The fight to uphold human rights continues to be of utmost importance to the international community, with special attention placed on areas like Africa and the Middle East. But organisations like the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Human Rights Watch are also encouraging people to consider the rights of minority groups in Europe.
With the aim of exploring ways to promote human rights in Europe, members of the Board of Deputies participated in a panel discussion with representatives from the Holocaust Educational Trust, and human rights groups. Shauna Leven told JN1 that collectively, Roma people, gypsies, and travellers are the most discriminated group in Europe. She said that the Jewish community could help.
Shauna Leven, Director of René Cassin:
“The Jewish community has and can play a large role in raising public, public awareness of the situation that Roma just to say collectively, Roma – meaning gypsy and traveller, and Roma are facing, because we do have similar shared history of persecution. They were alongside Jewish people in the concentration camps in World War Two. And today they’re still in much the same position from you know the standpoint of, of the prejudices that they face that they were in, in the years leading up to the war”.
Clive Baldwin, Human Rights Watch:
“In some ways, the protection of minorities is better than it was. There’s anti-discrimination laws everywhere, almost everywhere. But there’s still a large degree of hatred, and the hatred has come out in the last economic recession. Particularly hatred of foreigners and xenophobia, hatred of immigrants. But that hatred of immigrants can easily turn on all others”.
The panel also touched on Jakob Finci – a prominent Bosnian figure who was barred from public office because he was Jewish. After winning his case in 2009, Clive Baldwin, who worked as Finci’s lawyer, said that equality for all minorities must always be upheld.
more: JN1 (video)
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