Pride festivals are always fun, but the celebrations mark positive policy decisions over recent decades as well as work still to be done. Our Thessaloniki Chapter Representative Peter Baiter took careful note of three speakers delivering powerful messages as part of the EuroPride 2024 week.
EuroPride Thessaloniki 2024: Foregrounding Human Rights
by Peter Baiter
On Wednesday and Thursday, June 26 and 27, I attended a two-day Human Rights Conference, an important part of the more than week-long program of activities hosted by EuroPride Thessaloniki 2024.
The event was open to the public at large. Registration was completed at the door with the help of EuroPride volunteers. Attendees were given a "Participant" entry card valid for all sessions, and no identity documents were required. Registrants were simply asked for their permission to be photographed and were also asked for their "pronoun preference" (e.g, he/him.) There was no charge for participation, even though every participant was offered free refreshments at all events, including fresh orange juice, soft drinks and a wide variety of sweets, as well as light lunches both days.
All sessions were held in the Olympion theatre complex on Aristotle Square, some in the Olympion Theatre itself and the rest in the Pavlos Zannas Theatre on the fifth floor. The format for each discussion group was the same. The panel of presenters was seated on the stage, and each member presented with a hand-held mike. A lengthy question and answer period followed each session, with questions submitted to the moderator electronically or from the floor by members of the audience. For each session, the audience raised many questions for individual presenters or for the panel as a whole.
In what follows, I briefly summarize each three of the Human Rights sessions I attended. Each one lasted about two hours and was attended by 55-65 people, except for the opening session, which had roughly 100 attendees.
Human Rights Conference - Opening Session - June 26 - Olympion
The moderator opened the conference by describing the main challenges for insuring LGBTI rights as well as the various elements of society most likely to abuse these rights. Clearly, there is an urgent need to train police and law enforcement agents everywhere and to inform legal authorities of the best practices for identifying and responding to abuses. A major priority should be to create an atmosphere in society that encourages victims to report problems and abuses to the authorities so they can be dealt with effectively.
One special topic of interest, "Achieving Marriage Equality in Greece and Europe,” was discussed by a number of prominent officials who work to preserve LGBTI human rights. Individual officials described their work in countries such as Slovenia, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and Greece. The Greek representative, Alexis Patelis, a prominent member of the Greek National Committee for LGBTI+ Equality Strategy, presented interesting examples of how the committee has functioned locally in recent times.
All presenters encouraged perseverance and patience to improve and protect the human rights of all groups under attack. This is how democracy, a key sub-theme of the discussions, should work.
Law Enforcement and Pride - June 27 - Pavlos Zannas Theatre
A key focus of this session was to describe an important international organization, the European LGBTI Police Association, which trains police forces in best practices for protecting LGBTI human rights. This association, founded in 2004, has recently presented platforms for best practices at international conferences in Amsterdam (2021), Toronto (2022) and Melbourne (2023).
A recurrent theme addressed by presenters is the need to create an atmosphere of trust so that victims will feel encouraged to report crimes and any violation of their human rights. Respect for diversity and diverse groups is also a main goal of police training in dealing with LGBTI groups. One of the presenters was a retired Scottish police officer who worked with the LGBTI community in Scotland in its earliest years and won over his colleagues with his patience and understanding. He proposed to his superiors that his groups of specially trained forces should wear some type of identifying LGBTI badge. Though his proposal was originally turned down, he and his colleagues persisted, and eventually won over the authorities to their cause.
A Greek police officer from Athens talked at length about his career as a specialist in LGBTI matters, beginning in 2016 with his involvement in the European LGBTI Police Association. He talked about deep seated conservative Greek feelings regarding LGBTI identity and the need for special police in Greece to be trained to deal with these attitudes, calmly but persistently. Without a doubt, his work is a very impressive undertaking and achievement.
Queer Solidarity in Times of War and Conflict - June 27 - Pavlos Zannas Theatre
The title seems a bit of a put on, but the six participants who told their personal tales of LGBTI struggles were all from countries that have experienced war within the past two or three decades - Serbia, Kosovo, Ukraine and Cyprus. In all cases, these people were singled out in very socially conservative societies because of their LGBTI identities. The woman who presented from Ukraine was particularly emotional and impressive because, of course, her war is still continuing every day. One of the two representatives from Cyprus was particularly articulate about how efforts in his country to reorient his sexual preferences still haunts his existence thirty years later.
Program note: Before this session began, a group of very young students came into the hall with a banner calling for peace in Gaza and then delivered a chant for the freedom of the Palestinians. They then left peacefully. The moderator of the session thanked the group and noted to the audience that everyone had just seen a perfect example of democracy in action.
In short, the Human Rights Conference at EuroPride Thessaloniki 2024 represents a highly significant effort on an international level to fight against abuses of basic human rights. The presentations I heard moved me very deeply, and also reminded me once again of the powerful effects of hope, combined with hard work and careful organization.
Peter Baiter is a retired educator and school administrator in Thessaloniki, as well as past chair and current Chapter Representative of the DAGR Thessaloniki Chapter. He’s seated here at their booth with Randall Warner, current Thessaloniki Chapter Chair, who organized the chapter’s presence at EuroPride.
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