpose of the study was to establish the state of interethnic relations in Bosnia and Herzegovina almost nine years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement. Also, to corroborate or reject the preliminary hypotheses that there is a revival of Islam as well as infiltration by non-traditional strands of Islam, such as the Wahhabiyah and Ahmadiyah. One of the top priorities of the researchers was to establish the levels of normalization of the administrative, economic, social, and cultural life in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As in all studies conducted by the urgent anthropology method, the researchers aimed to produce an analysis of the present situation and shorter-term forecasts of developments in Bosnia and Herzegovina based on a snapshot of society, institutions, and the achievements and failures of the European presence in the country, as well as on the life histories of randomly selected respondents.

A policy brief of the International Centre for Human Development in Armenia

(In English and Armenian)

Integracja uchodzców w Polsce - Rekomendacje i dobre praktyki

a policy paper of the Institute of Public Affairs, Poland

(only in Polish)

A policy brief by the International Center for Human Development (ICHD), Armenia

A policy brief by the International Center for Human Development (ICHD), Armenia

A policy brief of the International Center for Human Development, Armenia

CRPM was selected to produce the Macedonian Chapter of the regional project “Migration Flows in South-Eastern Europe,” supported by Comité Catholique Contre la Faim et Pour le Dévelopement and Balkan Trust for Democracy, and coordinated by the Group 484 from Belgrade, Serbia.

A policy paper for EUROREG Funded under Sixth Framework Programme (Priority 7: Citizens and governance in knowledge based society).