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News

Press Conference in Belgrade

Organised by:	Center for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe Center for Antiwar Action
Venue:	METROPOL Hotel Belgrade Bulevar Kralja Aleksandra 69 11070 Belgrade tel. 381-11-323-0910  fax. 381-11-323-0991
Date:	Saturday, 3 rd July 2004
Time:	13.30
Duration:	45 minutes
Moderator:	Nenad Sebek – (CDRSEE, Executive Director)
Panelists:	Dr. Branka Prpa, (Director, Historical Archive of Belgrade) Dr. Magarditsch Hatschikjan, (Project-Director, CDRSEE) Dr. Ivan Jankovic (Member of the Executive Board, CAA)

A press conference will be held at the Metropol hotel on the occasion of the Seminar "Past and Present: Consequences for Democratisation", which will take place from 2-4 July 2004 in Belgrade. The Seminar will be attended by 45 experts on lustration from 10 countries. The press will have the opportunity to ask the panelists about nature and objectives, expected results of the Project “Disclosing hidden history: Lustration in the Western Balkans” :

The Western Balkans (Albania, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia - Herzegovina) is a region that still faces important challenges such as the lack of genuine peace, lack of trust by its citizens in the proper rule of law and the ongoing violation of human rights.

The Project intends to strengthen the participation of civil society in the democratic process, via regional and local activities. It aims to enhance lustration legislation and practices and the public debate on the past in the Western Balkans. Since the fall of Communism, Lustration has become the accepted term for dealing with the remnants of an authoritarian past primarily within state bureaucracy. A series of seminars in Belgrade, Tirana and Zagreb will be attended by well known legal experts, human right activists and journalists from all over the Balkans and will serve as a platform to discuss an empirical study on the actual state of lustration in Southeast Europe and what lessons can be learned from the lustration processes of Eastern Europe.