For the first time ever a pride event will take place in Tbilisi from 18th to 23rd of June 2019. In the traditionally conservative country, the LGBTI community faces various struggles, especially after a pro-LGBTI manifestation in 2013, which was stopped violently by counter demonstrators. Despite legislation that prohibits discrimination against LGBT people the social acceptance is very low and LGBTIs often face abuse and physical violence.

Rainbow Rose, the only Europe-wide party political LGBTI organisation, and IUSY, the International Union of Socialist Youth, render their full support to the Georgian LGBTI community.

“We express our solidarity with the LGBTI community in Georgia, in their fight for equal rights all over Europe and the world”, said Rainbow Rose president Camila Garfias and IUSY president Johanna Ortega added „Especially for young people it is important to know that their identity and sexual orientation is just fine. This is the only way to prevent suicides of LGBTI youth!“

We, the leaders of socialist and social democratic parties from the Balkan Region and the EU, remain fully committed to continue our strong, prosperous and mutually beneficial cooperation, focused on tackling each and every challenge set in front of our parties, countries and political family. In times when Europe is on the brink of division, populism and far-right tendencies are on the rise, it is up to us, the young, energetic and devoted supporters of the left to stand up and protect our common rights, ideals, beliefs and goals.

We need to continue the good relations between our countries. History has proven that the Balkan Region has not been short on conflicts and disagreements. Our focus should be on creating a Roadmap for cooperation and good neighbourhood policies in the region, so that future generations need never know the hardships of racism, segregation, war and xenophobia. We urge our governments to always use dialog in order find corresponding solutions to problems and challenges that are and may continue to occur with the end result always being to establish peace, stability and prosperity to the Balkans. Therefore we also reaffirm our continuous support for the European perspective of the Western Balkans. In the context of the upcoming European elections in May 2019 and the looming challenge of Brexit it is up to us to demonstrate that Europe’s future is only going to be better with all of us in it.

Reforms in the fields of the rule of law, combating corruption and backdoor decision-making processes, stamping out organized crime and respect for human rights must always be on the agenda of our governments. It is up to us to change how Europe perceives our Region and to show our willingness to turn the progressive tide towards our countries.

The main focus on each and every party in our countries should be the individual needs of the people, prioritising young generations. In recent times Europe has shown that the austerity only policies do not work. There is a huge gap in salaries in Western and in Eastern Europe, especially with young people. Youth unemployment and youth migration is a big regional issue and the way to tackle it and other discrepancies is with reforms in economic and demographic policies, education, healthcare, social security and sustainable development. A new economic model is needed the basis of which should be social state with sustainable growth and quality jobs. We reaffirm our support for the Youth Guarantee, the creation of a Child Guarantee and continuous support for programs such as “Erasmus +” as a way to show young people that there is hope for their future and prosperity. It is time to invest in people!

The model brought forward by the rightwing and populist parties has failed in all its aspects. They claim that they protect the national sovereignty, values and security but actually they do the exact opposite, which we can see in most of our regional countries.

Together we work for democracy. One of the most important issues in our Region is the freedom of speech. Free journalism, combating censorship and transparent and free media are a prerequisite for a modern democratic state. We condemn all attempts of limiting and censoring, especially by the abuse of power by the executive branch of the governments and states.

We represent the socialist and social democratic parties of our Region and we will embrace the above-mentioned values, ideals, goals and objectives. We agree to mutually support each other in times of crisis and in times of peace. Our goal must always be to have a strong, free and united family. We believe that the socialist and social democratic parties represent the only progressive group that aims at daily life issues of ordinary people and that we can be the alternative to a retroactive, failed and insufficient conservative reality. We stand together as one!

Nowadays, Georgian government does not acquire long-term vision or answer to the question: what kind of higher education and universities do we need in modern society? Their universities do not accumulate modern knowledge; they are not oriented on scientific progress and development. Meantime students are excluded of every decision-making process.

To face this problem, students of different Georgian state universities formed an initiative group named Youth for Educational Reforms. The most important request they are fighting for are:

• New law in which democracy and transparency are guaranteed as long as student participation of the decision-making.
• Reform the current funding model and replace it with a globally acknowledged design called direct and targeted funding
• Creating a working group between students, experts and state departments relevant to the subject to discuss and coming up with solutions on the educational system.

IUSY strongly supports Georgian students in this Educational Reform and encourage them to keep fighting not only for them but also for the generations to come. All over the world students are making history having a fundamental role in changing educational systems that guaranteed quality and accessibility to Higher education.

