[lg policy] Re: 'Respecting Linguistic Diversity? Language Discrimination in the EU'. Hearing. Wednesday June 1st. Room JAN 2Q2 ELEN, Liadh Ni Riada MEP,

Fri May 13 14:17:29 UTC 2016

Dear Language Policy list members,

_Re: 'Respecting Linguistic Diversity? Language Discrimination in the 
EU'. Hearing. Wednesday June 1st. Room JAN 2Q2 ELEN, Liadh Ni Riada MEP, _

On behalf of the European Language Equality Network (ELEN) I would like 
to inform you of the Hearing, _'Respecting Linguistic Diversity? 
Language Discrimination in the EU_" on _Wednesday June 1st in Room JAN 2Q2.

_The hearing will discuss current issues concerning the language rights 
of regional or minority language speakers, language discrimination, and 
how this type of discrimination can be dealt with.

The programme and poster are attached.

_Overview_
In January 2015 ELEN presented its Report to the UN Universal Periodic 
Review (UPR) on language discrimination against co-official language 
speakers (Catalan, Basque and Galician) in the Spanish state. It 
revealed a shocking list of beatings and humiliation of people trying to 
use their official language with state authorities. Unfortunately, the 
ELEN Report only reveals the tip of the iceberg as there are many 
reports of this kind of discrimination, both in Spain and across Europe. 
France, for example, is notorious for being a 'rogue' state on this 
issue having discriminated against its own ‘regional’ languages so 
thoroughly in the name of a perceived threat to ‘unity’ that they are 
all now defined by UNESCO as severely endangered. In addition, we see 
regular occurrences of language based discrimination happening to nearly 
all regional or minority languages in Europe.

The hearing will discuss how the EU and its Member-States deals with 
this problem. It will review the situation in various States with 
presentations from ELEN Member NGOs working on the ground who will 
provide the evidence for language discrimination with numerous case studies.

A panel of experts will assess the current language rights situation and 
make recommendations with civil society stakeholders on what measures 
the EU should bring forward to deal with the situation. This will 
include the Council of Europe’s ECRI recommendation’s that language 
discrimination constitutes a form of both direct and indirect racism.

Discussion, with participation from the Commission, Council of Europe 
(FCNM and ECRML), OSCE HCNM, and the UN OHCHR, will focus on how best to 
use existing legislation already in place such as the Race Equality 
Directive and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Donostia Language 
Protocol proposals, and on the ELEN proposal for new legislation such as 
a language rights directive for regional, minority and endangered 
language speakers.

The Recommendations from the hearing will be presented to the EP  
Culture and LIBE Committees, the Council of Europe, OSCE, the UN and UNESCO.

Programme information is here: 
http://elen.ngo/2016/04/15/elen-hearing-respecting-linguistic-diversity-language-discrimination-in-the-european-union/

Guests without EP badges are invited to register at: 
http://www.greens-efa.eu/events/registrations/796-respecting-linguistic-diversity.html

Best regards,

Davyth Hicks,

Dr. Davyth Hicks
ELEN Secretary-General
European Language Equality Network (ELEN)/ Eurolang Representation to 
the EU,
BRUSSELS
Belgium
davyth.hicks at eurolang.net
www.elen.ngo/information
www.eurolang.net
Eurolang on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eurolang/174907085047
Eurolang on Twitter http://twitter.com/eurolang

Eurolang and ELEN are registered NGOs. They have  consultative status 
with the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the UN and UNESCO. 
They sit on the European Commission NGO Platform for Multilingualism,  
the NGO Platform for Culture, the NGO Platform for the EU Fundamental 
Rights Agency, and the UN's ECOSOC.

To date ELEN represents 44 language communities with 60 member 
organisations in 20 European States.

European Language Equality Network (ELEN)
6 plasenn Gwirioù Mab-Den / place des Droits de l'Homme
Ti ar Vro
29270 KARAEZ/CARHAIX
BREIZH - BRETAGNE
Pg/tel/ fax : 00 33 (0)2 98 73 20 58
Website www.elen.ngo
ELEN on Facebook 
http://www.facebook.com/pages/European-Language-Equality-Network/412170375471752

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