Thursday, May 31

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We need your help to get the message out of the corridors of the Palais des Nations out on the streets and towards Durban.

- Mary Robinson


We had an interesting briefing today by Mrs. Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, specially for all interested NGOs. The meeting started with the secretariat confirming that the PrepCom WILL go on for another week, that is, the group of 21 countries that is working on the draft declaration and the plan of action will stay and have closed sessions, which means it will not be productive for NGOs to stay. Mary Robinson took the floor and told that apart from the extension of a week, there will also be another PrepCom, number 3, somewhere in July, Said she: "I'm afraid we will need another one, this is evident"

There were some questions from the floor:
-is it possible for NGOs to stay next week as observers
-from the sexual orientation caucus - Shouldn't the UN lead by example and not allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation? One of our caucus members has a relation with a UN employee and his pension and health insurance situation is bad because he is not granted the same rights as married persons.

Answers MR
Observer status: NGOs did not ask for it, but all help from NGOs is welcome, but the sessions will be closed.
"we have the road to Durban yes, but we have to prepare for a clear response afterwards. We should also use websites to monitor the plan of action and putting it into place. We have also by now made some structural changes in the office of the HR, to gear ourselves for Durban and afterwards" On discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation: yes, we agree on example position, we will look into it.

Question:
Why is anti-Semitism and Islamophobia seen as things of the same sort, this is wrong because one is a race and the other a religion.

Question:
How soon will the document from the group of 21 come out, you need to know the paperwork as NGOs if you want to react, intervene or lobby. This has been a problem for the last 2 weeks.
Question: Is it possible to ensure NGO participation during the 3rd PrepCom.

Answers:
On anti-Semitism: This is a governmental conference. We need to know what we are for and against, we need to get back to the fundamentals, we need to think about the spirit of the WCAR and the outcome. We should have the honesty to address the past together, we have to transcend differences. We do it in the shadows of deep problems, particularly in the Middle East, so it is not easy.

Availability of documents: point taken, the secretariat will look into electronic dissemination. It is not clear if the group of 21 will finish next week, we will do our utmost to get you the papers soon.

NGO participation PrepCom 3
MR will urge that there is a proper and opportunity for NGOs to have input.

Questions:
Administrative facilities for NGOs.
How long will MR stay in this function, hope she is so supportive, like she has been up till now, with Human Rights and the NGOs, we hope she will stay on (loud acclamation!!)

Answers:
We strongly support the greatest participation of NGOs in the PrepCom and the WCAR. For Durban we succeeded in already getting more NGOs than ever for a UN Conference.
Secretarial support:
We will evaluate the process and see what we can do. We need your help to get the message out of the corridors of the Palais des Nations out on the streets and towards Durban. Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN, twisted my arm to stay on longer, coincidentally this will have to be confirmed today. It is an enormous honor to be High Commissioner for Human Rights and I'm happy to be Secretary General of the WCAR in Durban. We have a chance to changes values! Thank you. Mary Robinson left the room to a standing ovation.

We heard later that while we were in the briefing with Mary Robinson, in the plenary the time had come for 3 caucuses to speak, their names were called but only one of the three was present, due to the meeting with Mrs. Robinson. The other two caucuses will have to try again tomorrow, which is pretty silly. Even if you are in a meeting with the High Commissioner, they don't care.



Our culture is dying, that is very clear.

At 2 p.m. we visited a briefing of the Roma / Gypsies / Gitanos /Sinti /Travelers Caucus.
The briefing, basically a panel discussion, started with Martin Alexanderson from Save the children, Sweden. He talked about the situation of the Roma children and the Convention of the rights of the child (CRC). He mentioned a few ideas what the States should do to counteract racism in schools, like revision of textbooks, non-discriminatory curriculum, and taking into account the roots of racism. Some of these ideas are already in the plan of action, but new things have to be brought in, like counteracting racial harassment in schools, bullying and corporeal punishment. Educators need to take into account the needs of travelling groups. Boarding schools, mobile teaching units and such can be solutions. Schooling in the mother tongue, the minority languages and protection of the linguistic identity of minorities since this is a crucial feature in the identity of minorities. Minority groups are more motivated if they feel there language is accepted.
The next speaker was mr. Michael Sherifis, President of CERD. He talked about the CERD recommendation 27, 'Discrimination against Roma - an efficient instrument to combat racial discrimination against Roma'. "We have examples of Roma children being placed in schools for disabled. Examples of forced relocation, settlement in isolated locations next to rubbish sites, industrial waste sites and sites surrounded by walls of faeces, we have lots of examples of virulent police brutality against Romas. For ages Romas have been rejected and excluded. For CERD it was distressing that at the beginning of the 3rd millenium, situations like this were allowed to exist. From the examination of country reports there were some hopeful signs. There were counties who recognized the problem and if you do that, it is a good sign , a start of doing something about it. The adoption of resolutions and recommendations alone do not suffice, it is the implementation. So it is important for the CERD recommendation to be more widely known, it could be referred to in the program of action for the WCAR. The WCAR should give notice to the recommendations and adopt them. Take into account that the Roma communities are the most disadvantaged and most subject to discrimination in the modern world."
Next Delia Grigore from the Rroma Center for Public Policies 'Aven Amentza' talked about identity and what it means to be a Rom. "Involve the Roma, include Rroma on all decision levels. Education: thank you Martin, you spoke my mind. How we understand education: in two different ways, firstly to educate the public, to teach public, teachers, police, how not to be racist, including the media, because their influence is very big, but mainly teachers have to be trained in diversity and non-racism. Secondly, we need to focus on teaching identity. When you hear all bad things about your identity all the time, this will make you deny your cultural identity and also your place in society. Education of identity in the family is important but not enough, it is also for the State to do this. If you don't see that the majority culture is on equal level with the Rroma identity you will get very shy and refuse that identity. We fight for recognition as a State without land, we hope for this, strive for this but it is not there yet. We cannot go back to were our culture is alive, we have no country so we have to keep it our culture alive ourselves, and our culture is dying, that is very clear. I am a teacher of Rroma language, and I see how the words disappear. So education of our cultural identity is very important."



Another Demo

At the end of the day, at 5 p.m., there was another demonstration, this one against racism in Durban. Some 40 people showed up and walked with banners from the Palais des Nations to the Palais Wilson on the banks of the Lake of Geneva. Tomorrow will be the last day which is a relief, metal fatigue is setting in bigtime.

You might be interested to know that ICARE succeeded in laying hands on the latest version of the Governmental declaration - Adopted paragraphs of the preambule of the declaration & adopted paragraphs of the Draft programme of action. Here it is!








Quotes of the day:

It's good there's a gender balance during this PrepCom, if it wasn't for the women, nothing would get done.

We could send half the world to Durban for the money that's wasted here!

(About Mary Robinson) Gee, I didn't realize she was so popular with the NGOs.

Contributions by others:

One more day to go!
Sleep well,
ICARE Newsteam.

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