On Saturday, August 7, 2010 the Amsterdam Gay community held its 15th gay pride canal parade through the canals of the Dutch capital. Most of the bigger political parties had their own boat to show support for gay rights and their concern over anti-gay violence, like the Liberal Democrats of D66, the liberal VVD with their 'VVGay'-boat and the social democratic party (PvdA) leader Job Cohen, former Mayor of Amsterdam. Of course the new Mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhardt van de Laan, was present on the official City of Amsterdam boat, looking just a tiny bit uncomfy :-). There were in total 80 boats. Highlights were the Europe Pride boat, aboard MEPs, giving attention for countries were gays are not or hardly free to hold a gay pride, and a complete symphony-orchestra. There was the 'Blue in Pink' Police boat, the Free Gay Africa boat, the Beit Ha'Chidush boat, the Gaydar.nl boat and many others. Gays and lesbians from all military services were aboard several boats, in full uniform. It was only partly dry, so a lot of the 350.000 spectators got soaking wet. The mood was great though. Click here for the photo-report.
A nation-wide hysteria and a pogrom-like atmosphere is taking over Italy. The images of the attack on the Roma camp in the Napels suburb of Ponticelli are reminiscent of the fire bombings or asylum seekers centers in Rostock, Solingen and many other places in East-Germany during the early nineties. Prompted by the arrest of a Roma teenager allegedly attempting to kidnap a six-month-old baby in Naples, which echoes the old antisemetic blood libel, and further fuelled by governmental incitement against Roma and migrants, a nation-wide hysteria and a pogrom-like atmosphere is taking over Italy, while Italian government insists that the victims of the violence and discrimination, the Roma, are the real problem. Italian Government passed a law that makes it easier to deport Roma and has started a campaign to register all Roma in Italy by taking their fingerprints. The latest outrage came when two young Roma sisters drowned in the sea near Napoli. The bodies were dumped on the beach like trash and lay there for hours, while the people on the beach kept on sunbathing, eating, drinking and having a good time. Read more and take action...
NGO coalition report outlines extreme deterioration of Roma rights in Italy: SECURITY A LA ITALIANA:
Fingerprinting, Extreme Violence and Harassment of Roma in Italy. Read the report...
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To ensure visibility of all recommendations you have made are visible in your own words, you can send them to info@icare.to. We accept recommendations in English, French and Spanish (Word document or pdf), clearly naming the organisation they come from. In the subject line please mention 'recommendations Tel Aviv'.
ICARE Incident Report - Spanish government tries to throttle NGO input during OSCE Conference
Today (Oct.9) the OSCE Chairmanship Conference on Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims is being held in Cordoba, Spain. Yesterday, Fundacion Tres Culturas, a Spanish organization with close ties to the Spanish Government, organized a preparatory Civil Society conference in the city of Jan. Some 50 NGO representatives were present, which is not much for such an important subject. As ICARE already noted during the OSCE HDIM last month, the Spanish leadership had been dragging their feet in providing info for NGOs (and others) about the conference and the Civil Society forum.
The Tolerance subjects do not deserve to be handled in such a sloppy and uncaring way. The result is that there are precious little NGOs present in Cordoba and to make things worse, the Spanish ministry of foreign affairs has hijacked the NGO input. The draft of the Civil Society Declaration that was produced yesterday has been changed in such a way that several important views on discrimination and intolerance against Muslims, unanimously endorsed by the Civil Society meeting, have been left out from the final Declaration, allegedly due to the lack of space. Who made the final declaration? Seven civil servants (!) from the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, surrounding one (!) member of the civil society during the final drafting of the document.
Several NGOs today protested against this and wrote a letter to the Spanish leadership and several OSCE bodies and representatives, which will also be read-out to the OSCE meeting in the form of an intervention. You can read it here.
Last week, during the annual OSCE Human Dimensions Implementation Meeting (HDIM) in Warsaw, Poland, The Russian Federation tried to bar the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) from participating and speaking. Luckily, this was prevented but the Russian Federation made a big show of walking out of the meeting as 'an appropriate measure'. Earlier they had threatened to leave the HDIM alltogether. The RCFS is an NGO that works on the Human Rights situation in Chechnya. RCFS was closed by the Russian State for failing to denounce their director Stanislav Dmitrievsky, who was convicted of inciting ethic hatred under Article 282 B of the penal code. This because he published an appeal written by Aslan Maskhadov who called for the international community to facilitate negotiations to stop the Chechen conflict.The Russian Federation blocked RCFS from participating in a Vienna OSCE conference on victims of terrorism (September 13 - 14, 2007) which prompted the USA to boycot this conference. Thanks to the support of the EU, the USA and Canada, RCSF (Which is now legally registered in Finland) managed to speak at the HDIM last Friday (Sept.29). Have a look here at their contribution (video file) and here (video file) at the statement by the Russian Federation Delegate, who 'heroically' walked out to have coffee when RCFS took the floor. The written version of the RCFS can be read here. Read more about RCFS here.
