Over 1.2 million support minority SafePack initiative
More than 1,215,000 European Union citizens have signed the Minority SafePack European Citizens’ Initiative which seeks European Union protection for indigenous national minorities in the bloc, the founders of the initiative said on Wednesday.
The collection of signatures ended at midnight on Tuesday and the chairman of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) announced the final results at an event in Flensburg, in Germany, which was broadcast live at the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (RMDSZ) headquarters in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) in Transylvania.
Lóránt Vincze said Minority Safepack was the largest scheme ever launched to promote minority rights. Official EU bodies have obligations not only towards the mainstream but to minorities, too, he said.
The final figures are not yet available because the number of signatures submitted on paper is still being calculated, he said. They will be submitted to the authorities in every country in the next few days and the authorities will have three months to check them. This will be followed by another three-month period during which the results will be discussed at various European forums, he added.
All European capitals will have to take the results of the initiative and good practices already in force seriously, and equal rights must be ensured for all minorities, he said.
RMDSZ chairman Hunor Kelemen, who was a member of the initiating committee, noted that over 303,000 signatures were collected in Romania and his party’s activists helped organise the campaign in 13 countries.
He said the European Commission would most likely deal with the issue after the 2019 European parliamentary elections, and the main task in the upcoming period would be to convince decision-makers that the proposed regulations are not aimed against anyone.
“We do not wish to take away anything from anyone but want to contribute to the future of Europe,” he said.
The initiative organised by FUEN began in April last year. The rule is that 1 million signatures must be collected in at least seven EU member states by April 3 for the EC to put the scheme on its agenda.
Featured image: www.facebook.com/MinoritySafePack
Source: MTI
And there is more bad ‘news’ from the democratic European Union: The next EU censorship project is already in the pipeline – websites must install Orwellian filters. Things are going well with the EU: while Europe is still busy tackling the fraudulent fake news brigade ‘EU vs Disinfo’, Brussels simply throws another load of internet censorship over it. Soon the world’s largest internet filters will have to be placed on all websites where users can upload content – YouTube, Soundcloud, Flickr and so on. According to the EU this is necessary to protect copyright but in reality this is one big censorship operation. Internet freedom organization Bits of Freedom is alarming us and that is not for nothing. These hawks who try to drag internet freedom away from the gates of hell have, in turn, seen a new attempt by the eurocrates to make our citizens subject to European internet legislation. This time, the measure to lock us through gigantic filters is not packed in the pretext of terrorism or fake news, but it is about protection of copyright. BoF explains: If the bill is accepted, internet companies such as Soundcloud, Facebook and Flickr are obliged to filter all your uploads. An algorithm is mastered and determines which of your uploads are seen by the rest of the world – and which are not. Why haven’t we heard of this before? The proposal for this internet filter is hidden in article 13 of a new European legislative proposal on copyright. But it completely misses its target because once that filter is there it will be misused for anything and everything. Many policymakers are already eager to use the filter in their fight against fake news, extremism or unwanted political statements. In short: the EU is once again occupying itself with a beautiful censorship toy and again this is done via a shortcut. Because the EU is still officially a project of freedom and equality, so censorship stories have to be (still) shot through detours. But do not be mistaken because these plans are life-threatening. BoF itself already gives 3 reasons why this scary legislation should not be introduced. The freedom of speech comes under pressure, such a large automatic filter will be anything but faultless, which also removes ‘innocent’ content and finally: The bill forces people to risk-avoiding behavior that will further cut your freedom under pressure. So get rid of these Stalinist Internet purges from the EU. So take part in the counteraction and spam the MEPs who threaten to vote for this totalitarian EU filter completely broken. To lend a bit to Bits of Freedom again: So come in action today! You can help us to prevent this unfortunate proposal from being passed. As it looks now, the most important working group of the European Parliament will vote on its position at the end of April 2018. Use the hashtags #CensorshipMachine and #filterfail to let parliamentarians know that you really do not like this internet filter. The chairman of the working group is Axel Voss (@AxelVossMdEP). Do so.