Remembering the Past - Avoiding the Future

ongoing

In Central and Eastern Europe in the past decade several laws and hate speech campaigns targeting minorities have been passed. The first and foremost targets are LGBTQ+ people and the Roma, as with for example the Hungarian and Polish anti-gay legislation and government propaganda, the recent Slovak attempt to prevent gender change, or the Bulgarian and Serbian conservatives’ campaign against “gender”. In 2019 the Hungarian government started a hate campaign against Roma, and created legislation perpetuating their educational segregation. The EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World states: “Serbia needs to step up measures to protect the rights of persons facing discrimination… and to actively pursue investigation and convictions for hate-motivated crimes.... It is also essential that Serbia ensures consistent implementation of legislation regarding persons belonging to national minorities…” The goal of the RTP-ATF project is to rebuild the immune system of a democratic Hungarian and Serbian society in order to protect the entire community and especially minorities from the deprivation of human rights, from becoming the targets of hate speech and hate crimes and physical violence. This will empower communities to strive for solidarity and fight for equality in other parts of life as well, ultimately strengthening democracy overall in Europe as well.