5 Stories from Europe You May Not Have Seen
1. Greece scraps law banning police from university campuses
Greece’s newly elected, centre-right government has ignored leftists’ protests to overturn a law that had prohibited police from entering universities.
In a stormy debate preceding Thursday’s vote, the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, insisted the old law – regarded as sacrosanct in a country that had once known military rule – had turned campuses into dens of criminality and no-go zones for police.
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In recent years academics have been attacked on university sites, while drug addicts have been seen shooting up in broad daylight on campuses.
The law that has barred security forces from universities for close to 40 years was drafted in response to the decision of Greece’s colonels to send a tank crashing through the gates of Athens’ Polytechnic in 1973 – a move that resulted in the deaths of 23 students.
link
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/08/greece-scraps-law-banning-police-from-university-campuses
2. How a hashtag looks set to offer LGBTI people a #MeToo moment in Poland
Ten days ago, approaching the main city square where Białystok’s first ever LGBTI pride march was due to start, I was met with a scene of chaos
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For many Poles, the level of violence witnessed at the Pride March in Białystok came as a shock but it did not come from nowhere. Over the past few months, the Polish government and pro-government media have been increasingly spreading homophobic and transphobic propaganda and using homophobia as a rallying poing ahead of upcoming general elections.
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Two days ago, a young man called Tomasz tweeted a message suggesting that LGBTI people post photos of themselves “in school or work showing that we are the normal people whom you might meet anywhere: in the shop, on the street, the office”. He added the hashtag #jestemLGBT ("I am LGBT”) and for the last two days, it has been trending at the No.1 spot on Polish twitter, with thousands expressing solidarity by tweeting and re-tweeting.
Poles have used the hashtag on social media to show the people they are behind the labels: students, waitresses, firemen, doctors or just people you sit next to on a bus or pass in the street. “I'm fed up with the way the LGBTI community in Poland are dehumanised” tweeted Alexandra, a student. ”I am just a normal person. I get up, go to work, come home, make dinner for me and my girlfriend, go to a class, then go to bed." Tens of thousands of others are joining in, offering solidarity and support by tweeting #jestemzLGBT (I am with LGBTI) expressing solidarity with LGBTI people.
link
https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/31/how-a-hashtag-looks-set-to-offer-lgbti-people-a-metoo-moment-in-poland-view
3. Bosnia To Start Tracking Migrant Injuries After Alleged Beatings By Croatian Police
Authorities in northwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina say they will start recording injuries sustained by migrants after 18 of them were allegedly beaten by Croatian police near the two countries' border.
Una Sana Canton’s Health Minister Nermina Cemalovic made the announcement to RFE/RL on August 8, a day after 14 Pakistanis and four Iraqis were found with signs of physical trauma while trying to illegally cross the border into EU-member Croatia.
Bosnian media and a Croatian refugee assistance center said they were beaten by Croatian police, an allegation that Zagreb authorities deny.
link
https://www.rferl.org/a/bosnia-tracking-migrant-injuries-alleged-beatings-croatian-police/30100316.html
4. Two dead in explosion at military testing site in northern Russia: defence ministry
Two people died in an explosion at a military testing site in northern Russia on Thursday, according to RIA news agency, citing the ministry of defence.
Six people were injured in the incident near Severodvinsk in the Arkhangelsk region in the Russian Arctic, it added.
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It was the second accident involving the Russian military this week.
Massive explosions at a Russian military ammunition depot in Siberia injured at least eight people and prompted the evacuation of thousands Monday.
link
https://www.euronews.com/2019/08/08/two-dead-in-explosion-at-military-testing-site-in-northern-russia-defence-ministry
5. Pro-LGBT Coca-Cola adverts spark boycott calls in Hungary
Advertisements by Coca-Cola relating to a popular music festival in Hungary that promote gay acceptance have prompted a boycott call from a senior member of the conservative ruling party.
The posters are timed for the week-long Sziget festival – that takes the theme of “Love Revolution” and starts on Wednesday in Budapest – and show gay people and couples smiling with slogans such as “zero sugar, zero prejudice”.
That has annoyed some supporters of Viktor Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party, which opposes same-sex marriage.
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Tamás Dombos, an advocate with the Háttér gay rights group, said the government was homophobic but also aware of society’s growing acceptance of gay lifestyles.
link
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/05/pro-lgbt-coca-cola-ads-spark-boycott-calls-in-hungary
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