• Just 42 percent will vote in EuroParliament elections – Gallup
• Just four parties to win EuroParliament seats – Delo-Stik
• Maribor gearing up for Lent festival
• Novo Mesto to host SNIFF festival of short films
• Kiberpipa opens computer science museum
• Emigrant focused magazine Slovenija.svet debuts

Anti-Roma sentiment steps to the fore

Heightened tensions between local residents and Roma in the southeastern regions of Dolenjska and Posavje continued this week. The problem started on 17 May, when a group of 25 residents of a Dolenjska village went to a newly established Roma camp for an unclear reason. Tragedy ensued, with one of the local residents being shot in the neck by an automatic rifle.

The Roma camp had been set up on private land near Krška vas weeks before. Residents of the area allege that the Roma were terrorizing them with threats and thefts. Though the locals called the police several times, they could not force the Roma to leave.

The incident led to an emergency session of the government this week, on 24 May. The meeting was closed to the public, but reportedly included representatives of the police, the government and leaders from the affected Dolenjska municipalities. One concrete result of the meeting was the decision to move the responsibility for securing the safety of local residents in the affected areas will be moved from the police to the Ministry of the Interior, according to a report by PopTV.

Though the meetings were intended to assuage the problems in Dolenjska between townspeople and the Roma, the planned demonstration by citizens of Dolenjska, Bela Krajina and Posavje went ahead in Ljubljana on 27 May. Nearly 300 people showed up, marching from Kongresni trg to the seat of government in the capital.

There are as many as 82 Roma settlements in Slovenia, and around 6200 Roma. Though relations between Roma and local residents in southeastern Slovenia are strained, relations in the northeastern Prekmurje region are generally good.

Izbrisani return to parliamentary debate

On 25 May, the National Assembly shot down a petition for the staging of another referendum on the Izbrisani ("The Erased"), this time on the systemic law, by a vote of 44:0.

The Izbrisani are citizens of other republics of the former Yugoslavia who were living in Slovenia at the time of independence who had permanent residency but who did not have, or otherwise qualify for, citizenship in the newly independent country. The government revoked their permanent-resident status and erased them wholesale from the registries.

The referendum initiative was submitted on 17 May by a group of voters led by Sandra Letica, a member of the executive committee of the youth branch of the opposition SDS. Yet another referendum petition, organized by Branko Grims of the SDS executive committee, is being reviewed by the Constitutional Court.

The National Assembly had hoped to resolve the Izbrisani situation by two laws, the so-called "systemic law" and the "technicalities law," but the parliamentary opposition was successful in holding up the laws’ implementation by insisting the laws be put before the electorate in referendum.

While the referendum on the systemic law was unable to be held because the Constitutional Court deemed the referendum question unconstitutional, voters shot down the implementation of the technicalities law on 4 April. Nearly 95 percent of votes cast were against the technicalities bill, but turnout stood at just about 31 percent.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there were 18,305 citizens of other Yugoslav republics living in Slovenia in 1992 who had permanent resident status. Of the Ministry’s figure, 12,937 applied for citizenship under procedures introduced later, and 10,713 got citizenship. But according to unofficial estimates, 3000 to 4000 people are still without formal legal status in the country.

Amnesty International report highlights police abuses

Slovenia fared relatively well on the latest Amnesty International Report, released this week. The report covers the year 2003, and deals with human rights violations throughout the world. The national report for Slovenia mainly deals with the country’s lack of progress in creating an independent body to address complaints of police abuse, as pointed out by an Amnesty International briefing circulated last May in conjunction with a report presented by the Slovene government to the UN Committee against Torture.

The briefing highlighted several allegations of abuse by the police, particularly aimed at members of ethnic and racial minorities. Also highlighted were failures by the government to investigate "promptly and impartially" allegations of abuse as required by the Convention against Torture as well as Slovene legislation.

The report does not present any figures relating to the amount of people filing allegations of abuse, but does state that the government has "repeatedly failed to publish or make accessible up-to-date data on the total number of complaints of ill-treatment against the police and other law enforcement officials, the number of complaints that result in disciplinary or criminal proceedings, and the outcome of such proceedings." The report only presents two examples of specific cases of police brutality.

Central European summit calls for larger EU

President Janez Drnovšek advocated that the European Union expand to the borders of Europe, "from Albania to Moldova," at a summit in Romania this week. First, though, he acknowledged that the EU must adopt its constitution, and candidate countries must make the required reforms.

The statement followed one of the themes of the 11^th Meeting of Central European Presidents, which took place in Constanta, Romania, on 27 and 28 May. Aside from the future of EU enlargement, security in the Western Balkans and regional cooperation were also discussed. As part of the second theme, Drnovšek echoed others’ calls for increased foreign investment in infrastructure projects in Southeastern Europe.

Sixteen heads of state participated, from Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine. The next summit will take place in 2005 in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Izola hosts its first film festival

Izola, on the Adriatic coast, hosted its first film festival, Isola Cinema – Kino Otok, from 25 to 29 May. The festival is dedicated to film from world cinema’s margins, primarily from Latin America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Organizers expect it to become an annual event, based in Izola.

Screenings took place in an open-air theatre set up on Manzioli Square in the center of Izola, provided by Istrabenz. Equipment came from Openluchtbioscoop, which also equips the Motovun and Sarajevo film festivals.

And in other news…

• Elections to the European Parliament will take place in Slovenia for the first time ever on 13 June, but a Gallup Europe poll showed this week that only about 42 percent of the country’s electorate plans to participate. Across Europe, the average is 45 percent, with the greatest number of people planning to vote in Belgium and the Czech Republic.

• And according to a Delo-Stik poll conducted this week, just four of the 13 parties competing for Slovenia’s seven seats in the European Parliament are expected to be successful. The poll found the LDS will win three seats, the SDS will win two, and one seat each will go to NSi and ZLSD. This poll found a slightly higher expected voter turn out than the Gallup poll – some 53.3 percent will participate with a further 18.5 percent "likely" to vote.

• Maribor is already gearing up for its annual Lent festival, which will take place in the city center from 25 June through 10 July. More than 400 concerts, dramas, operas and other cultural events are planned and more than 500,000 visitors are expected at this, the country’s largest summer arts festival. Among the highlights will be concerts by David Byrne & The Tosca Strings, Vlatko Stefanovski, Magnifico and Vlado Kreslin.

• A new magazine for Slovenes around the world called Slovenija.svet was debuted at Slovenksa izseljenska matica in Ljubljana on 24 May. The magazine replaces two publications aimed at ethnic Slovenes outside of Slovenia, Rodna gruda and Naša Slovenija. Slovenija.svet is financed primarily from the government's Office for Slovenes Around the World and the Ministry of Culture. The magazine is being published by Slovenska izseljenska matica, and the other two important emigrant organizations – the Slovenia in the World association and the World Slovene Congress – are not participating.