Let’s make history together!

In the night on the 16 of March, after 15 very peacefull protests, that have been held in Belgrade, capital of Serbia, and more than 100 days on the streets all over the country (in more than 100 cities in the country), protesters demonstrating against the autocratic rule of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, entered peacefully into state-run TV headquarters in Belgrade to criticize a broadcaster whose reporting consider highly biased. After the leaders of opposition have asked few minutes on the national television to speak about the protests and share their requests on the national TV.

Special police forces arrived at the scene in the Serbian capital and were trying to take demonstrants out by force and beating, including some opposition leaders, who had entered the downtown building. All media belonging to the progressive party were reporting lies and building invented stories of the event, in order to save their image of a savers of the country, witch they have thought up.

Latter today at noon demonstrants have geatherered in front of the Presidum building at the time President of Serbia was having extraordinary press conference, where we continued to trow lies and populist ideas. Protestants did not want to leave the surrounding of the building until presidents goes out and speaks to citizens, with he did not do. After aresst of many people, and tooking them to jail without judgement protestents are now heading to the main police office in Belgrade.

Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic warned the protesters to leave the building or be removed as police would “protect all Serbian TV journalists, he warned that patience of police will not last forever.

This was the first major incident after months of peaceful protests against populist leader Vucic. The demonstrators are demanding his resignation, free elections and media, and more democracy.

Thousands of people rallied in Serbia’s capital for 15th week in a row against populist President Aleksandar Vucic and his government. The protests began after thugs beat up an opposition politician in November. Political instability in Serbia lasts for more than 7 years, since when the ex-nationalist Aleksandra Vucic formed the government. His government is colored by pressure, false media covering, populistic statements and persecution off all who have different opinion. Journalists are under pressure to inform what they have been said, the ones who are criticizing the current situation were or fired, or their TV shows were abandoned,some of them had burned houses and life thretens (examples Olja Bećković, Ivan Ivanović, Draža Petrović, all very famous journalists whose shows were cancelled due to criticism, and many more similar examples). Election process is endangered, by stealing of votes, and punching and persecution of all the ones who were not working for the leading Serbian Progressive Party. Hundreds of thousands of people leave Serbia every year due to the repressive regime and difficult conditions of living.

We condemn any usage of force by police on the protestants, we urge for the fair and decent election conditions, without pressure, we are asking for the media and freedom of speech. We highly condemn arrest of political opponents, members of political parties, organizers of the protest and students in the streets of Belgrade

We ask for the international support in this very sensitive topic, where country in the middle of the European soil is autocrative and with violation of basic human rights.

The Italian fascist movement Forza Nuova organised a national demonstration in Prato (Tuscany) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the fascism birth next March 23th.

On 23 March 1919, Mussolini enunciated in Milan, the fundamental principles of the political movement Fasci Italiani di Combattimento.

Adopting the motto “Save Italy”, the demonstration’s organizers decided to evoke the fear of “Bolshevik invasion” from last century and to feed this fear with a new threat: the “strangers invasion”.

Prato is actually identified as an Italian symbol of a multi-ethnic and a multi-cultural community, a model to fight if you want to build fear of others, of foreigners, xenophobia and hate.

We cannot allow fascists groups to celebrate the dictatorship that deprived men and women of their freedom for two decades.

We still need to fight discriminations and hate based on the primacy of the Italians culture.

The Italian Constitution forbids the reorganizing, in any form whatsoever, of the dissolved fascist party. Italian and international laws ban racial hate propaganda and condemn inciting ethnic, racial or religious hatred and discrimination.

The European Parliament recently adopted a resolution on the rise of neo-fascist violence in Europe. The Resolution of 25 October (20182018/2869(RSP)), having regard to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, strongly condemns all violent attacks by neo-fascist groups against politicians and members of political parties as reported in some Member States, acknowledges the worrying trend of neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups using social media and the internet to organise and strategize across the European Union, deplores the fact that in some Member States public broadcasting has become an example of single political party propaganda, which often excludes opposition and minority groups from society and even incites violence, calls on the Member States to take further measures to prevent, condemn and counter hate speech and hate crime.

In solidarity with Italian people, IUSY share the struggle of Italian friends and comrades and strongly demands that no place in the political representation or in the public space is given to ideas and movements unambiguously supporting fascist history and values.