The Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR) was established in 2008 by young human rights activists. YIHR Croatia has a seat in Zagreb, but conducts its programmes in other parts of Croatia too, especially in war stricken areas. The Initiative members are young human rights activists, lawyers, journalists, students, writers, researchers and experts from the field of transition justice and foreign affairs from Croatia and other countries in the region. The Initiative’s objective is to face the past, reconcile with the past’s legacy in the present and learn from past experiences for a better future; support to victims of human rights violations and contributing to the establishment of an institutional framework for prevention of (a repetition of) mass human rights violations in the future; strengthening capacities and collaboration among young population to create a society of peace in which civil values and human rights are fully respected. The Initiative’s activities span across four section: Justice, Reconciliation, Outreach and Social Development and Innovations.
At the 14th Festival of Tolerance YIHR will briefly present the organisation’s work and the award-winning project under the title Common Narratives.
The central part of the programme will be a discussion about the contemporary forms of human rights violations. The focus will be on the burning issue of anti-racism protests in the USA and the manifest forms of racism in Croatia. The panellists will be Sara Lalić, the programme coordinator with the Centre for Peace Studies, and Emina Bužinkić, an activist and doctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota, hosted by Branka Vierde, coordinator of the justice and reconciliation section of YIHR. The panel will focus on the history of anti-racist protests in the US, the goals and demands of today’s protesters and the potentials for achieving a higher human rights standard in both the USA and Europe. The discussion will also include perspectives for uniting individual human rights fights across the world into a unique anti-fascist movement. Also, the panellists will re-examine the current examples of hate speech and hate crimes, in Croatia manila oriented towards national minorities and refugees.
http://yihr.hr/hr/