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November '98 OSCE Conference - Human Dimension Issues
The Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada in cooperation with the Rainbow Party, Father Nikodim Tsarknias and OMO Ilinden recently attended the OSCE Conference in Warsaw, Poland. Following are statements made by the MHRMC regarding human rights abuses against ethnic Macedonians by Greece and Bulgaria.
Comments of the Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada
OSCE Implementation Meeting on Human Dimension Issues
Distinguished Moderator and Representatives: We wish to provide you with a very brief update on the current state of compliance of Bulgaria and Greece with their obligations respecting freedom of expression, free media and information, freedom of association, and the right of peaceful assembly as they relate to their sizable Macedonian minority populations. The Current State of Bulgarian State Compliance with Its Obligations Respecting Freedom of Expression, Free Media and Information, Freedom of Association, and the Right of Peaceful Assembly Freedom of Expression and Free Media With respect to those citizens who identify themselves as Macedonians the Bulgarian government has and continues to place unlawful restrictions on a number of fundamental rights of these people. Whether it be through uneven application of laws which on their face do not seem to discriminate against the Macedonian minority, or through unlawful conduct of officials, the effect is the same: Macedonians in Bulgaria who choose to openly call themselves Macedonians suffer abuses of their human rights repeatedly. As regards freedom of expression and free media and information, for instance, the Macedonian human and minority rights organization, OMO-Ilinden has recently suffered the following outrageous act at the hands of the Bulgarian authorities. On April 14 of this year, OMO-Ilinden began the publication of a newspaper which was intended to serve as a voice for its members and their concerns and interests. Just two days later, on 16, April, 1998 seven policemen broke up a meeting of this organization without a search warrant and after 8:00 p.m. (the latest time in which searches can be conducted legally). Notwithstanding the statement of police sergeant Krsomir Karonfil, that he was “sent by the authorities to come and search your organization’s headquarters and seize what is necessary,” when asked for evidence of his legal right to conduct such a search, he was unable to provide such evidence. Fearing violence, OMO-Ilinden members allowed the search to continue without any other protest, hoping that they could achieve some measure of relief after the fact through the court system. All equipment and supplies necessary to publish a newspaper (including what is for those in Bulgaria a particularly expensive item, a photocopier) were seized and, as of today (some six months later) have not been returned. Nor, subsequent OMO-Ilinden’s official complaint to the regional authority who oversees these kinds of searches, and to the highest military authority in Sofia, has there been a response to the complaints lodged. In addition to forcibly restricting the right of OMO-Ilinden to publish its own newspaper, the government of Bulgaria uses, or permits others in the private sphere to use, the media to discredit the legitimacy of OMO-Ilinden and, by extension, the central tenet of the organization: the existence and significance of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. OMO-Ilinden is either portrayed as a fringe organization of mentally unstable people (the implication being, to believe you are Macedonian in Bulgaria must mean you are insane) or as a terrorist organization responsible for a whole range of criminal activity (implying that only criminals call themselves Macedonians). Examples are very numerous. In all cases, despite the government’s direct or indirect involvement of the promulgation of untruths about OMO- Ilinden, the organization is, perhaps not surprisingly, forbidden access to the same media for purposes of rebuttal. Furthermore, when OMO-Ilinden has attempted to seek redress through the courts, they are denied standing at the first stage and a court-derived remedy is denied them. Following are specific examples of comments made in the following newspapers: 24 Chassa, Trut, 168 Chassa, Duma, Makedonje, Struma and Pirin News:
Freedom of Association and the Right of Peaceful Assembly OMO-Illinden attempted in March of this year to re-register with the local court as a not-for-profit organization (having been denied once before) but was, once again, refused by the courts. OMO-Ilinden has appealed and awaits the decision by October 29, i.e. this week but is not hopeful. Articles 108 and 109 of the Bulgarian criminal statute are used to prevent and/or punish Macedonian organizations and assemblies from taking place. Fines equivalent to an entire month’s average wages are routinely levied under the authority of these provisions against OMO-Ilinden members. Internal exile is also used as an actual or threatened sentence to prevent organizations and assemblies. Similarly, threats of job loss or discrimination, discrimination in educational advancement and physical violence are used to intimidate organizers. Bulgarian law requires the obtaining of a permit before an assembly can be convened. Consequently, another technique that is used again and again to prevent OMO-Ilinden from obtaining permits and thus holding meetings (at least legally) is the making of an unsubstantiated claim that another organization purportedly representing Macedonians has reserved the desired time and space where no such organization exists or is an organization tied to the authorities. In one instance this year (on April 18, 1998), OMO-Ilinden applied for and was refused a permit to hold a commemorative ceremony and decided to proceed on the appointed day notwithstanding that they lacked a permit. Police forces anticipated the OMO-Ilinden supporters and prevented them from holding their peaceful assembly, charging and fining many of them. In the physical fracas that ensued, one young man, Vasil Gjujanof, had three teeth knocked out by police while in detention; when he requested his teeth at the time of his release he was beat again. Authorities prevented at least two other peaceful assemblies this year, one on 4, May, 1998 in Blageograd and again on August 2, 1998. The Current State of Greek State Compliance with Its Obligations Respecting Freedom of Expression, Free Media