Minorities in the Middle East

I have to confess that I am not extremely familiar from the academic point of view with the history and reliable references of minorities from the Middle East. I have a limited direct knowledge of the area and I had the occasion to meet in person or to have professional dialogues with people from the region, with various minority background. But I am reading very often media reports - with a careful scientific distance - and I see how often the minority issue is raised, used and misused. I am also trying to write currently an article about the possible comparisons between the approach to minority issues in various regions, as the South-Eastern Europe, Black Sea Region and, last but not least, the Middle East. My main idea is that without the pressure of joining in a near future global alliances and organizations as EU and NATO, offering subsequent economic and symbolic advantages, the situation of minorities will not receive soon a proper legal framework.

The recent conference held in Berlin by prof. Mordechai Zaken, author of a book about the Jewish communities in the Middle East, was a perfect challenge to orient my academic interests towards different historical, cultural and geographical space. The main focus on the conference was to explain the misuse of the comparison between the situation of the Kurds and of the Palestinians. Among the most important there are: different demographic data, lack of political will from the part of the states to get involved in supporting the Kurdish case, geopolitical and political opportunism in abusing the "Palestinian case", but also the lack of trained and organized elites and of a clear political manifesto and ways of action (in the Kurdish case). Repeating the same patterns or accepting various involvement from outside must be balanced once the clear interests are set. The religious aspects might be important, but the smart and targeted actions and the creation of valuable elites will give, by far, more weight and support for a coherent and, at the end, successful action.

The Language Row between Slovakia and Hungary

continues.

Muslims in Europe

The most recent report on discrimination of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights is indicating a discrimination for 31% of the Muslim population in Europe. The worrying sign of the report is the fact that many of them do not report the incidents to the police, because fear or lack of trust in the authorities. When the authorities are not trust, most likely the next stops are to isolate by the rest of the community and after to react on your own to discrimination or your own perception of it.

Panel Seeks Solutions To Albanian-Serb Divide In Kosovo

Over a year after independence was declared, Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians are no closer to coexistence.

Nikola Krastev
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
April 27

Three panels were brought together by the U.S.-based Association for the Studies of Nationalities to examine the challenges facing Kosovo one year after it declared independence from Serbia.

But as the debates intensified, it because clear there were no simple answers.

Panelists had sharp disagreements about the best way for Pristina to deal with its sizable Serbian majority in Kosovo's north, the majority of whom remain deeply loyal to Belgrade.

Some discussion participants suggested a federalist system of government might prove the best fit for Kosovo.

Nebojsa Vladislavjevic, a Serbian analyst who has written extensively on Kosovo, suggested a model close to the 1995 Dayton accord that divided power between Bosnia's Serbs, Croats, and Muslims might bring lasting peace to Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians.

"You need substantial territorial solutions, very radical territorial autonomy for a minority which is essentially under existential threat. And you also need some sort of overlapping sovereignties," Vladislavjevic said.

"That's why I said that the Bosnian-Dayton model is applicable to the Kosovo conflict as it stands right now, because it will provide security to the minority, self-rule, and also extensive links with Serbia. And at the same time you will have power-sharing between the Serbian and Albanian entities."

Others suggested a formal partition was a more practical solution. That would reunite northern Kosovo, where Serbs make up 90 percent of the population, with Serbia proper -- and leave the remaining territory as an undisputed, independent state that even Belgrade would willingly recognize.

But Shinasi Rama, a Kosovo expert and professor of political science at New York University, said such a partition could prove destablizing to the entire Balkan Peninsula, still grappling with the ethnic divisions resulting from the Yugoslav breakup.

While Kosovar Serbs have a natural patron in their fellow Serbs in Belgrade, Kosovar Albanians are far less reliant on their ethnic kin in Albania. A formal partition, Rama said, could hand the Serbs an unfair advantage.

"Serbs [in Kosovo] are being used by Belgrade because they are fully funded, financially supported, structurally organized," Rama said. "The Serbian elite provides leadership to them at the local level, etc. So, in a sense they see themselves as Serbs living in Kosovo."

Social Collapse

Adding to Kosovo's ethnic tensions is its rampant poverty. Unemployment hovers at a staggering 45 percent, suicide rates and criminal activity are rising, and corruption is widespread. Social services like garbage collection are largely defunct, leaving growing piles of refuse piling alongside village roads.

Hundreds of Albanians have had their electricity cut off during the past year for failing to pay their utility bills. But Kosovar authorities have been far more reluctant to cut off services to delinquent Serbian consumers, some of whom have reportedly gone years without paying for electricity.

In another notorious case, ethnic Serbs employed by Kosovo's police force failed to show up for work for over a year but continued to receive their salaries of 200 euros ($260) a month.

Such a situation, said Anna Di Lellio, a sociologist and journalist who has worked for years as a UN consultant in Kosovo, has left many Kosovar Albanians with a sense of deep distrust toward the central government in Pristina.

Anytime the majority feels the minority is enjoying special privilege, Di Lellio said, it's dangerous. "If a minority is not happy, we may solve the problem. But if the majority is not happy, it becomes dangerous for the minority," she said.

"So, actually my concern is for the Serb minority; that they not be presented as special, privileged. Nobody in Kosovo can not show up for work for a year and still receive a salary. But Serbs can do it, and these [Albanian] guys are going to think that they are privileged," Di Lellio. "But they're not. I'm not saying that."


