Civic-counselling centres

Initiated legal proceedings for realization of the marginal groups’ rights 

The Roma humanitarian association “Mesecina” from Gostivar is a civil society organization where the head office and the coordinator of the program “Civic-counselling centers (CCC)”, Muhamed Toci, are placed. The program Civic-counselling centers covers more than 95% of the territory of the Republic of Macedonia, supported by the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC) and the Open Society Institute of Macedonia Foundation (OSIMF). The counseling centers are located in Skopje, Delcevo, Stip, Prilep, Kumanovo, with the head office in Gostivar and the program refers to the problems and realization of the human rights at marginal groups, especially the Roma population.

“Several legal proceedings are in process for violation of human rights that refer to the Roma population in Macedonia, registered and run by the centers”, explains the coordinator Toci. We are dealing with the mysterious case of the death of the juvenile girl of Roma nationality in Bitola, where her parents are afraid to bring a charge as a result of certain pressures. There is another example from Bitola, where some Roma people have been arrested and bitten in a police station for a copper wire robbery, and after finding the real robbers, except for an oral apology, there have been no other legal consequences. As far as the bringing down of the Roma settlement in Veles is concerned, we are still negotiating with the state and we have already had some concrete results”, points out Toci.

Subject: The case of Fahreta Ramadanova

One case for violation of basic human rights has been registered in the Civic-counseling centers in Skopje, where Ferki Demirovski is a coordinator. “Last year, on 12 December, during a class in the primary school Braka Ramiz and Hamid in Shuto Orizari, the teacher K.R. physically attacked the pupil Fahreta Ramadanova. Fahreta suffered batteries – her two front teeth were broken”. This is how Ferki started presenting the case of Fahreta Ramadanova and we are still waiting for the legal outcome. “It all started when Fahreta discreetly asked her classmate for a pencil sharpener, starting to sharpen her pencil under the desk. For this act the teacher, grabbing her hair, hit Fahreta’s head twice from the desk and she suffered the above-mentioned injury. Injured and bleeding Fahreta asked the teacher to go to the toilet and wash her face, but the teacher refused to let her go. Later Fahreta went home and told her parents about the case and they immediately went to the school principle, Shaip Isein. He called the teacher and she admitted what she had done”, added the CCC-Skopje coordinator.

Fahreta is not happy to talk about this case, shortly stating: “It had happened before, the same teacher to hit a child. Now we have a new teacher who treats us much better”.

Fahreta’s mother, Sherife Ramadanova, adds: “We did not ask much of her, jut to pay the costs for the broken tooth, since we are social cases. We would not have asked for this case to end up at court. But she refused us and fortunately CCC in Shuto Orizari helped us cover all court and medical costs. We were not even aware that they could help us that much. We hope that our private lawsuit will result in our benefit”.

After the teacher’s confession and the letter to the Ministry of Education, she has been suspended and CCC has been following this case since the very beginning, so after providing a medical document to confirm the injuries, the lawyer Aksel Ahmedov has been engaged and has brought criminal charges.

The teacher K.R, as Ferki Demirovski told us, after admitting the act, is now denying it, in spite of the fact that one of her pupils has suffered batteries during her class.

On 26 March this year, in the law court Skopje II there was an investigating procedure for this case. After two months, on 10 May, Fahreta was informed by the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Skopje that it was not about a battery and it resulted in the public prosecutor stopping the investigating procedure. After stopping the procedure, inclusive resolution 100/04 from 15.06.2004, Fahreta’s legal representative prepared a private lawsuit submitted in the legally determined deadline and that is in process.

At the moment CCC-Skopje is waiting for the results for the development of the procedure.

Justification of the Civic-counseling centers

Operating of the Civic-counseling centers is confirmed by the recent senseless event in the Skopje coffee bar “New York”.

As Gjulten Bekjir, an associate in CCC Skopje pointed out, after a previous complaint by a group of young Roma that their basic human rights had been violated in the above-mentioned coffee bar, she and Ferki Demirovski went to check it.

“Not so long ago, Ferki and I went to this coffee bar in the very center of the town, along the quay. We ordered a drink a started talking in our mother tongue – Roma. After a while the man who was supposed to serve us came and told us to leave the place. When we asked him why he was doing that, he answered that that was what his employers had told him, not to serve Roma people. Actually, we had been told just the same by other young Roma who decided to visit this place by chance or on purpose.”

This case is now in the CCC head office in Gostivar and is waiting for an epilogue in front of the CCC commission for selecting cases, where it will be decided what to do further and whether there is going to be a request for a legal or other case. However, the CCC coordinator, Muhamed Toci is decisive: “We are going to ask for a court case in front of the Commission, that is, we are going to send a reference for the owner of the coffee bar to be sent to court, that is to bring charges against him.”

Muhamed Toci also added the following: We record all cases and according to them we make statistical reports. They are going to be evidence and after the CCC program completion by the end of 2005 we have a right to ask for its continuation and we will apply at foreign embassies and international organizations, not excluding domestic resources of assets.