In most cases, the reports cover visits to the countries in March and April 2010 and take into account developments up to June 2010. The exception in Turkey which was visited in October 2009, taking account developments up to March 2010.
The ECRI is the Council of Europe’s independent human rights monitoring body and is comprised of one expert member from each of the Council’s member states. The CoE works towards European integration but is distinct from the European Union. This accounts for the interesting spread of contact visits between EU-members states (Spain), candidate states (Turkey) and other European states (Armenia, and Herzegovina and Monaco).
It is within the remit of the ECRI to take such action as is necessary to combat violence, discrimination and prejudice against people or groups on the basis of race, colour, language, religion, nationality, national origin or ethnic origin.
The reports were announced today in five press releases:
Report on Armenia
Report on Bosnia and Herzegovina
Report on Monaco
Report on Spain
Report on Turkey
Image © ECRI [source]
We may wonder, How can this be? But our own insulated lives often keep us from seeing the ills of the world and taking action in any form to raise angst or even awareness against it. Until one day...it hits our own front door.
ReplyDelete@ Cher: certainly. Although, in WEurope an England, the rise of the right is quite apparent and there are racists and racist parties everywhere.
ReplyDeleteJust goes to show you how human everyone is. As a world at large there is much to be worked on. I think this is world wide issue that needs to be addressed.
ReplyDelete@ Flutietootie: Definitely. I think we like to think that racism and things like mass murder and genocide are things of the past but they simply move elsewhere. And if left unchecked, they lan up in your back yard!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you back in the Blogosphere!