See also:
Joe Biden started the Balkan tour

How can ethnic minorities reach the top of the profession?

Frances Gibb, Legal Editor
Times on-line
April 23

(Fiona Hanson/PA)

Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the Attorney-General

Baroness Scotland of Asthal could be forgiven if she saw no problem. Britain’s first black, first woman holder of the post of Attorney-General is a living example of diversity in the legal profession. But, as with women political leaders, is she a one-off?

There is one black High Court judge and none in the Court of Appeal or House of Lords. In the High Court, the only black ethnic minority judge is Mrs Justice Dobbs. “People blame me,” the Attorney-General says. “They say I shouldn’t have gone into politics” — the implication, and likelihood, being that she would have risen to the upper judicial ranks, setting a precedent there rather than in government.

Yet her own achievement aside, she does acknowledge continuing difficulties and this Saturday will outline what can be done in opening the Minority Lawyers’ Conference in London, a biennial event organised by the Law Society and Bar Council, and to be addressed by Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice and others.

“I shall be reminding people where we have come from, that this has been a journey we have been on for some years,” she says. “I became a law student in 1973 and if you look back, there were very few black ethnic minority lawyers in the profession at all. The number of women was relatively few . . . it was a predominantly male profession. If you look at people coming in now, the proportions are materially different to 30 years ago.”

The statistics bear her out. Ten per cent of the 140,000 solicitors on the roll are from black ethnic minorities and a notable 31 per cent of student enrolments. Even at partnership level, they make up 26.6 per cent.

At the Bar it is the same story: nearly 13 per cent of the 15,000 practising barristers are from ethnic minorities (although only 4 per cent of Queen’s Counsel) but among student enrolments, the percentage is 39 per cent of the 1,742.

“It is much better than it was,” Scotland says. “But is it yet totally mirroring the community we serve? No. Is there a long way to go? I think there is. We need to acknowledge we are not over the hump yet.”

A lack of confidence and problems of perception is one reason, she believes. “It’s the same with women: if a post is advertised and a woman candidate ticks nine of ten boxes, she will agonise over the tenth that she can’t fulfil and probably not go for the job. A man who ticks five or six boxes will give it a go.”

There are also fears that the recession is going to make the task of increasing diversity in the profession harder — or turn the clock back. Scotland disagrees. “We can’t blame the present recession on the complexion of the profession. We have to accept there is more for us to do.”

On the contrary, she argues that the international and global nature of the legal market provides opportunities for ethnic minority lawyers who might have wider language skills. Their recruitment would benefit law firms whose international client base expects the firm they instruct to be diverse in its own employment.

So what can be done? The theme of Saturday’s conference is “less talk, more action”. Kim Hollis, QC, who is chairing the event, has called for positive action to champion diversity and widen the available pool of talent. “There needs to be a clearer understanding of the term positive action. This doesn’t mean diluting the requirement for excellence: it would reflect other vital skills and experience to include those who may have been previously excluded as these factors have not been given adequate importance in any selection process.”

Scotland backs such positive action and last year set out her own diversity strategy, with policies for chambers in selecting pupils and tenants; and for her own department in appointing to the Attorney’s panels who do the department’s casework. It is a myth, she insists, that only barristers from certain sets of chambers get onto the panels — widely seen as career promotion and stepping stone to judicial appointment. She intends to monitor selection to the panels and to audit the work done by those on them. “Each of us \ has to do what we can, not wait for someone else. I have in a sense set my own targets and said that by 2012 we want people on the panels to reflect the diversity of our profession.”

As for whether there should be specific targets for judicial jobs, panels or anything else is another matter. Scotland seems to prefer “positive action”, adding: “In my view there are enough people within the profession — it’s a question of encouraging that talent where we find it . . . black, women, of different sexual orientation, young, old . . . if we are going to compete on a global stage.”

She “would love” to see a black law lord but predicts one only in the next “10 to 20 years”. “We are at a tipping point. We need to push hard to search out that talent we are looking for.”

School magazine in multi-ethnic Montenegro has lessons for adults too

Mia Lausevic

OSCE Website

April 9

The bell rings at the "Marshal Tito" elementary school in Ulcinj on Montenegro's southern coast, and the classroom doors burst open, letting out a torrent of children, laughing and running. A group of them stand in front of the classroom I have come to visit, waiting for their teachers to arrive. We enter the classroom, everybody takes their seats and now I can get a better look at them.

About 30 pupils, aged 7-15, sit in front of me. Ulcinj is known as a place where different cultures - Montenegrins, Albanians, Serbs, Roma, Egyptians and Ashkali - and different faiths - Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox - merge, and that is strongly reflected in this class.

But although the pupils come from very different backgrounds, they have one thing in common: they are all members of the school's journalism club, publishing the best of their work in their own magazine Djecja Planeta (Children's Planet).

The club has been run since September 2008 by two Egyptian journalists, Muhamed Ukovic and Biljana Alkovic, who have been trained under an OSCE Mission to Montenegro project to develop Roma, Egyptian and Ashkali leadership potential.

No taboos

Biljana, a student of political science, has nothing but praise for the children she works with. "There are no taboos in our discussions," she says. "We encourage the children to speak freely of the problems they face. We conduct interviews and opinion polls, trying to get answers to questions such as observance of children's rights and violence in schools, and we publish the results in the magazine."

