Russian-Georgian youth civic dialogue

Dear Friends! Below you'll find the appeal which Youth Human Rights Movement activists prepared after Anti-Georgian campaign in Russia began. Currrently things are getting worse and worse day by day, there are numerous cases of deportations, using hate speech and other types of discrimination. If you are interested in following the developement of the events write to the address of the working group ycd@yhrm.org. Thank you for your support! Anastasia Nikitina _________________________________ Youth of Georgia and Russia! Today we apply to you, apply to each other, because we are ashamed. We are ashamed that political ambitions, poor judgment and aggression of our state leaderships might lead to our miscommunication and estrangement. We are ashamed that after wine, “Borjomi” and possibility to visit each other without visas, we may loose our associates. We do not want rising generations to forget enduring friendship of the Russian and Georgian peoples and remember only confrontation and conflicts. We do not want to dispute about the borders. We are not interested in geographical titles and color of peacemakers’ uniform. We seek to believe that expert politicians are able to communicate without hysterics and deterrence. However, currently situation, alas, moves elsewise. We do want to preserve – or finally create – space for communication between young people from Georgia and Russia in order to discuss our interests and concerns, in order to make those, who were elected by us, listen to the voices of people, they pretend to protect. We propose to create Russian-Georgian Youth Civic Dialogue – free platform for public activists, youth organizations and ordinary people, who do not agree with policy of disunion. We propose not only to keep recently disturbed balance, notwithstanding “geopolitics” and “economic” interests – we want to build new. We dream about day when young people from Russia (including Northern Caucasus) and Georgia will communicate freely, visit each other without fear of declaring their nationality, work and create together, support each other’s development. We have enough to speak out and share. We encourage Georgian and Russian authorities to put an end to the conflict escalation, despite vested interests of concrete persons and “actualite”. We call those, who are ready to share responsibility for this, to join YCD or create own initiative, not only from Russia or Georgia, but from other states also. Because states are not territories, but people leaving on these territories. If you estimate sustentation of the horizontal ties and communication between ordinary people as important at the various levels: business and trade, culture, education and other – join us! (Activists of the International Network – Youth Human Rights Movement)

Protest letter to the Mayor of Lyon

Dear ALL,
Below is my protest letter, which I just sent to the mayor of Lyon. I call everyone to write a protest letter to him.
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To the Mayor of Lyon
Monsieur Gérard Collomb

CC:
Madame Sabiha Ahmine
Assemblée européenne des citoyens (HCA-France)

Dear Mayor Collomb,

I am writing to express my deep protest to your actions, which counter the principles of democracy, freedom of expression and tolerance.

The dismissal of your deputy Sabiha Ahmine for her support to the Armenian-Turkish Dialogue meeting involving mostly youth from Armenia, Turkey and many other countries was an extremely unjust decision and also a blow to the civil society efforts in France, Armenia and Turkey aimed at historical reconciliation between the Armenian and Turkish peoples.

I have personally attended this meeting, being a representative from Azerbaijan branch of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly. I met many young talented, open-minded people, Armenians, Turks and others who tried to overcome the historical animosities and hatreds who tried to break up with the xenophobic stereotypes and narrow-minded nationalistic thinking. In my view, these young people are the hope for their nations, because only through open dialogue and communication, it is possible to achieve a historical reconciliation between the Armenians and Turks, as well as between the numerous Armenian and Turkish communities in France.

I call you to be more principled and firm and not surrender to the narrow nationalistic interest groups in the future. Dont let these groups block the civil initiatives aimed at dialogue and reconciliation! Dont let them brand and discredit these initiatives labelling them "negationist", "denialist" and the like! You have responsibility before your constituents to stop the propaganda of hatred and ethnic intolerance and to ensure that all the tensions between various communities are solved through civilised discussions and civic dialogue.

I very much hope that my letter to you was not in vain and you will show more support to the civil initiatives involving Armenians and Turks in the future.

