UNITED against Racism Conference Articles and Reports

Show Racism the Red Card Ireland was the sole Irish organisation represented at the United Conference against Racism in Neuchatel, Switzerland 14-19th November 2006. The conference was attended by 80 delegates from governmental and non-governmentalorganisations within the Council of Europe 45 nations.There were also visiting delegates from projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrghystan and Uzbekistan. The range of people attending the conference reflected the nature of the problems that organisations tackle in different countries.The were representatives of NGOs talking the issue of Human trafficking from Bulgaria and Ukraine, while among the Russian delegation were representatives of organisations combatting skinhead violence and others involved in migration law.Among the organisations from central Europe were delegates involved in youth work and targetting their activity among young people organising exchanges and delivery of information. There were also organisations from Holland and Germany who are involved in attempting to stem the rise of anti-semitism.The format of the conference was plenary presentations alongside working group activity and followed by plenary reports. There were presentations from the Council of Europe’s All Different All Equal Campaign, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) detailing their work to monitor levels of racism and xenophobia.The conference also had opportunity to plan international activity for the March 21st International Day against Racism, UN Refugee Day June 20th and the November 9th Kristallnacht commemoration for 2007.The best aspect of the conference was the opportunity to network with a view to future cooperation. The United Network is the most extensive of any among NGOs concerned with racism. It links 560 affiliates and delivers information to 6000 other organisations throughout Europe.This website will carry some feature articles over the next weeks on Ultra’s in Europe based on an interview with the French writer and activist Sebastian Louis who has researched this area of work. We will also be interviewing the dynamic Director of Face to Face Bulgaria, Antoaneta Georgieva who are working in response and also in prevention of human trafficking from Bulgaria. This article will be supplemented by an additional interview with Olga Antonyuk a translator at teh Women Informative Consulting Centre in relation to human trafficking.The Red Card website has now three features on specific groups immigrants in Ireland; Russian, Polish and Romanian. This is a series we are continuing with but as a result of the conference experience we hope to share the Latvian experience not of migrating to Ireland but of staying in Latvia. We will also feature an article on the struggle for gay rights in Croatia and Serbia featuring interviews with local activists who are fighting a brave campaign.www.unitedagainstracism.org