The young journalists meet on Mondays after school. They work in groups with their teachers, discussing various topics - ethics, tolerance, discrimination, drug abuse and other problems - and preparing the material for the next issue of Children's Planet.

"When I grow up, I would like to be a journalist. I would work hard on observance of human rights and I would criticize all those who breach them," wrote Bahrija Begzic, a 12-year-old girl from the sixth grade in an article for the magazine.

Striving for truth

Her friend Zlatica Nakic, also 12, added: "Striving for truth is the purpose of journalism. A journalist has to behave well and be friendly, because journalists are the eyes and the ears of common citizens. This profession also requires impartiality and tolerance, which are necessary for good communication and good relations."

And in an article on friendship, Zlatica's twin sister Tamara wrote: "My best friend is Mersiha. My secret is her secret, my pain is her pain too, she's happy when I'm happy and we share everything. We have different religions, but that only helps us learn about different cultures and understand that different cultures and tradition should bind us, not divide us. Friendship knows no boundaries, nations or skin colour."

The magazine has a print run of 1,500 copies and is distributed free to all pupils at the school. "All the children are excited about it - not just those who work on it, but those who read it too. We started working in September 2008 with some 12 pupils, and now the journalism club has more than 30 members," Biljana says with pride.

Common goal

"This initiative has proved very valuable, as children from different cultures and religions are very motivated to work together in groups for a common goal - the magazine," says Raffaella Zoratti, Democratization Officer in the OSCE Mission and manager of the project.

"The idea was to create strong new friendships. To my surprise and my great pleasure, from the very beginning these children worked together as one, without any prejudice, with their hearts and minds open. It seems to me that we have plenty to learn from them."

As I leave the school, I have the feeling that these children have given us a difficult and very important task. They have created a Children's Planet free from all discrimination, intolerance and injustice - can we adults do the same?

Amnesty accuses Austrian police of racism

Veronika Oleksyn
AP
April 9

Immigrants and ethnic minorities living in Austria are more likely to be suspected of crimes than whites and are regularly denied their right to equal treatment by the country's police and judicial system, Amnesty International said Thursday.

In a report released in Vienna, the human rights watchdog also said Austrian authorities do not effectively investigate and punish racially motivated police misconduct.

"Amnesty International is concerned that the Austrian criminal justice as a whole, and the police in particular, are failing to provide the same level of service to foreign nationals and members of ethnic minorities as it routinely provides the Austrian citizens," the report said.

Based on case studies and interviews with lawyers, community leaders, justice system officials and others, the report also found that ethnic minorities in the Alpine republic are subject to a range of negative stereotypes and that these prejudices can impact the behavior of law enforcement officials.

"Amnesty International is concerned ... that in everyday practice skin color too often appears to constitute a determining ground for police interventions in Austria," the report said.

In particular, Amnesty said there was "considerable evidence" Austrian police has engaged in widespread discriminatory ethnic profiling over the past decade, particularly in its efforts to counter drug-related crime. Often, the targets are young black men, the group said.

"The majority of individuals of African origin that Amnesty International met with insisted that random identity checks, often involving searches, were still — despite a notable improvement over the last two years — a routine part of their existence," the report said.

Interior Ministry Rudolf Gollia acknowledged that there had been individual cases of police misconduct toward foreigners, but insisted it wasn't a widespread problem.

"We reject allegations of institutional discrimination or racism in Austria's police," Gollia said.

The report said Austrian law enforcement agencies often fail to give serious consideration to complaints from ethnic minorities and fail to investigate offenses against them effectively and impartially.

Two months ago, undercover police officers in Vienna attacked an American teacher they mistook for a drug dealer. Mike Brennan said he believed he was singled out because he's black.

Police acknowledged the mix-up, but the officers were not suspended.

"I'm concerned about the officers still working," the 34-year-old teacher told The Associated Press on Thursday, adding he was encouraged by Austrians who approached him on the street or in cafes to wish him well and apologize for what happened to him.

Heinz Patzelt, secretary general of Austria's chapter of Amnesty International, said it would be easy for Austrian authorities to quickly improve the situation — if they acknowledged that racial discrimination was widespread and not limited to individual cases.

"Racism is a cancer that will spread and spread if it is not diagnosed," Patzelt said.

Amnesty International - http://www.amnesty.org/

U.N. Official Notes Criminalization of Indian Protests in Latin America

EFE, Latin America Herald Tribune
March 31


BERLIN – Speakers at a forum organized by the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism sounded the alarm on Monday against the growing criminalization of Indians’ social protests in Latin America, especially in Mexico.

The U.N. special envoy for Mexico’s indigenous peoples, Rodolfo Stavenhagen, said at the IMADR event in Berlin that while some governments were promoting freedom for minorities, in practice these new policies are not being applied.

“Indigenous peoples have a long history of suffering discrimination throughout Latin American countries and many of them are still the victims of racism, injustice, corruption and violent repression,” he told Efe.

Stavenhagen criticized the fact that attacks on Indians have become “generalized” in countries like Colombia and Mexico – where a month ago two Indian human-rights activists were found murdered – while in others like Guatemala and Ecuador “the situation is not very good either.”

“The laws that have been passed may be more or less wonderful, but there are big lapses in implementing these statutes,” he said.

Stavenhagen said, however, that concrete measures are being taken in response to minority complaints, such as the decision this month by Brazil’s supreme court to create the reservation known as Raposo Serra do Sol.

