From: Ales Pecnik Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 13:31:50 +0200 CET DST On Sunday, August 11, the 10th Regional ILGA Conference for Eastern, Southeastern and Central Europe ended. The conference had 38 participants from countries other than Slovenia and an always changing number of participants from Slovenia. The following workshops were presented at the conference: How to do a safer sex workshop, Lesbian visibility, Lesbian organizing and exchanging, Fundraising for GLB organizations, ILGA Phare and Tacis projects, Self-help groups of people living with HIV/AIDS, Gay and lesbian marriage, Gay Games, Working with governments, GLB Internet, The place of political power struggle on the agenda of gay and lesbian movement, ILGA and Eastern Europe, Long-term relationships: pro et contra. At the closing plenary the following recomendations from workshops were accepted: - "Fund-raising for GLB organizations": UNAIDS should influence governments to spend more money on HIV/AIDS prevention - "Long-term relationships: pro et contra": Be aware of the disadvantages of long-term relationshops but be open to positive sides - "Gay Games": organisers strongly invite all to participate in games, not only joining the sports but also to be part of the other activities and organisation Suggestions: - keep contacts, widen the network to the East - activists from the West should encourage the volunteers to go to the East and help locals fight the discrimination and make GLB community in Eastern European countries more visible Next conference: - the regional conference should continue in 1 year frequency - next conference will be held in Moscow, Russia, in July/August 1997 and will be organised by Triangle Center. Workshop and plenary minutes will be available on WWW soon. Everything didn't run smoothly though. On August 8, the Slovene border police at the border pass "Dolga vas" denied entry to three participants, citizens of Romania, Cameroon and USA. According to Scott Long, one of the participants who were denied at the border, the policeman was extremely rude, didn't want to tell his name (although the law says he has to tell his name if requested) and didn't even want to see their invitation letters. Conference organisers responded with a protest to Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and media. The police issued a statement saying that "policemen's action was correct, because the law says that they can deny entry to a person without sufficient funds and the three participants had only 300 US dollars all together". Organisers can in no way agree with the police. Citizens of Cameroon and USA had 300 US dollars *each* while the citizen of Romania had 200 US dollars. Beside that, the citizen of Cameroon and the citizen of Romania also had official invitation letters, saying that the organisers will pay for their accomodation and meals. Organisers also can not agree with the police that the policemen's procedure was correct. While the law may not explicitly say that policemen have to be respectful to the people they meet because of their work, it does say that policemen have to tell their names if requested. The organisers' conclusion is that the whole thing happened because of the policeman's xenophobia. We can't let this happen and we can't let the Slovene police pretend everything is ok. Send a fax to the Slovene Ministry of Internal Affairs and tell them that you don't like xenophobia, pretending everything is ok if it isn't and things like that. Tell them you want the policeman who didn't want to introduce himself disciplined. Fax numbers: Ministry of Internal Affairs (Andrej Ster, Minister) fax: 214 330 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Davorin Kracun, Minister) fax: 178 2341 Ombudsman (Ivan Bizjak) fax: 218 196 Government (Janez Drnovsek, Prime Minister) fax: 178 1721 Ales Pecnik, conference organizing committee