and Information, Freedom of Association, and the Right of Peaceful Assembly Freedom of Expression and Free Media Despite the general approval the vigorous press in Greece receives by international observers such as the US State Department, restrictions on freedom of expression and free media exist with respect to the Macedonian minority in Greece (or other minorities, including the Turkish). For instance, the organ of the Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Greece, Ta Moglena was published monthly since 1987 and was distributed at the cheaper bulk rate accorded other newspapers but with the rise of tensions between ethnic Macedonians and the Greek government beginning in 1989, prohibitively high postal rates were levied exclusively against Ta Moglena. In October of 1997 Reverend Nikodim Tsarknias of the Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Greece sent a letter to Prime Minister Simidis regarding this discrimination but received no definitive answer to his complaint and was put off to another agency with no certainty of resolution. Another way in which the government of Greece restricts the free media of its Macedonian minority is through exercising pressure on the printer which printed Ta Moglena. Secret police and private organizations like Hrsi –Avi or Stohos supporters have threatened the printer because of his involvement with Ta Moglena. Just as in Bulgaria, a number of news outlets (including the newspapers Vimo, Eleftorotipia, Makedonija, Thessaloniki and radio and television) routinely portray Macedonian activists as being extremists, traitors and terrorists. The rebuttals of these activists are never published. Freedom of Association and the Right of Peaceful Assembly With respect to the Macedonian minority in Greece, the restrictions on free association and the right of peaceful assembly are many and varied. The Human Rights Movement of Greece has applied repeatedly for registration as a not-for-profit corporation as required by law but has been refused each time despite that it meets technical requirements and consequently it operates without legal status. A different approach which is likely best described as “bureaucratic run-around” has stymied the legitimate attempt of the Reverend Nikodim Tsarknias to establish a Macedonian Orthodox Church in Greece to serve the pastoral needs of the Macedonians in Greece. In April 1997, he made an application to Prime Minister Simidis and to the Minister of Religion to form a Macedonian Orthodox Church, in a manner consistent with established practice for the founding of religious institutions in Greece. The Prime Minister’s response a month later was simply that the matter had been referred to the proper authorities and would be resolved according to the procedures of Greek law—despite that Greek law does not recognize the existence of a Macedonian minority. As of today, no further response from the Greek government has been received by Reverend Tsarknias. The same technique was used to rebuff the attempt of the Macedonians of Greece to host a fiftieth anniversary reunion of those Macedonians who had left Greece as child refugees during the Greek Civil War in 1948. In March of this year a request was made to host such a reunion in Edessa in late July. The response from government officials came a carefully timed three days before the scheduled reunion (far too late to be of use) and said nothing more than that the matter was referred to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for further consideration. Conclusion We call on both Bulgaria and Greece to recognize officially the existence of its Macedonian minorities and adhere to their international obligations with respect to all of the rights they have agreed to uphold. We sincerely believe that this can only improve the state of democracy in these countries, for, as the great Canadian thinker George Woodcock wrote: the truest democracy is not that in which the majority imposes its will on all minorities. It is surely that in which minorities are allowed to flourish, even at some expense to the patience of the majority (George Woodcock, Gabriel Dumont (Edmonton: Hurtig Publishers, 1976) at p.18. For further information, please contact any or all of the following:
Archimandrite Nikodim TSARKNIAS
OMO-Ilinden
Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada
Comments of the Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada
OSCE Implementation meeting on Human Dimension Issues Second presentation made by the Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada
Distinguished Moderator and Representatives: Thank you for the opportunity to present a number of difficulties experienced by the Macedonian minorities of Greece and Bulgaria due to a lack of tolerance and the prevalent atmosphere of discrimination that exists there. Current Greek State Compliance with Its Obligations Respecting Fostering Tolerance and Curtailing Discrimination We wish we could inform this meeting that the Greek government is at least inactive in promoting tolerance and non-discrimination of its Macedonian minority. Instead, we must report that the Greek government actually encourages what must surely be an extreme form of intolerance, the total denial of the ethnic identity of its Macedonian minority. In more candid moments, the Greek government admits that there is a small number of individuals who speak another language along Greece’s northern border with what is now the Republic of Macedonia, but it vilifies these people as “Skopjanie” or “agents of foreigners” rather than call them by the name by which they wish to be called. The Macedonians of Greece do nothing more than ask that they can speak their mother tongue without fear of recrimination, that they can celebrate their cultural heritage without censure and that they can call themselves what they sincerely believe themselves to be, that is Macedonians, without being reviled by the state of which they are citizens. Because of the work of organizations such as Human Rights Watch, the US State Department and others, well-documented examples of the Greek state’s treatment of its Macedonian minority exist so we will not tax your patience here with a recitation of the particulars. Suffice it to say that we do not believe that the Greek government has lived up to its commitment to promote tolerance and curb discrimination, at least with respect to its Macedonian minority as discrimination exists against Macedonians in education, in employment, in dealings with local and central authorities, in the