Key messages
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"Fighting any form of discrimination is a very strongly felt issue...We as a democratic country repudiate any form of discrimination which is groundless."
Elena Bonetti
Minister for Equal Opportunities and Family, Italy
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10'30'' - 18'10'' (video)
"Where there is discrimination, there cannot be equality. Therefore, the Council of Europe's main priority for the next four years is to combat all forms of discrimination, racism, xenophobia, and hostility toward LGBTI people or any other group that have no place in our societies in Europe."
Bjørn Berge
Council of Europe’s Deputy Secretary General
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19'18'' - 28'30'' (video)
"Receiving equitable treatment is a right of all, and this does not depend on your lifestyle or any other features or characteristics. Therefore, this [situation] is the test whereby we can measure the ability of a country to protect the dignity of an individual against discrimination or any form of hatred."
Benedetto della Vedova
Secretary of State of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Italy
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29'32''
"The CDADI certainly has carried out very important work in order to promote a cultural debate on freedom.”…“Despite the pain caused by the conflict and by the victims, we must think in terms of an inclusive participation, the participation of the young people, the welcoming of migrants and also the various persons in need."
Pina Picierno
Vice President of the European Parliament
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"The Digital Services Act has the very aim of taking Europe towards a real and practical regulation of digital platforms, combating illegal communications online and defining the responsibilities of service providers."
Francesco Verducci
Vice-President of the Extraordinary Commission for the fight against intolerance, racism
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"It is here, in the first kilometers across the Ukrainian border, that one can see how great isthe scale of the drama of people fleeing the war. Extremely exhausted, cold, helpless mothers with young children and the elderly. That is why, from the first days of the war, we made a clear assumption in Lublin: we will not leave anyone behind."
Krzysztof Żuk
Mayor of the City of Lublin, Poland
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"The three letters “A D I” should not just be seen as an abbreviation for anti-discrimination, diversity and inclusion. They should be the foundations of Europe’s future."
Maria Daniella Marouda
Chair of European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI)
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"Social cohesion is the basic element to create resilient democracy and for us to carry out truly democratic actions so that all may enjoy human rights, social cohesion, social unity..."
Fabrizio Petri
Special Envoy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation for the Human Rights of LGBTIQ+ people in the world, Italy
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"The CDADI recalls the need to ensure that all those fleeing the war in Ukraine have equal access to protection and assistance, especially those particularly vulnerable to discrimination and hatred."
Triantafillos Loukarelis
CDADI Chair and Director, National Office against Racial Discrimination (UNAR), Italy
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"It is important to come to an understanding that politicization of minority rights usually does not help the persons concerned, but on the contrary leads to the escalation of tensions."
Hallvard Gorseth
Head of the anti-discrimination Department and of the Roma and Travellers Team a.i., Council of Europe
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"Autocracies are not very good friends of diversity…Ukraine has unique Greek cultures…They lived in small groups in Mariupol which is heavily bombarded by Russia. And these unique subcultures actually needed special support and special care to preserve their culture. With no safe humanitarian corridors, it looks like these cultures are not going to survive…"
Olena Bogdan
Vice-Chair of the CDADI, Ukraine
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"47 projects are now under way funded through the European Social Fund that aim at supporting vulnerable persons and that we have chosen to target to LGBTIQ people…I am referring to the establishment of a national portal to support transgender persons and which has a particular focus on health care. This was established thanks to the Health Ministry. In terms of labour issues, we have carried out an analysis in cooperation with the statistics institute to understand how diversity management practices within Italian compagnies are functioning and also to understand to what extent LGBTIQ persons are discriminated in the world of work."
Agnese Canevari
UNAR – The National Strategy for LGBTI persons
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"[There is] a lack of legal recognition of the minority status of Roma and Sinti communities in Italy, whose presence is estimated at between 120 000 and 160 000 by the Council of Europe, and there is also a cultural gap. That is the lack of recognition by society of the contribution in cultural, artistic and value terms of the presence of this minority in our country."
Roberto Bortone
UNAR – The National Strategy for Equality, Integration and Participation of Roma and Sinti persons
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"In the light of the changes of the demography, democracies are and will continue to become increasingly diverse and some member states are called upon to deal with new challenges to ensure social cohesion, which must be based on a good management of immigration flows, but also, of course, ensuring non-discrimination."
Nadan Petrovic
UNAR – The National Strategy Against Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance
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"We are working at identifying hate speech and especially cases studies through an analysis that is going to be based on algorithms and technological innovations; that is machine learning."
Paola Barretta
Carta di Roma association – the REASON (React Against Online hate Speech) Project
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"We see ourselves as a resource, human, social, cultural, and also economic resource. We don't see each other as a social problem. We don't want to be seen as a social problem."
"We need a new approach, the school education issue is, for instance, that during the first lockdown in Italy 67% of Roma kids were not even once called by schools. So, they were completely cut from the school system. And there is anti-gypsyism present in the institutions. And this is so hard to fight."
Dijana Pavlovic
President of the Kethane Movement and winner of the CIDU Diritti Umani Prize 2021
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"Silent racism, like hidden discrimination, hidden under the veil of well-wishing, is something which is more violent” … “A woman like me obviously of African origin may be a prostitute or a housewife, or a caregiver. And if she's a bourgeois, it must necessarily be because she married a white man, she must be subservient and put up with violence, i.e. that a woman like me may not be able to choose her path to generate wealth and contribute to society both economically socially or intellectually."
Mehret Tewolde
Executive Director Italia Africa Business Week
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"It should not be right, that people who run the risk of being discriminated, and do so every day are the very same, who must take the responsibility of standing in the front line to make the necessary changes. Why is it up to us to have to change the world?"
Marco Giusta & Alessandro Battaglia
Torino Pride and coordinators of the Annual General Meeting of EPOA 2022