The new reservation, which occupies some 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres), is inhabited by about 18,000 people of the Macuxi, Taurepang, Wapixana, Ingariko and Patamona ethnicities.

“We have good and bad situations, although apparently the bad ones are more permanent than the good,” he said.

Stavenhagen signaled loss of land as one of the chief survival problems of these minorities, whose territories in coastal and wooded areas have been taken over for “exploitation by giant corporations” searching for water and raw materials.

The IMADR forum, organized in conjunction with the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, a Gypsy rights group, was held under the title “Maintaining the rights of minorities: lessons and challenges from Europe, Africa, Asia and America.”

IMADR - www.imadr.org - was founded in Tokyo in 1988 and is a consulting body of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Should France Start Counting Its Minority Population?

Bruce Crumley / Paris
TIME
March 24

It's news to no one that France's blighted unemployment-ravaged suburban housing projects have disproportionately high black and Arab populations. It's also no scoop that those same two ethnic groups are under-represented in the nation's elite schools, corporate management ranks and political establishment. The French themselves are acutely aware that racial discrimination is a problem — and since the 2005 suburban riots have appeared eager to do something to remedy it.

A good place to start might be figuring out the exact size and location of France's ethnic groups. Except that every time someone proposes including ethnic data within national statistics all hell breaks lose. The accepted wisdom in France, it seems, is that acknowledging difference, and naming it, is bigotry itself. (See pictures of Paris expanding.)

"Ethnic statistics, affirmative action [and] quotas are caricatures," fumed Fadela Amara, France's Secretary of State for Urban Affairs, who before entering government led a civil rights movement advancing minority and feminist causes. The daughter of Algerian immigrants, Amara sees official ethnic statistics as dangerous, not helpful. "Our republic must not become a mosaic of communities," she says, rejecting calls to add race to the gender, age and occupational categories contained in official data researchers use to study French society. "No one should again have to wear a yellow star."

Linking the ethnic make-up of a multiracial nation to genocide may sound like hyperbole elsewhere, but the French know that tinkering with the founding principles and universal values of the nation was central to some of the ugliest episodes in the country's history. The French constitution proudly declares the country "an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic [that] assures equality before the law for all its citizens, without distinction of origin, of race, or religion". That gender- and color-blindness, national ideology holds, protects minority populations by ignoring the differences that divide them into often mutually hostile groups in societies like the U.S. and U.K. Indeed, few words are uttered in France with the same disdain as communitarisme: the proud identification with a component group within wider society so beloved in multi-cultural nations. (See pictures of 40 years of Concorde.)

France's indivisible ideology is noble in theory — but often mocked by reality. There are plenty of periods in French history where racial and religious discrimination were rife — from the colonial era to cooperation with Nazi occupiers. The 2005 rioting that spread across France's suburban housing projects — and the international media attention that it drew — provided another reminder that something was seriously wrong in the land of fraternité et egalité. That unrest seems to have finally provoked a period of soul searching in France.

That means re-examining some of France's founding principles. President Nicolas Sarkozy, for one, has broken ancient taboos by suggesting France study American-style equal opportunity, quotas and the use of ethnic data within official statistics to get a more accurate picture of the nation's face. "There are two Frances," Arab-French businessman Yazid Sabeg told the daily Libération. "One wants to look things in the face — meaning the way demographics in this country have changed. The other is conservative France, which is prone to immobility in the name of largely artificial equality." (See pictures of France's Bastille Day celebrations.)

Tapped by Sarkozy in November to suggest ways of mending the nation's race relations, Sabeg has proposed compiling and analyzing racial statistics as one of several ways of making the nation's anti-discrimination initiatives and laws stronger and more easily applied.

But that's prompted a backlash from opponents who believe the goal should be getting France to practice the color-blind promise of the Republic — not swapping it for U.S.-style multiculturalism and affirmative action. "Even if it's out to do the right thing, positive discrimination remains discrimination, and classifying people by race and ethnicity is in a manner itself racism," argues Malek Boutih, former head of France's seminal civil rights group S.O.S. Racism, and now a member of the Socialist Party's national bureau. "You don't surrender your principles because they are being abused in practice, but rather find ways to shape reality to your principles. You can't give into one discrimination by creating counter-discrimination."

That's a view widely held across French society. But in a sign of change, more and more voices are speaking up to support Sarkozy's and Sabeg's ideas. The number of minority characters on television, film and in the media generally has noticeably increased over the past few years. People in other industries have begun pointing out the practical problems created by the legal ban on including ethnic data in official statistics. "From a sociological point of view, I'm for it, just as I'd be inclined to include any qualitative statistic as revelatory and essential to social, political and economic evolution as race is," says Dominique Reynié, president of the Foundation for Political Development, a think tank in Paris. "It's not just a valuable tool — it's one that may offer ways of combating discrimination."

It would also at last let France see its real face clearly. France's highly centralized government and top-to-bottom administration can keep tabs on myriad ways its 64.1 million population is evolving except in terms of its racial make-up. The prohibition on using ethnic or religious data — even if volunteered — means France can do no better than estimate that its population includes 4 to 7 million Arabs, 3 to 5 million blacks, some 1.5 million Asians, and around 600,000 Jews. (See TIME's pictures of the week.)

Using the highest of those estimates, those four categories represent nearly 22% of France's population — a group that includes arguably the biggest victims of racism and discrimination. The vast majority of French people want to change that. The question is how.

