Minority rights advocate Dr Panayote Dimitras, co-founder and executive director of the Greek Helsinki Monitor is visiting Melbourne next week to deliver a public seminar. The speech, entitled On the Effective Implementation of Human and Minority Rights in Europe will explore perceived threats to the rights of minorities in Greece, Bulgaria and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Dr Dimitras is a founding member of the NGO ‘Minority Rights Group – Greece’- the Greek affiliate to Minority Rights Group International.
Organisers of the presentation say Dr Dimitras will, “explore how some minorities in the three countries in question have become taboo, through domestic public opinion and official national histories, and how minorities have successfully appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, which has then effectively recognized their existence.”
The states are expected to execute these judgments by registering the corresponding minority associations, but seem reluctant to do so.
The Melbourne Law School adds that Dr Dimitras will describe, “the sisyphean struggles of these minorities to impose upon the states to show the fundamental respect to their dignity they are entitled to and the reasons why two decades later very little has been achieved.”
During his eleven day visit to Australia Dr Dimitras will also deliver public seminars at the University of New South Wales and the Murdoch University, Perth.
The presentation at the University of Melbourne will begin at 5.30pm on Wednesday August 17 at 185 Pelham Street, Parkville. Contact Vesna Stefanovski on (03) 8344 6589 for further details or email: law-iilah@unimelb.edu.au
