ELEN ISSUE DAMNING REPORT TO UNITED NATIONS ON ATTACKS AGAINST SPEAKERS OF CO-OFFICIAL LANGUAGES IN SPAIN

The European Language Equality Network (ELEN) have issued a damning report to the United Nations Universal Periodic Review on discrimination and attacks against co-official language (and Asturian and Aragonese) speakers in the Spanish state.

The Report (see http://www.acpv.cat/web/images/stories/arxius/ELEN_report_UPR_DH_def.pdf ) details actual cases of attacks and discrimination against speakers of Catalan, Basque, Galician, Asturian and Aragonese in the period from 2007 to 2013.
A delegation of ELEN representatives will be attending the 21st UPR session on Thursday 21st January where the Spanish state’s human rights record will be reviewed by the UK, Sierra Leone and Macedonia.

The delegation will be led by ELEN Vice-President Professor Ferran Suay (Acció Cultural del País Valencià (ACPV), ELEN Vice-President Marcos Maceira (a Mesa pola Normalización Lingüística, Galicia), Rosa de les Neus Marco (Plataforma per la Llengua, Catalonia),  Francesc Felipe, Jaume Fullana and Natxo Badenas (Escola Valenciana). The event will be filmed by Aurelio Lopes from Irmandade TV, Galicia.

ELEN members Plataforma per la Llengua have reported (https://www.plataforma-llengua.cat/que-fem/estudis-i-publicacions/121/the-catalan-case-linguistic-discrimination-in-europe ) no less than 40 cases of serious linguistic discrimination in the Catalan-speaking territories (2007 to 2013). The cases reported are but a part of the totality of the discrimination that actually occurs, since in many cases the victims of such illegal abuse never report it and nor do they reach the NGOs or the media.

More than 80% of all cases occurred in organisations directly depending on the Spanish administration. This is especially serious since the Spanish government is ultimately responsible for enforcing state laws, the Statutes of Autonomy and the international conventions signed and ratified by Spain, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of language.

The facts show that Catalan-speaking citizens are in an extremely vulnerable position since they cannot go further than reporting the abuses they receive to the very same institutions that are conducting the abuse.

At the courts, which should stand as guarantors for Human Rights, the situation is particularly serious. For example, a judge took the custody of a daughter away from her father by alleging that he spoke to her in Catalan to separate her from her mother (case 34).

The Report concludes that Spanish authorities “either encourage or at least openly tolerate supremacist attitudes among civil servants and other officials and agents.”

Furthermore, considering the large amount of detailed evidence from many different areas it can be further concluded that “discrimination against the autochthonous non Castilian languages is systemic within the Spanish state system, and that this discrimination has become institutionalised.”

“Clearly, the search for justice through (hostile) domestic courts has become exhausted which gives grounds for an appeal to the ECtHR and the ECJ, and possibly the Hague.” States the ELEN Report.

The proceedings can be watched live on UN TV http://webtv.un.org/ starting at 9am on Thursday 21st .
The ELEN delegation will be making a presentation on the Report in Room XXIII from 12.30 to 14.30 , straight after the Review
The European Language Equality Network (ELEN) was established in 2011 to work for the protection and promotion of Europe’s regional minority and endangered languages. To date, ELEN represents 44 regional or minority languages in 21 European States.

The ELEN Report to the UPR: http://www.acpv.cat/web/images/stories/arxius/ELEN_report_UPR_DH_def.pdf

For further information contact:
Ferran Suay (ACPV), ELEN Vice-President, ferran@suay.cat, 00 34 662 658 300
Davyth Hicks ELEN Secretary-General, davyth.hicks@eurolang.net, 00 32 473 683 290

European Language Equality Network (ELEN)
ELEN Head Office
6 plasenn Gwirioù Mab-Den / place des Droits de l’Homme
Ti ar Vro
29270 KARAEZ/CARHAIX
BREIZH – BRETAGNE
Pg/tel/ fax : 02 98 73 20 58
ELEN on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/European-Language-Equality-Network/412170375471752

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.

Eurolang / European Language Equality Network (ELEN) Brussels,
davyth.hicks@eurolang.net
00 32 473 683 290 mob
www.eurolang.net
Eurolang on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eurolang/174907085047
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