Sincerely Yours,
Tabib Huseynov
Member
Helsinki Citizens' Assembly-Azerbaijan

More news from France & How to support Sabiha

Hi, friends, Here are more news from France and our internal political debates in relation to Armenia and Turkey, I mean in relation to the recent visit paid in Erevan by French president Jacques Chirac telling there that Turkey would not entry the EU until the country officially says there has been a Turkish genocide against the Armenian people, in relation also to the initiative of the French social-democrat ("socialiste") group at the National Assembly promoting a new naw (to be discussed tomorrow amoung MPs) making a crime of denying the Armenian genocide. First, as some of you have asked us (see former post about our September HCA turkish-armenian debate in Lyon), HOW TO SUPPORT Sabiha Ahmine (who helped us by the TurkishArmenian dialogue in Lyon and has been dismissed partly because of that) : you can write protest emails to the Mayor of Lyon Gerard Collomb : gerard.collomb@mairie-lyon.fr You can write in your own language (even better? Let's be really cosmopolitan!), it mustn't be in English ! In the current battle to help Sabiha (and the progressist people trying in Lyon to deal positively with immigration & international issues), every sign of support, even a short one, is welcome and may help. Now, about the bad "electoralist" (or non-sense? as you wish) climate in France : the two last political initiatives of Chirac in Erevan and the socialist MPs at our National Assembly make of course the battle more difficult for our Turkish friends (amoung them our Turkish friends, hi, people, are you there?). Indeed the discussion about the historical massacre of Armenian people in Turkey at the beginning of former century has been progressing for a few year and the French attitude may confort & radicalise (and it already does) Turkish people hostile to this public debate, especially in a period where Turkish efforts to apply for the EU are been just rejected with new arguments. Besides, Armenian people from Turkey have already reacted, telling that the socialist proposal of law was not welcome at all. In France also, we try to react. Especially, the Turkish organisation ACORT has published a protestation against these political initiatives and said ACORT was wanting more than ever to promote an Armenian-Turkish dialogue in France amoung immigrants... Besides, French HCA (AEC) is preparing at that time a seminar with its partner Echanges&Partenariat from IPAM (our activist "family")... including a debate on those issues in November, together with Acort. That's all, folks! Take care ! Karine

International Network Against Cyber Hate

I've just come from Warsaw where "Never Again" Association in cooperation with INACH and OBWE organised a conference against hate in the net. The idea is very important and simple for everyone who doesn't accept violence, hate, racism, war, nationalism etc. (so that for us;)) I'm sure that most of you know INACH, if not, here is the web site below: www.inach.net ...and strictly about racism: www.nigdywiecej.prh.pl/english/index.php Best wishes, Jacek

ZARA CLEAN-POLITICS PETITION

I can say that it is extremely hard to schock me, but the political language in Austria was always quite schocking. Just in the moment you think that it can't get worse, you see the Freedom Party (FPOE) ads: Kein EU Beitritt der Tuerkei, Wien darf nicht Istanbul werden - meaning Vienna must not become Istanbul(varying a former FPOE slogan of Haider: "Wien darf nicht Chicago werden"), Deutsch statt "nix verstehn" (German instead of "don't understand"), Arbeit statt Zuwanderung (jobs instead of immigration), and other Islamophobia coloured ads and radio spots (Daham staat Islam, Sozialstaat staat Zuwanderung, Sichere Pensionen staat Asyl-Millionen, etc. - you can get the whole list and fill yourself with disgust on the website of H.C.Strache: http://www.hcstrache.at/index.php?style=7&PHPSESSID=b89006fb0e59c22afe58d8b0d8ba51db Now... ZARA (www.zara.or.at) was founded in 1999 and is fully committed to anti-racism work. Please position yourself and sign the Clean-politics-petition (KEINE STIMME FUER RASISMUS!): www.zara.or.at/cleanpolitics Thanks a lot! Irina P.S. Right partners for Jacek as well.

News from the Turkish-Armenian dialog in Lyon

Hi friends, We have some bad news from Lyon, where we had organised with Deputee-Mayor Sabiha Ahmine this Turkish-Armenian dialogue which was based on our network experience (the Yavas-Gamats seminars launched by HCA-Turkey and HCA-Armenia), just before our 2006 Sidu in Die. You remember how, in the very last days, Lyon social-democrat Mayor Gerard Collomb had cancelled the official city participation, caused political trouble to his communist deputee Sabiha Ahmine, and forced us to change the conference room the very day of the initiative, after two weeks of bad polemics (where HCA has been accused of negationnism of the Armenian Genocide ! Though people like Oran Pamiuk or Murat Belge are amoung the big figures of HCA Turkey and took many times risks to raise this topic in their country, and though the Yavas-Gamats seminar is a courageous place where such a topic is deeply discussed amoung young participants from both countries, etc. It was highly insulting!). Well, one week ago, social-democrat Mayor Gerard Collomb has taken back the "civic affairs" deputation which Sabiha Ahmine is in charge of, with other words : he has fired her from her responsibilities as deputee-mayor, what she is not any more. Mayor said he did that because of three "mistakes" by Sabiha, the second one being her Turkish-Armenian initiative with HCA ! (because, he says, it should have been organised with local immigration NGOs, and she did not tell him about the project, which is wrong of course, every one knew in Lyon since June, we even had this radio program interview with local Radio Armenie... and because also, Mayor said at the end, it was international politics, not local affairs...) The other two "mistakes" by Sabiha : another civic, in France very usual initiative about votation and immigration, and third, Sabiha's participation to a demonstration for peace in the Middle East, where some participants (not at all the ones Sabiha was demonstrating with) showed up with Hezbollah flags. Sabiha is incredibly sad and shocked, like many citizens and NGOs in Lyon, like we are in HCA France. Now we are reacting and sending letters and mobilising for her inside France, with others. We'll tell you more if there are more news on that topic. Take care, friends, yavas yavas, gamats, gamats, Karine

