“I have been part of CIVIL – Center for Freedom for almost 20 years and what drew me to be part of this organization, both when I am formally and not formally part of, is precisely the urge that I recognized to continue to work, to act, to speak, to create activities, projects, festivals, concerts, educational endeavors in the function of promoting human rights”, stated Petrit Saracini at the opening of CIVIL Fest.
Saracini agreed also with the other interlocutors and says that today the situation is not much better of what we felt until two years ago, but thinks that still we have budged a little, at least one millimeter forward, and that in these past two years we have received a chance to deal more essentially and more realistically with this issue of human rights.
“Unfortunately we haven’t budged, unfortunately there are many areas that we have to work on. First and foremost, the concept of human rights education in our country is pretty narrow and formal. Human rights are not just two or three lessons that will teach children in primary and secondary education during the year, human rights mean more and so do practicing and including this concept in every educational effort in the education system”, stated Saracini.
According to him, the culture of impunity is also a big problem, and that before as well there was also a culture in which the state emanates discrimination and does not punish discriminatory practices of the institutions.
“We need to create realistic and functional mechanisms that will protect human rights of every citizen and for the state to finally become the one that will be sending the message that the protection of human rights is important and that violation is something that cannot and must not be tolerated”, adds Saracini.
Saracini says that if we want to build a society without antagonisms, or at least to reduce them as much as we can, we have to encourage and help those who are the most disadvantaged now.
“We need to build social responsibility where it will be clear to the people that they have to help one another, to build social solidarity that has been destroyed, if we want to reach some level of equality in society. To help those who are disadvantaged and to create as much as possible such common points, where all of us different on so many grounds will create new common narratives”, adds Saracini.
Аngela Petrovska
Camera: Аtanas Petrovski
Editing: Аrian Mehmeti
Photo: Biljana Jordanovska
This post is also available in: Macedonian
