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During an interview with the ERRC’s Sinan Gokcen, Mr Erno Kallai, Hungary’s newly-elected Parliamentary Commissioner for National and Ethnic Minorities Rights (Minorities Ombudsman) emphasised the need to expand the Ombudsman’s mandate to cover discrimination in the private sphere.
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The situation of Romani communities in Europe is complex and does not allow the approach of ‘one size fits all’. Discrimination against Roma as individuals or as a community in access to education or in child protection systems are phenomena that the human rights community regularly observes. However, it would be foolhardy if activists, researchers or responsible governments would claim to fully know and understand the scope and quantity of theses phenomena targeting Roma. Over the past years, many studies have been conducted that investigated the reasons for and the background of exclusion; however, stakeholders concerned about this matter have not succeeded in achieving far-reaching tangible change. This is more than regrettable. Tensions between majority populations and Romani communities around issues of marginalisation, discrimination and assimilation do not contribute to a social cohesion which is required for countries to attain stability and progress.
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The European Court of Human Rights Acknowledges Systemic Discrimination in the Case of Education of Romani Children from the Czech Republic
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Born and raised in Kalamata, a small city to the south-west of Athens, Greece, I could never imagine that one day I would somewhat presumptuously undertake to jot down a short autobiographical note (nor for that matter that anyone would be interested in reading it). As it often happens, my involvement in the field of Roma rights was the result of a series of (fortunate) accidents. Following my failure in the Greek University Admission Examinations, I migrated to the United Kingdom to study at the University of Essex. My efforts during the first two years were devoted solely on passing my exams, and it would be only in the third and final year of my LLB that I would first get a glimpse of the human rights world and decide that this is what I would like to explore further.
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During the not very distant totalitarian past in Czech Republic, it was quite common for people in wheel chairs to be cleared from the streets of Prague before the great Communist Party meeting. The legacy of the past, to consider any departure from the working class image as an anomaly, has led to the continuation of widespread discrimination, even in the new democratic Czech state, of individuals who are visually different – owing to race, social status, physical challenges or mental disabilities. It can be said that public attitudes, over the years, are changing for the better for some groups, but the position of marginalised Roma certainly remains almost untouched. When these perceptions play into institutions like child protection departments, courts, children’s homes, the police, schools etc. Roma are forced to live in a limbo and continue to be the favourite object of state care. This article will present the experience of our nongovernmental organisation, Life Together, in the field of child protection and support for families endangered with forced removal of children to institutional care in the Czech Republic.
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In 1999, Roma were recognised as one of five historical minorities in Sweden and Romani Chib was recognised as a minority language. As a consequence, a Council for Romani Issues was formed in 2002 as an advisory council for the government. The recognition of Roma as a national Swedish minority means that Roma have increased opportunities to influence how questions concerning Romani life are handled at the national level directly. Nevertheless, the overall picture of the living conditions of Roma is still alarming. Roma in Sweden live in a very exposed situation in all relevant economic, cultural, and social aspects – not least in terms of access to schooling, the labour market and housing. In 2003, the Swedish Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination published a report entitled “Discrimination against Romanies in Sweden” and will in early 2008 present a report updating the situation of Roma.
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Two thousand and seven could well be described as the year of vindication for the ERRC. During the past year, the European Court of Human Rights (“the Court”) issued a number of very important judgments on applications brought forward by the ERRC exclusively or together with other NGOs. Among them, the Grand Chamber’s judgment (overturning the Chamber’s judgment) in the application D.H. and others v. The Czech Republic can only be considered one of the most far-reaching judgments ever handed down by the Court, on a number of issues ranging from segregated education to the notion of “informed consent” as well as the role of NGO/INGO reports in proceedings before the Court.2 The latter point is one dear to the ERRC as ever since its inception it focused on both strategic litigation and research/report publication, with one strand of its activities feeding into the other. Although initially confronted with a negative approach by the Court (which persistently rejected references to NGO/INGO and United States’ State Department country reports in the context of applications brought forward by the ERRC), the ERRC persisted and the Court nowadays has radically changed its stance on this issue, even going so far as to what undoubtedly amounts to (truly well-deserved) praise to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch by assigning probative value on their reports regarding Tunisia.3 The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the most important judgments issued by the Court in 2007 in two fields of great importance to Roma, namely police abuse and housing.
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The social fabric Sulukule’s population is around 5,000 people, 3,500 of whom are Romani. One of the most important qualities of this district is that the whole population is in one way or another related to each other, causing the neighbourhood to give the impression of a huge extended family. According to the research conducted by the Sulukule Platform, 76% of the district’s residents were born in Sulukule. Street vending by the district’s own residents enables the neighborhood to exist in a self-sufficient manner. In addition to the textile, fruits, vegetable, fish, pickle, toy, and balloon selling street vendors, the neighbourhood markets, food shops, small restaurants and tailors cater exclusively to their local clientele. In other words, the residents of Sulukule are able to survive without stepping out of their neighbourhood. According to the aformentioned research, 66.3% of the residents are content to live in Sulukule.
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One of the key targets of the project entitled “Promoting Roma Rights in Turkey” carried out by the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), the Helsinki Yurttaşlar Derneği (Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly- hCa) and the Association for Research Development & Solidarity on Roma Culture – Edirne (EDROM) was to enhance the capabilities of Romani organisations in Turkey. In relation to this aim, the second target was propelling civil society organisations working in the field of human rights to become more interested in the issues faced by Romani society in Turkey.
