Greek Helsinki Monitor & Minority Rights Group- Greece Greece against its Macedonian minority The Rainbow trial ETEPE Athens, 1998 1 2 Copies available from: Greek Helsinki Monitor P.O.Box 51393, GR-14510 Kifisia, Greece Tel: (+30-1) 620-01-20; Fax: (+30-1) 807-57-67 E-mail:
[email protected] This publication is also available in the web site http://www.greekhelsin- ki.gr ISBN: 960-86206-1-9 © 1998 by Greek Helsinki Monitor and Minority Rights Group - Greece 3 GREEK HELSINKI MONITOR & MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP- GREECE Minority Rights Group - Greece was created as a Greek affiliate of Minority Rights Group International in January 1992. Its members founded Greek Helsinki Monitor in late 1992, following the encourage- ment of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF). A year later, in December 1993, the latters General Assembly accred- ited it as its Greek National Committee with an observer status; in November 1994, the General Assembly elevated Greek Helsinki Monitor to full membership. In April 1998, Greek Helsinki Monitor also became member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX). In 1994, Greek Helsinki Monitor launched a project to prepare detailed reports on all national, ethnolinguistic and major religious minority communities in Greece (Macedonians and Turks; Arvanites, Pomaks, and Vlachs; Catholics, Jehovah Witnesses, Protestants, and New Religious Movements), as well as the Greek minorities in Albania and Turkey, and the Albanian immigrants in Greece. Besides the usual monitoring of human rights violations and human rights related trials, the issuing of public statements, alone or along with other NGOs, and the monitoring of Greek and Balkan media for stereotypes and hate speech, Greek Helsinki Monitor started in 1997 a Roma Office in coop- eration with the European Roma Rights Center.