COMMITTEE ON ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ADOPTS CONCLUSIONS ON ALBANIA

CERD
63rd session
20 August 2003
Afternoon




The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination adopted this afternoon its observations and recommendations on how Albania implements the provisions of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Listed as positive aspects in the initial to fourth periodic reports of Albania, the Committee noted with appreciation that in the past 10 years, Albania had made considerable progress in establishing the rule of law. It welcomed the ratification by the State party of many international and regional human rights instruments. The Committee also commended the action taken by the Albanian authorities against organized crime and corruption.
The Committee said that it was concerned that the State party had a tendency not to regard the particularly unfavourable situation in which certain minority groups in Albania lived as one involving racial or ethnic discrimination. The Committee was also concerned about information that members of the Roma minority were generally the object of suspicion and were subjected to ill treatment and the improper use of force by members of the police force.
The Committee recommended, among other things, that the State party should reconsider the criteria on which the distinction between national minorities and linguistic minorities was based, in consultation with the groups concerned, and ensure that persons belonging to these communities enjoyed the same rights, especially in the cultural field. It further recommended that the State party intensified the efforts it was making on behalf of the Roma minority.
The Committee also broached the issue of “Reports on Trust and Non-Self Governing Territories”, in the context of article 15 of the International Convention and heard Raghavan Vasudevan Pillai, Committee Expert functioning as Rapporteur, introduce his report.
Committee Experts, including Mahmoud Aboul-Nasr, Patrick Thornberry, and Agha Shahi then raised various issues and topics including how to encourage non-governmental organizations to participate in this subject.

Concluding Observations on Albania
The Committee noted with great satisfaction that in the past 10 years, Albania had made considerable progress in establishing the rule of law. It also welcomed the ratification by the State party of many international and regional human rights instruments. The Committee noted with satisfaction the establishment of several institutions with competence in the field of combating racial discrimination and protecting minorities. The Committee also commended the action taken by the Albanian authorities against organized crime and corruption. It welcomed with satisfaction the measures adopted to protect religious freedom and the considerable efforts made to promote the education and cultural rights of persons belonging to national minorities.
The Committee recommended that the State party collect precise statistical data on persons belonging to minorities in Albania. The Committee also noted that the State party had a tendency not to regard the particularly unfavourable situation in which certain minority groups in Albania lived as one involving racial or ethnic discrimination, believing that the social and economic problems encountered by persons belonging to these minorities were the same as those with which the rest of the population had to deal with. The Committee therefore recommended that the State party reconsider this approach and carry out analyses to determine whether and to what extent the unfavourable situation of some minorities was the result of ethnic or racial discrimination against them.
The Committee recommended that the State party should reconsider the criteria on which the distinction between national minorities and linguistic minorities was based, in consultation with the groups concerned, and ensure that persons belonging to these communities enjoyed the same rights, especially in the cultural field. It also recommended that the State party ensure that the rights of members of minorities were not unduly restricted outside areas where these minorities were concentrated. The Committee also recommended that the State party should declare as offences punishable by law any assistance to racist activities and the financing thereof, participation in racist organizations, acts of racial violence and incitement to such acts, as well as any refusal of goods or services on racist grounds.
The Committee was also concerned about information that members of the Roma minority were generally the object of suspicion and were subjected to ill-treatment and the improper use of force by members of the police force, and recommended that the State party take measures to halt such practices and to increase law enforcement officials’ sensitivity to and training in matters involving racial discrimination. The Committee recommended that the State party intensified the efforts it was making on behalf of the Roma minority. The Committee also invited the State party to adopt appropriate measures to guarantee that access to all places and services intended for public use was not denied to anyone on the grounds of race, colour, ancestry or national or ethnic origin.
The Committee noted that very few complaints of racial discrimination had been dealt with by the People’s Advocate and that no court decision had been taken on any complaint, and recommended that the State party consider if the lack of any such complaints was not the result of the victims’ ignorance of their rights, the lack of confidence on the part of individuals in the police and judicial authorities or the authorities’ lack of attention or sensitivity to cases of racial discrimination.

Report on Trust and Non-Self Governing Territories
RAGHAVAN VASUDEVAN PILLAI, Committee Expert functioning as Rapporteur, said there was very little to report to the Committee that was new on this issue. He had received the reports of the Special Committee with regard to the implementation on the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, and a list of 16 trust and non-self governing territories from the Secretariat. In spite of going through about 400 pages of printed documents, there was very little to add to what was said in last year’s report.
There were no petitions from bodies of the United Nations that dealt with matters directly relating to the implementation of the International Convention. Constitutional changes were underway in some territories administered by the United Kingdom, such as the British Virgin Islands, St Helena, and the Cayman Islands, to the effect of the incorporation of a human rights provision in the Constitution. Apart from this, the working papers on the 16 countries mentioned above gave information on some counts of interest to the Committee, including cases in the US Virgin Islands, Bermuda and Guam, as well as others. There was very little change to be made to this year’s report, except for in the case of updating information, he concluded.
Committee Experts then asked various questions, asking for example whether any information had been submitted on this topic by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), how to encourage NGOs to do so, and urged the Committee to focus more on this topic and to allocate it more time and more importance. A general recommendation could be made to countries with non-self governing territories to submit a section on this topic in their reports.



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