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Elisabeth Abiri

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May 19 2008

Inauguration of the exhibition "Freedom of expression and action for human rights"

Last week Sweden started its chairmanship at the Council of Europe and on 15 May this was stated by an inauguration of the exhibition "Freedom of expression and action for human rights".

The exhibition contains of two parts. One is showing the Swedish model of working with human rights and is interactive since the visitors is given the possibility to surf the Swedish website about human rights. Maria Jontén is working at the integration- and gender equality ministry in Stockholm and has been working on developing the exhibition. She is also in charge of the web-site and participated during the opening of the exhibition to guide the visitors on the web-site.

- The government has a responsibility to inform the citizens about their rights and more specific what human rights can mean on an individual basis, says Maria. The web-site is a tool to achieve this and is unique. When Sweden ratified the human rights conventions we also agreed to implement them in the society and make them available for everybody. For example the web-site exists in all national minority languages as well as in sign language.

The other part of the exhibition consists of 12 photos from the competition ”årets bild” (picture of the year) which is the oldest and biggest photo competition in Sweden. The aim of the competition is to strengthen the journalistic picture and the role of the press photographers. Freedom of media and freedom of expression is very central parts of the work within the Council of Europe with several projects going on in the membership countries.

At the inauguration the Swedish ambassador Per Sjögren gave a speech and so did the secretary general Terry Davis and Elisabeth Abiri, head of the Swedish human rights delegation and professor at the university of Gothenburg.

Terry Davis spoke warmly about the values, freedoms and rights that the Council of Europe is protecting, but he also showed concern for when the freedom of expression is being used by extremists and terrorists. Elisabeth Abiri shared some Swedish experiences from the work of implementing the human rights. She stressed the importance of keeping the work running and to never be satisfied. Sometimes countries, among them Sweden, tended to believe that they had achieved the goal, but according to Elisabeth it is not possible to complete the work of implementing human rights in reality, but that the work always can be improved.

The exhibition will be showed at the Council of Europe until the end of June.

Caroline Klamer
Trainee

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