Stop homophobia in Lithuania

Yesterday Members of the Green Group in the European Parliament together with a few FYEG’ers and other NGO’s  were present at a demonstration outside the Lithuanian permanent representation in Brussels to protest against the new homophobic and oppressive law in Lithuania.

On 16 June 2009 the Lithuanian parliament adopted an amended Law on the Protection of Minors against the Detrimental Effect of Public Information. According to this law, “propaganda of homosexuality and bisexuality” is one of the detrimental affects on the minors and information on homosexuality and bisexuality is banned from schools and any other places where it can be accessed by youth.

This is a disturbing attempt to diminish the human rights of EU citizens. This new law limits the freedom of expression solemly based on homophobia and this is a clear violation of the EU’s fundamental rights and principles.
This can not proceed unnoticed and therefor we ask of the Lithuanian governement to stop the adoption of this law immidiatly.

World Refugee Day

Last Saturday, the 20th of June was the World Refugee Day and in times where climate refugees are such a hot topic one should take the occasion to take a moment and reflect upon the existence of fortress Europe.

One often thinks that the whole world would like to seek refuge on our European continent whilst the largest amount of refugees actually are found on the African continent and those people do not even have the intention to ever cross the Medditeranian.
But somehow there is this misconception that the European Union is overflooded with refugees in search of a better future either for political or economical reasons.

This misconception has led to the belief that we are in need of shutting our borders off for economical refugees and that we use very subjective criteria to determine if somebody is entitled to the status of political refugee and thus makes a chance for that much needed and hoped for better future.

It is only human to be in search of something better as it is understandable that every person on this globe would like a life that is not only about surviving but also about living.

And then comes the question why there is a belief that there should be criteria to determine if somebody has the right or not to be entitled to a better life. An answer is yet to be given to those who are returned to their country of origine and to those who live in the European Union and are being considered as illegal. This whilst it is hard to actually understand how a human being as such can be illegal.

Marta @ March of tolerance, Kraków 16.05.09

On the 16^th of May I joined the annual March of Tolerance, which was the highlight of the Queer May Festival, that took place from the 15th until the 17th of May in Kraków, Poland with workshops on safe sex practices, debates on related topics like LGBT in the media, gay people in national socialism, gender in school, completed by movies on gender and queer topics and even two sport tournaments.

The demonstration gathered around 500 people, unfortunately called in media “the manifestation of gay people” or “demonstration of gay fans” (sic!) which in the Old Market Square in Kraków met their counterdemonstration of extremist right organizations called the March of Normality and March of Tradition gathering far more people then stated in the media (referring to 400), throwing eggs, tomatoes or even stones at the demonstration.

The process of registering the march has triggered an action of 22 politicians from the party PiS (Right and Justice) followed by one politician from the party PO (Platform of Citizens), which is currently running the country in a plea for stopping the march due to protection of family values and safety of citizens. Nicely countered by the current chief officer for security of the local municipality saying the city could only forbid the demonstration by breaking the law and saying, he had never seen any action on the side of the participants of the demonstration that would endanger anyone.

That is hopefully a good sign, as, like in 2005, the city council very often has not permitted the demonstration or did post factum.

Marta

Moldovia: Stop the Violence, Go for Democracy

The Romanian and French Young Greens condemn the violences alongside the peaceful demonstrations in the Republic of Moldova and support strongly the youngsters who struggle pacifically for more democracy in their country.

Following the legislative election and its results, a group of young students organised themselves through weblogs, texts and social networks to denounce publicly the cheats and censorship of the media. This group managed to gather more than 15 000 young pacifists on Chisinau main square to protest and to call for democratic changes in Moldavia.

With 3 dead people and many others injured, these violences have not been conducted by the initial young demonstrators but several individuals who joined the demonstration later and were not member of this student group.

The Young Greens condemn this political hijacking as well as this discredit which the young Moldavian democrats are victims of. It is unacceptable the Moldavian authorities and nationalists spun these violent acts of external actors in order to discredit the movement and used it to their own advantage and anachronistic claims. We strongly condemn also the police reactions which resulted in more than hundred of injured demonstrators.

We declare supporting these young Moldavian democratically and peacefully protesting and we ask the EU and other legitimate international organisations for a better and wiser vigilance regarding the election processes and the repression towards the demonstrators.

Contact:

Verzii:

Claudia Sadean: +40723640052

55, Str. Petru Tei, Sector 2,
02035 Bucharest,
Romania

verziiryg@yahoo.com

FYEG:

Marina Barbalata: +32487610285
Marc Gimenez: +34600923098

31, rue Wiertz
1050 Brussels
Belgium

office@fyeg.org
www.fyeg.org
www.greenon2009.eu

Les Jeunes Verts:

Cyrielle Chatelain: +33682720151
Remi Guerber: +33674625223

247 rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin
75010 Paris,
France

contact@jeunesvertes.org
www.jeunesverts.org