TO SLOVENIAN AND EUROPEAN AUTHORITIES

(appeal at the 13th anniversary of the illegal erasure)

Addressees: - the Parliament, the Government and the President of the Republic

                    - the Constitutional Court and the Ombudsman

                    - the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of the EU

                    - Institutions of the Council of Europe:

- the Parliamentary Assembly,

- the Commissioner for Human Rights Mr. Alvaro Gil Robles

- ECRI                                        

                     - Political parties in the European Parliament

                     - The Representative of the EU in Slovenia Mr. Erwan Fouéré

                     - High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN

                     - ambassadors in Slovenia

From the foundation of the Association of the Erased exactly three years ago, this is already the sixth such public appeal – an appeal for help. Till now, all of them were completely ignored, at home and abroad, completely without echo – except a strong support of the institutions of the Council of Europe (commissioner Gil Robles and commission ECRI) and an intervention of the member of the European Parliament Mrs. Mojca Drcar Murko at the beginning of the last session of the EP few days ago when she drew the EP's attention to the scandalous fact that the government of Slovenia, a member state of the EU, is directly rejecting the fulfilment of the decision of the Constitutional Court about the "erased"

Till now, even the representative of the EU in Slovenia Mr. Fouéré didn't react on any of our numerous messages and appeals, although we have informed his collaboraters about this problem already three years ago. Only this week, when a group of "erased" had organized a five-days-hunger-strike (independently from our Association which stands for the legal ways of resolving the problem), he had finally reacted at least at this act of despair and he promised to the strikers that he will be informing the institutions of the EU more actively about the problem of the "erased". It is hard to understand that political institutions, both domestic and foreign, are reacting only on such extreme warnings and not on appeals of our Association to solve the problem on the legal and political way – especially, it is difficult to understand that all this is happening in the political system, the domestic and the european one, which both should guarantee the respect of human rights and of the principles of the rule of law.

Last such appeal for help was sent to the Slovenian and European authorities on 12 December last year. In it  we have explained shortly but clearly what the problem of the "erased" is and how incredibly, with what a contempt for the principles of the rule of law the actual government of Slovenia is rejecting its solution as it had been ordered by the decision of the Constitutional Court. From then till today, nothing had changed, so we are enclosing that appeal from December last year to this one. Only one new event is worthy to be mentioned: at the session of the parliamentary Commission for Petitions and Human Rights, discussing a special  report of the Ombudsman about the problem of the "erased", the MP's of the governmental coalition have voted against the recommendation to solve the problem in conformity with the decision of the Constitutional Court and so they also prevented this report of the Ombudsman to be discussed at the plenary session of the Parliament. If we add to this the fact that the actual parliamentary majority had elected the MP from the Nationalist Party Mr. Pece - who spoke in the Parliament last year that the erased are "scum of society" – as Vice-President of the Parliament, the image of the positions of the actual parliamentary majority to these questions is quite clear.

We are asking especially the institutions of the EU and CE, till when they will still tolerate such obvious excesses of slovenian authorities against fundamental principles of the rule of law and against the respect of human rights – which is happening in the country which should preside the EU in two years, as the first among the new member-states.

At the 13th anniversary of the shameful erasure,

Ljubljana, 26 February 2005

                                                            Association of the Erased Residents of Slovenia

                                                                             Executive Committee