Busy Week for the ECMI Researchers
In spite of the fact that a significant number of academic events have been postponed or cancelled due to the Covid pandemic, our researchers do not just sit back and rest on their laurels. The research at the ECMI is still alive and shared with the interested audience during many online events such as online conferences, online talks, or online teaching modules. Networking and building partnerships, an inseparable part of the ECMI everyday life, has also moved to the online sphere and the ECMI keeps its presence at important high-level meetings where minority rights are discussed.
This week several researchers are representing the ECMI at different fora. On Friday 18 June, ECMI Researcher Craig Willis will be presenting on the panel “Inequality and social cohesion: Political and institutional implications” at the Sixth ENIUGH Congress “Minorities, Cultures of Integration and Patterns of Exclusion”. His presentation will include original research he has been working on together with Prof. Dr. David Schweikard from the Europa-Universität Flensburg. The Sixth ENIUGH Congress was originally to take place in June 2020. Due to the spread of the Covid pandemic in 2020, the ENIUGH Steering and Organising Committees decided to postpone the congress for a year. The online programme runs on 15—19 June 2021. More information on the Congress and the European Network in Universal and Global History (ENIUGH) can be found on their website.
Also on Friday, the ECMI Senior Researcher Kyriaki Topidi will be sharing her expertise in diversity and education at the online summer course entitled “Human Rights and the Governance of Religious, Cultural and Gender Diversity” organised by The Summer Courses Foundation created by the University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. The major goal of the course, which will run on 16—18 June, is to describe the increasing tension between human rights and the accommodation of religion, culture and gender diversity in national and international law and society.
From 15 to 17 June 2021, the members, participants and observers of the Council of Europe’s Committee on Anti-Discrimination, Diversity, and Inclusion (CDADI) will meet to steer the work of the Committee of Experts on Roma and Traveller Issues (ADI-ROM), the Expert Committee on Combating Hate Speech (ADI/MSI-DIS) and the Working Group on Intercultural Integration (GT-ADI-INT). The ECMI, whose observer status grants access to the CDADI events, will be represented by Senior Researcher Ljubica Djordjević. Among other issues, combating hate speech and active political participation of national minority youth will be discussed – two very important topics on the ECMI agenda. The full agenda of the meeting can be accessed on the CDADI website.
Last but not least, Senior Researcher Marika Djolai will participate in the UN’s Africa-Middle East Regional Forum on “Conflict prevention and the protection of the human rights of minorities”. The forum will feed into the thematic work of the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues for his report to the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council in March 2022. The work of the ECMI Conflict & Security cluster will undoubtedly be an important input for the practical recommendations the Forum should result in. More information and the link to view the livestream of the event can be found here.