Oxbridge universities fail to enrol ethnic minority students

The Guardian
March 12

Just five students of black Caribbean origin started at Oxford this year; at Cambridge there are eight

Students at Oxford University. Photograph: Graham Turner

Oxford and Cambridge universities are still failing to increase significantly the number of places given to ethnic minority students, despite being given nearly £1m a year each by the government to widen access.

The latest admissions statistics show that just five out of more than 3,000 students who started at Oxford this year are black Caribbean in origin, while the equivalent figure at Cambridge is eight.

The UK's most ancient universities are under political pressure to open up access to a wider range of students and both have increased the proportion of students from state schools this year, but black Caribbeans remain a very small proportion of undergraduates at both universities.

At Oxford, applications from Indian and Chinese UK students actually fell, with a corresponding decline in the numbers gaining entry.

At Oxford, the entry for October 2008 included five black Caribbean students (the same as the previous year) among a total intake of 3,170 including overseas students. A further 10 were described as white and black Caribbean. The 65 Indian students were the largest minority among the 2,683 home students, but that was 20 fewer than in 2007.

There were 37 Chinese students, again down on the previous year, 17 Pakistani and 24 black African. There were 74 white and Asian students accepted and three Bangladeshis (up from one the year before).

With more than four students applying for every place, competition is intense and the success rate among ethnic minority UK students is nearly 29%, compared with an overall average of 23.7%, but it remains below the hit rate of independent school candidates which is 29.4%.

Cambridge is due to publish its latest admissions figures later this month and they will show a similar ethnic mix among home students. There were eight black Caribbean, 20 black African, 116 Indian, 95 Chinese, 16 Pakistani and six Bangladeshi students. There is a very similar 27% success rate among ethnic minority applicants to Cambridge.

Both universities say they cannot select ethnic minority students if they do not apply and insist they are making strenuous efforts to attract more applications.

A spokeswoman for Oxford said: "The university is committed to attracting, selecting and supporting students from any race or background."

Most outreach activities are open to students from all backgrounds but the universities also conduct schemes specifically for ethnic minorities. For example, St Anne's College works with the National Black Boys Can Association.

The number of home students from Indian families who applied for 2008 fell from 389 to 338, and the pattern was repeated for Chinese students with a decline from 206 to 186. Inevitably, fewer from these communities are now Oxford undergraduates.

Cambridge said the Group to Encourage Ethnic Minority Applications programme, which was set up in 1989 as a joint venture by students and the colleges, had succeeded in pushing up the numbers of ethnic minority students from 5.5% to 15.5% over two decades.

Oxford admissions statistics will also be scrutinised by schools and parents for clues as to which subjects will give students the best chance of success when they apply.

Classics emerges as the comparatively easy option with a success rate of 47% (55% for men), followed by geology and materials science, which are smaller courses.

Most competitive is the economics and management degree, followed by engineering, economics and management, and a law degree which includes a year of study at a European university.

Poll finds vast majority of Hungarians openly anti-Roma

MTI

March 6

Over 80 percent of people asked in a recent survey were prejudiced against the Roma, Nepszava reports, quoting pollster Median.

Four fifths of the sample said that "Gypsies make no effort to fit into society."

Almost 60 percent of the respondents openly said that they thought "crime was in the blood of Gypsies," and 36 percent said that the Roma should be "separated from the rest of society".

The survey also established a correlation between citizens' political views and their attitude towards the Roma minority: the closer a respondent was to the far right, the more anti-Roma he was.

Median also noted that it was people of modest incomes in small villages that appeared the least intolerant of their Roma neighbours.

Hungary's Roma population is estimated at around 600,000. Only about 100,000 declared themselves to be ethnic Roma during the minority government elections in 2006, said the paper.

The paper also pointed out that while in the 1980s 70-80 percent of Roma men were employed, only 28 percent of them had jobs in 1993 -- the situation having stagnated or even deteriorated since then.

OSCE High Commissioner brings police and minorities together in Crimea

Dmitri Alechkevitch and Oleg Smirnov

February 18

OSCE

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, thousands of Crimean Tatars came back to their homeland in Ukraine after decades in exile following their 1944 deportation by Stalin. Estimates of the numbers deported range from 180,000 to 200,000.

The Ukrainian State is widely and rightly credited for facilitating the repatriation of the Crimean Tatars, who now number around 250,000 according to the 2001 census.

However, although the return of the Crimean Tatars went smoothly, their reintegration into Crimean society has been problematic. Lack of employment opportunities, unresolved land issues and under-representation in the public sector have become part of everyday life for them.

Desperate people do desperate things. On several occasions, the Crimean Tatars have blocked roads, organized tent camp protests and staged demonstrations, straining relations with the police.

Need for greater confidence

Knut Vollebaek, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM), believes there is an urgent need for confidence-building between the Crimean police and minorities.

"The police and the ethnic communities have much to gain from working closely together. One has to bear in mind the perils of police and minorities only seeing one another through the protective visors of riot police helmets," he says.

Easier said than done, sceptics would say. There are, however, good examples of police-minority partnership that have emerged despite tough circumstances. Highlighting them and promoting co-operation between the police and minorities was the aim of a conference co-organized by the HCNM and the Ukrainian Interior Ministry in late 2008.

But when the regional police management and minority communities gathered at the Crimean police headquarters in Simferopil on 6 November for the conference, passions were running very high.

