[SlovLit] FW: urgent request

[Greenberg, Marc L]

I am forwarding this to the list on behalf of my colleague, Tom Priestly, at
the University of Alberta.
Best regards,
Marc L. Greenberg
-----------------------
HUNGER-STRIKE FOR SLOVENE MINORITY LANGUAGE RIGHTS

Since 26th October 1998 the Austrian national radio/TV corporation, ORF,
has funded a Slovene-language service for the Slovene-speaking minority in
Austria, based in the provincial capital, Klagenfurt/Celovec. From 9th July
2001, they provided a full-day service. This programme, "Radio Dva," was
terminated on 31st December 2002.

The provision of a minority-language programme is based on an internal
statute (ORF-Gesetz, para. 5) and is in concord with the European Framework
Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (signed by Austria on
1 Feb. 1995, ratified 31 Mar. 1998) and the Charter for Regional or
Minority Languages, (signed by Austria on 5 May 1992, ratified 28 Jun.
2001).

Towards the end of last year a petition, signed by 8,600 people, was
forwarded to the Austrian Chancellor, demanding funding for the radio
programme. Since the 1st January the radio staff have been working unpaid.
Now, since 1st February, four staffers have been on hunger strike: Natalja
Pinter, Marica Stern-Kus^ej, Marjan Pipp and Bojan Wakounig.

This is a tense time in world affairs and the provision of language rights
is hardly as important as wars and the threat of wars. However, what I
encourage you to do will only take a few minutes: if you support the idea
of an established linguistic minority being permanently provided with a
radio programme in its own language, and wish to encourage the hunger
strikers in their ordeal, you can register your comments on web-page
http://www.radio-dva.at. You may also wish to send your comments to the
Office of the Austrian Chancellor, Wolfgang Schüssel, see
http://www.austria.gv.at/e/mail/mail.htm. I suggest that you also send
copies of your messages to your Austrian Embassy and/or local Austrian
Consulate: see http://www.austria.org/austriaintheus.shtml#5 for those in
the U.S.A., http://www.bmaa.gv.at/botschaften/index.html.en elsewhere.

If there is anyone you know who might support this initiative, please
forward this message to them!

With my thanks,
Tom Priestly

PS: If I have sent this to you more than once, I apologize!

============================================
Tom Priestly
9215-69 Street
Edmonton AB
Canada T6B 1V8
phone 780-469-2920
fax 780-492-9106
e-mail: tom.priestly na ualberta.ca
============================================
--------------------------------------------------------
Marc L. Greenberg
Chair and Professor
Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of Kansas - Wescoe Hall
1445 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 2133
Lawrence, KS 66045-7590, USA
Tel. and voice-mail: (785) 864-2349
Fax: (785) 864-4298; E-mail: mlg na ku.edu
http://www.ku.edu/~slavic/