The panel discussion on “The Invisible Link Between Systemic Corruption and Discrimination” took place on December 28, 2023 (Thursday) from 10:30 to 13:30 at Hotel Limak in Skopje, in the conference hall “Lara” on the fifth floor. The event was organized by the Association for Sexual and Gender Minorities QUEER CENTER Skopje and was implemented as part of the project “Human Rights in Practice” implemented by the European Policy Institute (EPI) – Skopje, as a component of the project “Joint Action for Human Rights” funded by the European Union.
In the first part of the event, the European Policy Institute (EPI) – Skopje briefly presented the project “Joint Action for Human Rights,” while the Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia (CMEM) addressed, among other things, the Hate Speech Combat Network in the media, whose formation was supported by the OSCE Mission to Skopje.
Additionally, we presented statistics from the report of Skopje Queer Center on monitoring and reporting discrimination and disturbing speech, as well as filed reports on hate speech in 2023, which will be published in the upcoming period.
In the second part of the event, we discussed corruption, discrimination, and hate speech, and their interconnectedness that significantly impacts the erosion of the system and the rule of law. Speakers in this discussion were Uranija Pirovska, Executive Director of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, and prosecutor Lenche Ristoska from the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Skopje.
You can access the publication resulting from the project, titled “Report: Hate Speech as Verbal Assault Against Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity,” here.
View the photos from the event on our Flickr here.