treatment of Macedonians by the judicial system, by the police and, most tragically, by the Greek Orthodox Church through its priests and bishops. Current Bulgarian State Compliance with Its Obligations Respecting Fostering Tolerance and Curtailing Discrimination Just as with Greece, Bulgaria officially denies the existence of a Macedonian minority within its borders. The logic of this assertion required, ludicrously, the Bulgarian government to recognize the newly independent Republic of Macedonia in 1991 but with the explicit reservation that it did not recognize the Macedonian ethnic identity of the people who reside there. The message was that all these people, like those in Bulgaria who call themselves Macedonians, are Bulgarian. Just as in Greece, the official policy of denial of ethnic identity of the Macedonians leads to a pervasive atmosphere of intolerance and discrimination against those who choose to assert their identity. The effects of this discrimination are evident in education, the civil service, treatment of Macedonians in the media and treatment by government officials and the courts and, as in Greece, in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The spirit of chauvinism that the Bulgarian government is obliged to curb is instead tolerated: recent demonstrations by skin-heads in Blagoegrad in which anti-Roma, anti-Turk and anti-Macedonian slogans were shouted went unchecked by the Bulgarian government. In contrast, as the European Commission on Human Rights decided on June 22 of this year, members of the OMO-Ilinden Macedonian organization of Bulgaria have made out at least a prima facie case that their Article 11 rights of assembly were infringed by the Bulgarian government’s refusal to allow them to engage in peaceful assembly on the occasion of a Macedonian holiday. Conclusion We call upon both Greece and Bulgaria to adhere to and respect the international agreements to which they are signatories with respect to fostering tolerance and curtailing discrimination of their sizable Macedonian minorities. For further information, please contact any or all of the following:
Archimandrite Nikodim TSARKNIAS
OMO-Ilinden
Macedonian Human Rights Movement of Canada
Nov. '98 OSCE Conference - Report by RainbowOSCE Implementation meeting on Human Dimension Issues26 October - 6 November 1998, Warsaw Written Presentation of the speech of Mr. Voskopoulos Pavlos member of the Organization RAINBOW - (VINOZITO) Organization of the National Macedonian minority of Greece on 03.11.1998 Mr. Moderator, Ladies and Gentleman, I am not happy today because I will accuse my country, but I believe as citizen of Greece and as European citizen that this will be helpful for the further democratization of my country. The existence of national minorities is not recognized in the Republic of Greece. The Turkish minority is recognized only as religious minority, while the Macedonian national minority is not recognized as an existing entity. Although national minorities are not recognized, their members are persecuted on national minority basis. A policy of brutal assimilation of the Macedonian ethnic minority is under way by legislative measures and court prosecutions. The public use of the Macedonian language and alphabet is proxibited, as well as their use in the educational system. Court prosecutions are undertaken against the members of the two national minorities, concerning activities in connection with the manifestation and protection of the national cultural identity. The State allows, sometimes even encourages the mass media, the Church authorities and the para-state institutions to be against the members of the national minorities (the Turkish and the Macedonian) in order to terrorize and politically discredit them. In addition to the aforementioned measures, ethnic cleansing of the Macedonian minority is done in perfidies manner, by taking away the citizenship in a way provided for by the article 20 of the Law on Citizenship of the Republic of Greece. Selective immigration is done in the regions of Western Thrace and Macedonia were the Turkish and Macedonian minority lives in order to create a new wave of hate and towards the national minorities and the majority. At the same time the repatriation of the Macedonian political refugees left Greece during the civil war in 1949 is prohibited. We demand the indispensable recognition of the two national minorities, the abolition of all aforementioned measures by which discrimination is done, and the stopping of all court prosecutions. We demand the introduction of measures whereby the consequences of the executed policy against the national minorities be removed, in accordance with the international norms and the European Framework Convection for the Rights of National Minorities. We are usually talking about the policy of the States against minorities but we are not talking very often about the policy of the national minorities. Our organization believes that the policy of the national minorities in the Balkan countries should be such that it should dispose of the fear by the population in the countries they live in, from wishing or thinking of the gradual change of the existing borders, disguised under the pretext of demanding national minority rights. National minorities in the countries where they live, should not be subjected to manipulation and interstate antagonism and to become a reason for meddling by one state into the affairs of another. They should cooperate and deepen the ties with constituent nation and with all nationalities that live in the state. In this way they will become a powerful factor of peace, cooperation and friendship in the Balkans and Europe. National minorities in Balkan states should make use of the positive examples from the European experience for gradual union of all European countries with respect for the minority rights and overcoming the national prejudices and antagonisms. A request from our organization is that experts from international and European institutions, as OSCE, make a scholarly research on the rights of national minorities in the Balkan countries and prepare a comparative study on the situation of the national minorities. We appeal to the Greek gorvement for starting a dialog with the members of the Macedonian national minority of Greece according to the European Framework Convection for the Rights of the National Minorities which is unfortunately not yet ratified by Greece. Thank you all for your attention.
RAINBOW PARTY (VINOZHITO)
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