On the night before the meeting, Nadir Berinkulov, a 21-year old Crimean Tatar from the village of Solontsovo, was shot by a police officer and later died in hospital. The circumstances of his death are currently being investigated.

Heated debate

The conference's morning session gave people an opportunity to air their feelings. Needless to say, the shooting was hotly debated.

"It may sound cynical but we are not surprised at the 6 November incident," commented Emine Avameliva, a lawyer from the Mejlis, a Crimean Tatar NGO. "Crimean Tatars have grown used to abusive policing."

After the heated opening, the roundtable focused on many aspects of police-minority interaction. The police brought up the lack of minority co-operation in solving crimes. Crimean Tatars criticized the absence of any police response to the hate propaganda against them in the mass media and among young people. Other minority communities decried the lack of police outreach and information sharing.

The representation of minorities in the police figured prominently.

"Distorted mirror"

"The High Commissioner has recommended that the police service must mirror the demographics of the population," said Refat Chubarov, one of the Mejlis leaders.

"In Crimea, the mirror is distorted," Chubarov noted, referring to the fact the Crimean Tatars account for 12.1 per cent of the total population of Crimea, but only 4.0 per cent of police personnel.

The HCNM's experts from the UK and Russia showed convincingly how the police and minorities can benefit from working together, and how an emphasis on training, recruitment and communication can turn them into partners.

Follow-up needed

"While the very fact that police-minority dialogue is taking place is encouraging, it has to be followed up," High Commissioner Vollebaek says. "Concrete projects in Crimea, such as police training in management of inter-ethnic relations, will boost confidence and trust."

The High Commissioner has found like-minded partners in the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. Two advisers to the Minister, Yurii Lutsenko, and senior police management from Crimea took part in the Simferopil event, listening patiently and engaging constructively.

"We have been given food for thought," says Maryna Novikova, one of the Minister's advisers. "Now it is time to turn thoughts into action."

The bet of alternative cinema in Bangladesh

The Bangladeshi film industry found a niche, in covering ethnic minorities and cultural diversity.

What to do in/with the Western Balkans?

From the last The Economist, two articles on the Balkans:

- The Western Balkans, a stuck Nation - These countries are hit by the economic crisis, fighting with a culture lacking or tailored against cooperation, with unclear EU and NATO membership status. It is hardly to believe the situation will improve, before a long period of evaluation of the consequences of the last enlargements of the two organizations.

- A year in the life of Kosovo - Even everybody agrees on the extraordinary economic, social and political stability guarantees offered by the EU membership perspectives, at the practical level an infinite number of issues arouse. You need transparent and accountable systems, flexible and, most important, corruption free bureaucracies, human resources and skills and, again, a low level of corruption, in order to skilfully use the EU financial resources. As for Kosovo, it haven't been yet prooved the apocalyptic predictions - aired not for free mainly by Russia - of a permanent turmoil in the area, following the unilateral declaration of independence, one year ago. But, the level of poverty and lack of a clear future are nothing but encouraging for its fate.

OSCE: Ethnic segregation in education must be prevented

SKOPJE, 30 January 2009 - The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM), Knut Vollebaek, today warned the authorities in Skopje about the negative consequences that increasingly segregated education will have on the society.

"Creeping separation is, unfortunately, becoming a reality in the country. This is a worrisome trend and is a setback for your society. Segregation undermines the very basis on which your children learn to build a shared society," Vollebaek said during his visit to the country.

In his talks with the President, the Prime Minister and other high officials, as well as representatives of national minorities, Vollebaek focussed on the need for integrated education, the situation of the country's smaller ethnic communities and the implementation of minority-related legislation and court decisions.

"Your country has made headway in the past few years in some key areas of education, including mother-tongue tuition, the depoliticization of education and increased parental involvement in local municipalities. This progress should not be undercut by increased ethnic separation," he told the authorities..

The authorities, including the Prime Minister and the Education Minister, agreed to work closely with the HCNM to ensure that such separation be stopped and reversed.

Vollebaek also visited the municipalities of Kicevo and Tetovo as well as Struga where problematic inter-ethnic relations among students require particular attention. In addition, he discussed integrated education in a speech to students at the South East European University in Tetovo, as well as with a group of parliamentarians in Skopje.

Macedonia Discovers "Unknown Europeans"

Skopje
Sinisa-Jakov Marusic
Balkan Insight

Vlachs performing traditional songs

A new photo exhibit dubbed “Unknown Europeans” is introducing Macedonians to some of the smallest minorities in Europe.

Sephardim from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albanian-speaking Arbereshe from Italy, the Slavonic Sorbs in Germany, the Aromunians or Vlachs in Macedonia, the Gottsheers in Slovenia, and the Degesi in Slovakia are all included in the exhibit, which kicked off on Thursday evening in Skopje's City Museum.

The show features evocative landscape photographs and charming personal portraits of people whose personal and ethnic histories are little known to the rest of the old continent.
The photos by Austrian photographer Kurt Kaindl are accompanied by short introductory profiles on each minority by the writer Karl - Markus Gauss.

“Although these minorities never aspired to creating their own state, through preservation of their own distinct cultural identities they proved the richness of cultural diversities in Europe”, Gauss told local media.

The two Austrians spent years visiting homes, interviewed minorities' cultural and political representatives and documented their particular ways of life. Many of these people today continue to struggle for their national survival, the authors say.

