Izbrisani / The Erased
I was meaning to write up this one a while ago, but things just kept happening. Namely, The Erased, a human rights fiasco which affected almost 1% of entire Slovenian population. 18.000+ people, mostly from former Yugoslav republics, who for one reason or another failed to get their papers in order after Slovenia declared independence were removed from all official databases. They were in effect - erased.
The Erased in Brussels
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) ran a fine peice on the issue a couple of weeks ago (you really should listen to it) which gives a fair account of the issue which is - needless to say - highly divisive as the Constitutional Court has ruled in 2004 that the erasure was unconstitutional, but the parliament has failed to address the issue properly. And not just this parliament and this government. The erasure happened in 1992 and every single government since has turned a blind eye or made only a token effort to solve what was increasingly becoming a social and not just a political problem. Naturally, the government doesn’t see it this way (note that the document pre-dates Janša’s government).
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
