SEEMO (South East Europe Media Organization), with the support of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA), and in cooperation with the Albanian Media Institute, organized a conference on media coverage of issues related to gender equality, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities in Central and Eastern Europe and the European South from November 24 to 26, 2011 in Tirana. One panel was devoted to the analysis of hate speech.
From Croatia, the panelists were Tena Perišin (panel on hate speech) and Sanja Sarnavka (presentation of a collection of texts Isolation or integration as part of the panel on ethnic minorities; presentation of the Global Media Research Project (GMMP) Who makes the news? within the panel on gender representation in the media). Homophobic texts, intolerance towards the Other and different in all areas, stereotyping, discrimination are still everyday media in this region. Under the guise of protecting freedom of expression, hate speech and deliberate distortion of representations of various minorities are allowed. International standards are generally not yet respected and remain a dead letter on paper.
The conference was opened by Irma Baraku, Commissioner for Protection against Discrimination in Albania, Remzi Lani, Director of the Albanian Media Institute and Oliver Vujović, Secretary General of SEEMO.
Extremely interesting presentations pointed out numerous existing problems, but also suggested the path along which international standards should be adopted and implemented.
It was extremely good that representatives of organizations that protect various minorities also participated in the conference, so they could hear what was happening to which minority in the media and social space. The sad truth, it turned out, is that some minorities have no ear for the problems of other marginalized groups and are not even close to expressing public solidarity with all those discriminated against, let alone initiating joint cooperation. Of particular concern is the homophobia and complete gender ignorance of representatives of Albanian ethnic minorities.
The conversation about solidarity was therefore initiated within all panels.
In the future, conferences should always be organized in this way so that human rights activists who represent certain groups, but rarely know anything about the problems of other marginalized groups, can meet as often as possible. Very often, unfortunately, they contribute to the general climate of intolerance in society and the media by speaking out in bigotry and focusing exclusively on their own problems.