The event, which also featured a Vlach male choir, was opened by the Austrian Ambassador to Macedonia, Alois Kraut and by the head of the Vlach Community in Macedonia, Nikola Babovski.

Long march of the black British soldier

The Army says it has come a long way since minority recruits were weeded out, but has Prince Harry's 'Paki' remark uncovered a less palatable truth?

By Cahal Milmo, Kim Sengupta and Terri Judd

January 13

The Independent

Photo: Getty Images, The Independent

They were known as "D Factor personnel". For 20 years, the British Army restricted the number of ethnic minority recruits to its ranks by instructing its medical officers to use the secret designation to single out would-be soldiers with "Asiatic or negroid features".

It was a policy which might have belonged to the 19th century or the First World War, but in reality it only ended in 1977 when medical examiners were told to stop classifying recruits according to physical characteristics which included looking like "Chinamen, Maltese or even swarthy Frenchmen".

Racial prejudice blighted the achievements of Second Lieutenant Walter Tull, who volunteered for the British Army a week after the declaration of war in 1914 and was recommended for the Military Cross by his superiors for his "gallantry and coolness under fire". The son of a former slave in Barbados, 2nd Lt Tull never received his award because military law forbade "any negro or person of colour" being commissioned and the medal seemed a step too far.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) officials have been at pains to underline that the armed services have come a long way in stamping out racism and increasing recruitment of members of the ethnic minorities. But as the row over Prince Harry's use of racist language to describe a Pakistani comrade continued yesterday, new figures revealed the problems the armed forces are facing in retaining black and Asian soldiers.

Data obtained by The Independent shows that the Army is losing ethnic minority recruits nearly 50 per cent faster than the rest of the services. In 2007, the last year for which complete figures are available, the Army lost 6.3 per cent of its black and Asian soldiers, compared to an average of 4.5 per cent.

The latest monthly figures show that the outflow of ethnic minority personnel across all services has risen to 5.2 per cent of all recruits.

One Whitehall defence source said: "Ethnic minority soldiers leaving the forces at a faster rate than others is not the direction we want to be heading in. There has been a big push in recruiting from our black and Asian communities and currently we have the lowest number of people leaving for four years. But it does not look good if we cannot persuade our minority recruits to stay."

Military chiefs can point with some justification to success in recruiting from the minorities. The proportion of non-white personnel in the Army, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force has risen from 3.5 per cent in 2005 to 6.3 per cent last year. The Army now has 9 per cent of its intake from minorities – comfortably above its target of 5 per cent. The Navy and the Air Force lag behind with 2.7 per cent and 2.3 per cent respectively.

But critics, including the House of Commons Defence Committee, point out that about 60 per cent of minority recruits come from Commonwealth countries rather than Britain's own ethnic communities. The MoD said figures showing the number of British minority personnel are not produced.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission said yesterday that it has "concerns" about the accuracy of the ethnic monitoring data produced by the armed forces and would be raising the issue of Prince Harry's remarks with senior military staff.

Despite success in recruiting non-white personnel to the lower ranks, few make it into the upper echelons of the services. Just 2.5 per cent of officers above the rank of lieutenant colonel or equivalent are from ethnic minorities, falling to 1.5 per cent in the Navy. However, the highest ranking ethnic minority officer in the forces is in the Navy. Admiral Amjad Hussain, who arrived in Britain from northern Pakistan at the age of three, was promoted to become the first non-white admiral in 2006.

Senior officers admitted that the damage caused by Prince Harry referring to Lieutenant Ahmed Raza Khan as "our little Paki friend" in a video diary shot while training at Sandhurst in 2006 would have a negative impact on ethnic minority recruiting. Colonel Paul Farrar, the Army's deputy head of recruiting, described the use of the term as "unacceptable". He said: "None of this helps the Army and whatever we do to try to encourage people from diverse backgrounds to join. I haven't seen the full context of what [Prince Harry] said, but any sort of throwaway line of this nature is to be regretted."

The controversy showed no sign of abating yesterday. Gordon Brown said that the prince's "genuine" apology should be accepted, but Keith Vaz, one of Britain's few Asian MPs, said: "What is important is, does it reveal a wider culture in the Army where words of this kind are acceptable?"

For its part, the MoD said: "Bullying and racism are not endemic in the armed forces and there are robust procedures for dealing with all forms of unacceptable behaviour."

Blogs Views from both sides

From military blogs

*Service people often use nicknames and pet names without meaning offence, it's all part of the comradeship. There are far more important issues going on than bothering about remarks made ages ago. rod-gearing

"Paki" is used all the time by racist scum, with venom. What the press are manipulating is the context, knowing full well that the military are merciless in taking the piss out of each other by exploiting individual differences. The majority of free-thinking people will recognise it for what it is. Dallas

*Brit is fine. Taff is OK. Jock is acceptable. Paddy is used quite often. We use these when addressing these people to their faces, more often than not they are our friends. So just what is racist?? SRENNAPS

From Asian blogs

*For years the term "Paki" was hurled at me in the street. This was meant as a racist and hurtful term. So, all of you saying that it is harmless name calling, think again. M Hussain

*An apology through a third person is unacceptable, so if he really is sorry we wait to see if he is man enough to own up to it. If not, then we know him better. Raheel

*If this was any other day they would be saying we are being PC about it etc. But, as the genocide in Gaza takes place they want to divert our attention, it's not going to work!!! Raja

Being minority, in Germany

The minorities in Germany and their identity strategies.

