Systematic Violence of the Human Rights of the Erased Citizens in Slovenia

On February 26, 1992, Slovene Government, the Ministry of Inner affairs, have illegally erased 18,305 people from the Register of Permanent Residence of The Republic of Slovenia. Our basic existential status has been taken away from us without any law, legal act or notification. The act of erasure had as its consequence massive violations of human rights. It resulted in deportations, separations of families, confiscations of earned and already paid health insurances, the incapability to manage our own property, curtailment of the right to education to children, the annulment and official destruction of documents acquired in Slovenia and so on. The Slovene Constitutional Court has ruled several times (last time on April 3, 2003) that the erasure was unconstitutional, but this fact has not improved the position of the erased.

On February 21, 2005, the group of Erased have began the warning hunger strike in the foyer of the TR3 building in Ljubljana. We chose this place for our protest because of the fact that in TR 3 the European Commission in Slovenia has its seat. We met the ambassador of the European Commission in Slovenia Mr. Erwan Fouéré who affirmed that the European Commission has been following our case all the time and that they support the solution of the problem ruled by Slovene Constitutional Court and ignored by government and political parties. After whole day of the hunger strike, intensely covered by the media, guardians of security service Sintal threw us out of the TR3 violently, in spite of the guarantee they gave us before that we could stay in the building during the night. They were pulling us on the floor and throwing us out of the door brutally. Some of us get harmed, so we, after we called the police who have taken our testimonies, were taken to receive urgent medical help. In spite of all the violence we were going through, we continued with our protest. Next day, on February 22, we met the representatives of four of the seven political groups in the Slovene parliament as we demanded. We came to the agreement that we will meet next day at 01:00 p.m. at the parliament. But in spite of all the meetings and conversations neither Slovene parliamentarians neither representatives of the European Commission could not guarantee us a public place in which we could remain during our hunger strike and be visible.

The case of the illegal erasure of 18,305 people in Slovenia has been intensely followed by the international media, such as Reuters, BBC, Liberation and so on. There are also attempts of some European parliamentarians to achieve the discussion about the issue of the erased on the level of the European Parliament.

Therefore, because of the hopellesnes of our situation, we are inviting you most sincerely to send your delegation to visit us in Slovenia and to discuss with us about our problems which in spite of all the efforts of many people remain unsolved and unbearable.

Thank you for your attention,

Sincerely yours,

Erased Citizens of Slovenia on Hunger Strike.

Ljubljana, 24.2.2005