Samir Bio.doc

Minority Rights Group International, 2022

This article looks at three groups in diverse geographies: Dalits in India, Burakumin in Japan and Roma in Europe. Although, these communities are different from each other and have distinct histories, they are bound by their existence in a world marked by hierarchical discrimination.

Helsinki Monitor, 2007

This is the fifth installment of the Yearbook by the renowned European Centre for Minority Issues (ICMI), published in cooperation with the European Academy in Bozen/Bolzano. It contains articles from various disciplines analysing minority situations or the political and historical contexts of such issues and contains a wide range of legal, sociological, statistical, political and historical analyses. Some articles deal with concrete situations-e.g. there is a special focus on the Balkan region (five articles on attempts in the Yugoslav successor states to create a new institutional order). Others are more theoretical in nature: the concept of a 'nation' is dealt with in three articles. They consider Recommendation 1735 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and its implications for the debate on the cultural/ethnic nation versus the civic nation. Also a recurring feature are the reports on developments in (the activities of) international institutions, in particular the European Court of Human Rights, the Council of Europe, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities and the United Nations. Finally, several national developments throughout Europe are reported. Two of these articles have annexes containing complete legal texts: the Hungarian Act of 1993 on the Rights of National and Ethnic Minorities and the Polish Act of 2005 on National and Ethnic Minorities as well as Regional Language. Like its predecessors, the Yearbook devotes substantial attention to issues in the West (minority issues in Belgium, the new autonomy act of Catalonia, resistance to immigrants and asylums seekers in the EU). This is to be welcomed: all the justified emphasis on ethnic conflict prevention in the East tends to obscure the fact that there are considerable minority issues in the West as well. And that includes a potential for social strife and even violence in some situations. For example, anyone who has followed the escalating debate in the Netherlands on Islam and the Islamic minority cannot but be concerned. That is 1 Rob Zaagman is an official of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He wrote this review in his private capacity. The views expressed herein are not necessarily shared by the Dutch MFA. 311 Book review also a reason to welcome the fact that the concept of a minority as employed in this book is fairly wide, e.g. immigrants and asylum seekers ('new minorities') in the EU are also dealt with. This is not to say that all or even most articles are concerned with conflict-prone situations. Indeed, one can also find an analysis of ethnic minority entrepreneurship, diversity and competiveness in the UK. (Nevertheless, there is an additional emphasis on Central and Eastern European situations with a special section on the Balkans, articles on Slovakia, Hungary and Poland, and a (EU-US-Russia) strategic security analysis of the problems in the Caucasus and Moldova.) This book should be available in every library which aims to have a serious section on minority and minority-related issues.

2022

Recent scholarship has focused extensively on the deployment of technologies of security as a tactic of migration governance. The analyses have largely been on the effect of prioritising state security over migrant rights and the subsequent impact on their well-being. In our analysis of a migrant accommodation centre called the L’Accademia d’Integrazione (Bergamo, Italy) we contribute to this literature through a multi-scalar analysis of the place-specific rationales justifying the use of these technologies. There, migrants are required to wear jumpsuits reading ‘Thank you Bergamo,’ and subject to behavioural regulation, restricted mobility, and omnipresent surveillance. We observe how this new model of migration governance based around compulsory training and discipline emerged as an attempt to gain political control over the dominant discourse around the perceived migrant threat. Racialised preconceptions of African migrants, their presumed lack of cultural compatibility and a perceived unwillingness to participate in existing integration programs permeated the media and political rhetoric, challenging state sovereignty and perceived control. We see how this approach designed to foster ‘palatability’ contributed to their further differentiation, subjugation, and marginalisation. We question the conceptualisation of integration within the program arguing that rather than produce parity it commits structural violence in form and practice.

2012

To my mother, the woman who raised me, made me who I am; gave every single breath in her life for me; did everything in her power to enable me possibilities for exploring the world of knowledge, discovering many different experiences in life, and most of all, teaching me to be strong and believe in myself, believe in what I do, my work and the decisions I take. Mummy, I love you and I can't thank you enough for everything you have done for me.