Europe without Nazism Action

May be it is a better partner for Jacek, but we also could do something to eliminate hate symbols from our cities propagandizing Nazi ideas. They also carry out a competition for best "peace symbol". There is a manifest agains nazism, facism and racizm on the site to sign

Zahidov Sentensed to 3 Years

Dear all,

Sakit Zahidov, the satirical journalist was sentenced by the court for 3 years of imprisonment for false allegations of drug use. This is another blow to the freedom of press in Azerbaijan.

Here you can see the details
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19067

I thank everyone who took part in this initiative, and I'm sure all of the efforts of the civil society in Azerbaijan and abroad was not in vain. In any case, Zahidov's lawyers will continue strugle in upper courts, up to the European Court of Human Rights. Persistence and united efforts will ensure final victory.

So, keep on posting your action alerts and information about civil initiatives around the world.

Antonina, thanks for posting the action alert on Georgia. I have already signed the petition.

Maia, EXCELLENT PHOTOS!.. Thank you!

Cheers everyone...

Photos are on the net!!!!!

Dear all of you, I'm happy to announce the birth of the Die's photos blog!!!!!!!!!! I made a selection of approximately 270 pictures and I put them on........... http://hcaphotos.canalblog.com so, I wait for your comments... lot of kisses from the south maïa the bee

Due to the current political tension in our neighbouring region, JUST DO IT

Antonina, Ukraine

Official letter of the HCA-France to the President of Azerbaijan I.Aliyev

Dear ALL,
Below is the official letter sent by HCA-France with regard to the unfair trial of Sakit Zahidov.
When I posted this ActionAlert I did not expect such an effective response. So, thank you Karine, Bernard and everyone for your interest and care.
Let's keep on using this blog for future Action Alerts, and as Karine said, if something is urgent, pls, do post alerts on the blog and send to everyone's emails too.
---------------------------- Message original ----------------------------
Objet: prosecution of M. Sakit Zahidov
De: aec@reseau-ipam.org
Date: Mar 3 octobre 2006 3:20
À: office@apparat.gov.az
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Paris, October 2 / 2006

M. Ilham Aliyev
President of Azerbaijan

Your Excellency

We are extremely worried by the information of the prosecution and thepossible imprisonment of M. Sakit Zahidov. M Zahidov is a well knowjournalist and the allegation of his connection with drug trafficking orapology of drug appears to be a political manipulation.

Your Excellency, we know your commitment to the freedom of expression andthe liberty of press, therefore we want to draw your attention to thiscase. The condemnation and imprisonment of M. Zahidov would not onlyrepresent a flagrant injustice but also be detrimental to the interest ofthe Republic of Azerbaijan.

This innocent journalist must be freed and all iniquitous proceedings must be ended.

Yours, sincerely

Bernard Dreano
President of the Assemblée Européenne des Citoyens (HCA-France),
Co-chair of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly (international)
Assemblée européenne des citoyens / HCA France
21 ter rue Voltaire75011 Paris
France+33 1 43 71 62 12+33 1 43 79 32 09 (fax)
aec@reseau-ipam.org

AUSTRIA ELECTIONS

Well, I am quite sick - but I feel slightly better (although I'm very careful not to feel just great because I don't know who is going to be in the coalition yet). Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel is not going to be the chancellor anymore. His conservative People's Party suffered a defeat (34,2 %). Social Democrats (opposition) won nationwide Austrian elections (35, 7 %), their leader is Alfred Gusenbauer. FPOE (for some of you: an old Haider party, now led by a guy who is trying to be like him, H.C. Strache): 11,2 % BZOE (for some of you - the new Haider party): 4, 20 % GREEN PARTY: 10,4 % Voila!