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Please feel free to send us any document, comment or information to publish on ICARE's website. You can send them to info@icare.to. We accept documents in English, French and Spanish (Word document or pdf), clearly naming the organisation they come from. In the subject line please mention 'PrepCom 2007'.
Click here to go to the reporting page. Reporting starts on Monday, August 27!
Participate!
To ensure visibility of all recommendations you have made are visible in your own words, you can send them to info@icare.to. We accept recommendations in English, French and Spanish (Word document or pdf), clearly naming the organisation they come from. In the subject line please mention 'recommendations Bucharest'.
Sign the Coalition Europe petition to combat hate crimes in Europe
Coalition Europe, a new platform of European Human Rights NGOS, recently launched a pan-European campaign against Hate Crimes From Hate Crimes to Human Rights. We seek your assistance in calling on European governments and intergovernmental organizations (EU, OSCE and the Council of Europe) to show the political will to combat hate crimes and to support hate-crimes victims.
adopted by participants at the international conference Antisemitism in Academia: Sources and Solutions, convened by the Magenta Foundation on February 23 & 24, 2006 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and submitted to the OSCE.
Antisemitism should have no place in (higher) education. However, in recent years universities on both sides of the Atlantic have had to grapple with this problem.Click
here to read the recommendations.
The World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, allowed the problem of Anti-Black racism to be more visible. Today, Anti-Black racism emerges from the general problem of racism and benefits from specific recognition and treatment... read more
While everybody was busy with the International Action week against racism the situation in Belarus got worse. Please visit the Charter 97 site for continuous updates on the developments and actions.
ICARE-news on the situation in Belarus can be found in a special section of the news, Human Rights & elections in Belarus
As an expression of support to the families of the victims of brutal and racist attacks in Antwerp and also as a serene protest against all forms of violence in society and a plea for a tolerant city.... read more
Live reporting from the OSCE Human Dimensions Implemetation Meeting (HDIM)
October 2 -15, 2006, Warsaw, Poland.
At the HDIM, ICARE will do live reporting (Russian and English) of the Human Rights/Tolerance and non-Discrimination & Roma and Sinti issues, starting in the afternoon of October 10. Go to the reporting.
On Wednesday, October 11, the Implementation of the OSCE Action Plan on
Roma and Sinti Issues will be on the agenda during the Annual Human Dimensions Implementation Meeting (HDIM) in Warsaw. The 55 OSCE participating countries will cover this subject.
In order to facilitate feedback between those governments and NGOs outside of the meeting ICARE, in cooperation with the ODIHR Contact Point for Roma & Sinti will be happy to receive your questions, issues and short statements by e-mail. We will then bring those to the attention of the plenary meeting and will report on any answers. Please send you mail to hdim@icare.to before October 11, 12 am.
Please disseminate this call widely through your mailinglists, listservs and contacts.
The questions we already got in can be found here .
The OSCE Action Plan on Roma and Sinti Issues and other relevant info can be found here.
On 23 August 1791, slaves of Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti) rose up in a rebellion, sparking the first movement towards the abolition of the slave-trade. To promote the remembrance of the Slave Trade and the recognition of the slave uprising against oppression, UNESCO has chosen the date of August 23 for celebration of The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition.
I CARE would like to do reporting on events happening around the world. Please send information on any events to info@icare.to and provide us with the details of your event and the contact person and telephone number for your organization. read more...
I CARE on the road in Europe 2005: Live reports in English, French and Spanish from the Cordoba OSCE Conference on Anti-Semitism
& Other Forms of Intolerance on June 8- 9, 2005 and from the preceding Seville NGO Forum on June 7, 2005
International Action week against racism 2005, Happenings throughout Europe -
ICARE Audio reports in English, French and Spanish.
International Action week against racism 2003, Happenings throughout Europe -
ICARE Audio reports (English).
ICARE Reports and special events
(InterConference at the Regional European Perparatory WCAR conference in Strasbourg, October 2000, 'Widerstand' Austria reports, etcetera.)
Stop the violence against Roma!
Today (Oct.9) the OSCE Chairmanship 
