FUEN presents the Minority Monitor, a new online tool to document minority rights breaches

Day two of the anniversary FUEN Congress ended with the presentation of a new online tool, that can be used by the minorities if they encounter a breach of their minority rights, face discrimination, or if they want to share a case of good practices with each other.

FUEN is always looking to develop new proposals and projects, especially now that the campaign for the Minority SafePack is over and the Initiative is in good hands. Some organizations expect us to put the problems the minorities have to face, the cases of discrimination, of minority rights breach on the map – and this new initiative of the Presidium does exactly that – said FUEN president Loránt Vincze at the presentation of the Minority Monitor. “We always speak about these cases at our congresses, but we needed to find a place to present them together. The Minority Monitor not only does this, but it also presents best practices, solutions other communities and states have found for similar problems” – the President added.

Project manager Roman Roblek presented the project alongside Judith Solzina, Jan Diedrichsen and Melek Kırmacı Arık to those attending the FUEN congress. They were shown for the first time how the website looks like, and they were given an explanation about its purpose and on how it could be used.   The site already contains some examples of cases - some of discrimination, minority law breaches, but also best practices. Melek Kırmacı Arık presented a discrimination case faced by the Turkish minority in Greece, concerning the Turkish children educational rights. “I think this project will create a common ground, and it will be a reference point to international organizations. They will have a chance to look at the recent discrimination cases happening in Europe” - Ms. Melek Kırmacı Arık added.   Another case was presented by Judith Solzina about bilingual signs on the German highways. Jan Diedrichsen presented a material about the Saami people, who live in the northern parts of Norway and suffer from green energy projects that endanger their reindeer herding and disregard their land rights. The material was about the legal steps that can be taken regarding this issue.

Roman Roblek highlighted the fact that the developing team wanted a tool that is user-friendly, and also looked nice. The conclusion was that the new tool is a live instrument, and FUEN does not want to create a database of problems, rather a database of solutions.