OSCE Minorities Commissioner seeks stable solution to plight of Meskhetians

Written by Nino Bolkvadze and Dmitri Alechkevitch, OSCE, November 2008

The Meskhetians, a Turkic-speaking ethnic group, experienced some of the worst atrocities at the hands of the Soviet government. In 1944, Joseph Stalin decided to deport them from Georgia because of their alleged collaboration with the Nazis. Sadly, after 64 years in exile, the Meskhetian issue is still on the international agenda.

Mamuka Khutsishvili, 44, and Osman Mehriev-Kuradze, 89, seem to have little in common. Mamuka, an engineer by profession, lives in Akhaltsikhe, the municipal town of south-western Georgia's Samtskhe-Javakheti region, where he runs a small business. Osman is a villager from Abastumani; he is now too old for cultivating vegetables, something he has done all his life.

What they do share is their ethnic origin. Both are Meskhetians.

Horrors of deportation

Osman was 25 when his family was driven out of their home. "It happened on 15 November 1944. The soldiers broke into our house at 3:00 am and ordered us to follow them, hardly giving us any time even to dress. We were all thrown into cattle trucks and traveled for 40 days without any food or warm clothes. I remember people ate grass for survival. Many died of hunger and infectious diseases. I saw soldiers throwing corpses from carriages. Ever since, I cannot recover from the nightmare of those days," Osman says as his eyes fill with tears.

Unlike other ethnic groups brutally expelled by the Stalinist regime, the Meskhetians were never allowed to return to their native land. In the final days of the Soviet Union many had to flee again, as inter-ethnic clashes and pogroms drove them out of their homes in parts of Central Asia.

The long road home

Large numbers of Meskhetians have settled in Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and other countries. Some, like Mamuka and Osman, have returned to their homeland. For thousands of Meskhetians, though, it remains a dream.

Mamuka lived in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and had a well-paid job but homesickness made him come back.

"When I got married and my children were born, I decided to return to my homeland while the kids were still very little. I myself was raised without any national history, heroes or values. I did not want my children to be deprived of them too."

The situation of the Meskhetians has long been the focus of the international community's attention. On joining the Council of Europe in 1999, Georgia undertook a commitment to facilitate the return of those Meskhetians who had been deported and their descendants. In parallel, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) and other international bodies have been working with third countries in order to make sure that the Meskhetians do not remain stateless.

"Not a tennis ball"

The position of the HCNM has always been steadfast: those Meskhetians who wish to return to Georgia should be able to do so at the earliest opportunity, on a voluntary basis and in conditions of dignity and security.

"I cannot emphasize the word 'voluntary' enough. Meskhetians resident in Russia, Azerbaijan and other countries have to be given the option of integration and naturalization in their host state," says the High Commissioner, Ambassador Knut Vollebaek.

"These people are not a tennis ball that countries can hit back and forth across a net of international borders. The plight of Meskhetians should finally end."

Repatriation legislation in place

In 2007, Georgia put in place an appropriate legal framework to facilitate the return of the Meskhetians. The law sets out the conditions that prospective returnees have to meet in order to be repatriated.

However, the legal text is "complicated and vague," says Temur Lomsadze, Director of International Foundation for the Support of Repatriation.

"An ordinary person will find it hard to make sense of its provisions. Besides, Meskhetians have difficulties in filling out applications in Georgian or English, as required by the law. All those willing to return have to submit documents by January 2009, so they are short of time as well. Despite all this, I think it is anyway a step forward that the Law on Repatriation has been adopted."

The International Foundation for the Support of Repatriation, assisted by the HCNM, has published a guide that explains in accessible language the procedures that the Law sets out. The 200-page document introduces the Meskhetians to Georgia, a country that differs dramatically from the place they were forced to abandon in 1944.

About 20,000 copies of the guide will be distributed by the international Meskhetian non-governmental organization Vatan and Georgian consulates to Meskhetians in Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It should help those willing to return to consider all the pros and cons.

The August war in Georgia has affected the plans of many prospective returnees. The HCNM has therefore proposed to the government to extend the January 2009 deadline.

Return to where?

Like elsewhere in the former Soviet Union, the question of return is complicated by the legacy of the Stalinist deportations. Most Meskhetians used to live in Samtskhe-Javakheti, a region of Georgia which is now home to an ethnic Armenian majority and was long neglected by successive central governments in the 1990s.

Many of those Meskhetians who wish to move to Georgia want to relocate to precisely the birthplace of their ancestors, Samtskhe-Javakheti. Economic hardship is no obstacle to their plans. Osman and his sons, for example, took out a loan to buy a house in their native village, Abastumani.

"This is the place where I was born and my ancestors are buried. Many other Meskhetians also wish to come here, to our original habitat. Justice will be restored once everyone is given an opportunity to return to Samtskhe-Javakheti," says Osman Kuradze.

Some, however, fear that the tangible improvement that Samtskhe-Javakheti has witnessed since 2003 could be put at risk by the unmanaged and massive return of the Meskhetians to the region.

High Commissioner Vollebaek believes the repatriation has to be carefully thought through and supported by international assistance.

"Only such an approach will ensure that inter-ethnic relations in Georgia are reinforced rather than undermined."

Canadian diversity

Ethnic conflict and its solutions, a Canadian perspective