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The article concerns social aspects of gathering and processing data recorded online. Changes in the forms of control enabled by the development of microelectronics and information and telecommunication technologies are the context of the analysis. The specific issues of the social space of the Internet include: possibilities to gather and process data regarding user’s behaviour, processes of matching content with individual’s profile, threats of spyware, an emergence of the political movement of privacy protection. Additionally, there is a brief review of hitherto empirical research on privacy and digital surveillance.
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This paper presents recently developed internet-based job search methods, grouped together under the term „internet-based job matching”, as well as their user community in Poland. The first part of the article introduces the most important web-based techniques and tools currently used in job search, along with their main typical advantages and drawbacks. Thereafter, the user community of the internet-based job matching in Poland is examined and described, considering aspects such as: education and skills, ICT competences, material conditions, social capital resources and subjective assessment of personal work situation. Statistical analysis of the chosen variables is used to verify two hypotheses derived from studies carried out in the United States. Data used in the empirical part of this paper was gathered for Social Diagnosis 2005, a large-scale research project on objective and subjective quality of life in Poland.
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Pornography has become an important social and political issue. The emphasis on pornography as a form of sexual and gender diversity is a component of larger societal and cultural trend – globalisation. The aim of the paper is to present and prove the thesis, that Internet pornography is nowadays a good mirror of deep social processes and structrures (suppressed fears, complexes, needs, changes of identity and forms of power, esp. biopower). The first part includes the recapitulation of the methodology of sociological research of pornography (esp. visual anthropology, discourse analysis). Author shows, how important are implications of Polish laws for research on Internet pornography in Poland (there are no international laws regulating Internet pornography). Author also proposes new definition of pornography. Global pornography is in the dialectic relation with social institutions. It sexualizes social practices, which people try to desexualize in everyday life to avoid allegations of sexual misconduct (eg. health care practitioners). Hence, existence of pornography causes reaction of the social system, which generates new taboos (eg. nakedness of children) and forms of social control. But also pornography transgresses social norms and visions. The second part of the article includes three case studies: the BDSM pornography, the medical fetishism as a form of biopower and a problem of ‘pedophilization’ of visual representations in public sphere.
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Today in the sphere of mass communication we can observe the coexistence of two models of knowledge. The first is the expert model (connected mainly with mass media), in which a broadcaster is responsible for the knowledge that he broadcasts and he has also institutional authority. The second is the collective wisdom model, in which there are many anonymous (in most cases) broadcasters and every one of them has some knowledge about a small fragment of reality. The interactive medium allows them to make the synthesis of this knowledge. More so than in the first model it concerns also the common knowledge, which is realized in everyday practices. Both of these models are present in the computer mediated communication. The author’s attention focuses mainly on the collective wisdom model because this is the new model in the sphere of communication. The purpose of the article is the analysis of the social causes of growing popularity of the collective wisdom model and also the review of many different theories concerning the manifestation of the collective wisdom model in the internet (e.g. “connected intelligence” by Derrick de Kerckhove, „smart mobs” by Howard Rheingold, „collective intelligence” by Pierre Levy, „wisdom of crowds” by James Surowiecki, „clickstream” by John Battelle „bazaar” by Eric S. Raymond, and also the phenomena of folksonomy and Web 2.0). It also examines the relations between these two models in the internet.
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The following paper consists of the description and application of an approach to the research of political sphere in the Internet. The first part is a theoretical introduction to the network analysis. It sketches the issues of political research in the Internet. The second part presents the research focused on the analysis of political orientation which emerges out of the network structure of Internet hyperlinks connecting political domains.
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Reliable information and two-way communication are crucial for building democracy from the bottom-up. As the Internet access expands and municipal websites proliferate, more attention is given to the scale and scope of actual use of this new medium for communication by local authorities and citizens. In the article it is considered whether the Internet is used firstly, to create more openness in politics, secondly, to involve members of local communities in the political agenda setting as well as discussions on specific local policy issues. The aforementioned problems are examined in reference to the results of research conducted in four local communities. The research included analysis of the functionality of municipal websites, in-depth interviews and a survey. There are undisputable advantages of the municipal websites ranging from the availability of first-hand information to convenient methods of informing authorities about issues of concern to the public. However, authorities are rather hesitant to allow free two-way flow of information. Moreover, the opportunity for citizens to be consulted is still underdeveloped irrespective of the interactive tools available. Finally, even the high level of satisfaction with the information received coupled with peoples' trust in government, does not influence their very moderate feeling of political empowerment.
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The article aims at verification of the following thesis: the Internet as a platform of new interpersonal relationships promotes pro-social attitudes. They find their expression in various initiatives undertaken selflessly by individuals in order to actualise the common good (e.g. Linux, Wikipedia, support groups, knowledge-exchange portals, etc). Author’s own research has been used for exemplification purposes. It has been assumed that human inclination to reciprocity constitutes, among others, a source of pro-social attitudes. This inclination can be more or less efficiently actualized, depending on the structure of human relations. The significance of reciprocity increases when the role of institutionalism, formalism and centralisation decreases. Nowadays, the patterns of social relations are subject to profound transformations primarily as a result of the development of the Internet. New social relations are more reciprocal in character. The Internet creates new communication space in which social or even pro-social nature of people can be fruitfully actualised.
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Uz izložbu umjetničkih fotografija Ahmeta Hukića “Ptice” u Galeriji Centra za kulturu Mostar
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