2015

2014

Social Change, 2017

2018

South Asia, the most populous region in the world, is home to large numbers of minorities. Across the region, many of the religious, ethnic, linguistic and indigenous minorities, particularly women and the poor, face marginalization and suffer the worst forms of exclusion. These abuses are not just limited to discrimination in the socioeconomic sphere, but also the denial of the most basic human rights. The denial of rights to minorities in South Asia along religious, ethnic, caste or gender lines, is increasingly a factor behind much of the internal and external conflicts in the region and a barometer not only of the wider situation of human rights, but of the prospects for peace and security in the region. This inaugural 2016 report is a first-of-its-kind effort to bring together research and advocacy groups from various countries in the region to form a "South Asia Collective" that will periodically track and document the situation of minority rights, country by country. The report utilizes a common UN minority rights framework that looks at various indicators such as identity, culture, discrimination, participation in public life, and access to socioeconomic rights to assess the situation of minority rights in the region. The current report covers six countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. It is my hope that future editions will include Bhutan and the Maldives, as well as Myanmar, which has long-standing historical cultural connections to the South Asia region. The findings of the report are sobering: violence against minorities, both by the state and private actors, is commonplace, with communities often deprived of their rights to life, liberty, and identity. Discrimination, in both law and practice, results in the political disenfranchisement of minority communities and their social and economic marginalization. Other rights, including freedom of religion or belief, are also under attack as governments seek to impose conservative religious ideologies in an effort to homogenise culture in a pluralistic region with a strong history of tolerance and coexistence. These findings suggest that the road to the realization of human rights for minorities in the region will be a long and winding one. According to the report's findings, the absence of regional instruments or mechanisms in place for minority rights protection and promotion in South Asia, combined with weak policy commitments by the region's governments, increase the likelihood that these communities will be targeted for abuse. In light of these challenges, the report's authors highlight the increasingly critical role that domestic civil society groups play in protecting and realizing the rights of minorities in both law and practice. In many countries these civil society groups act as the last, and sometimes the only, stakeholder documenting human rights violations, monitoring the government's implementation of national and international instruments, and holding officials to account for rights violations against minority groups. vi South Asia State of Minorities Report 2016 Mapping the Terrain Misaal, a minority rights resource centre within Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi, acted as the report's production hub, providing both editorial and practical support, leading the complex multinational nature of the production process, and enabling converting the idea into the tangible output we see today. Thanks are due to Arnab Roy, occasionally supported by Nazia Khan and Sneha Chandna, all of Misaal, who provided able research assistance. Books for Change, led by its head, Joseph Mathai, one of the first recruits to the idea, came forward to publish the report for us, trusting us with our ability to produce it, when we had little to show in our favour, except for our enthusiasm. From early on, Joseph assumed a proactive stance to the collaboration, actively helping set up the structure of the report. The project has benefitted enormously from the support provided by People's-SAARC New Delhi secretariat, and especially the resourcefulness of its anchor, Rakhi Sehgal, to reach out to a wide and sympathetic audience across South Asia, and in building regional alliances, that is the core strength of this venture. Minority Rights Group International, London, whose flagship annual State of the World's Minorities and Indigenous People's report, is the inspiration for our own, handheld us from the beginning, and continue to guide us, to get it right. Finally, Indian Social Institute, viii South Asia State of Minorities Report 2016 Mapping the Terrain New Delhi, generously threw open their facilities for our use, an offer we made productive use of. We are indebted to all our associates. It will not be an exaggeration to say that without their support, this report would not have seen the light of day. An invitation to a conclave on minority rights, by Centre for Study of Society and Secularism, (CSSS) Mumbai, and hosted by Social Science Baha (SSB), Kathmandu, in December 2015, brought all country authors together, at an early stage of the report production process, helping streamline research and writing plans. We are grateful to CSSS, SSB and to participants at that workshop, for valuable inputs on early drafts of country chapters. We are also grateful to participants at a seminar talk on the report hosted by Centre of South Asian Studies at University of Cambridge, UK, in May 2016, for their very helpful suggestions for improvement. We have tried to ensure that the report measures up to high standards of analytical and empirical rigour. This entailed, among other things, putting the draft chapters through a review process. We are grateful to our esteemed reviewers for making the time and effort to provide detailed suggestions for improvements. These include,