Professional paper
The Politics of Exclusion Citizenship, Human Rights and the Erased in Slovenia
Jelka Zorn
Abstract
After the succession of Slovenia from former Yugoslavia majority of residents of non-Slovenian origin (from other republics of former Yugoslavia) gained Slovenian citizenship. Those who didn’t gain citizenship were secretly erased from the Register of permanent residents. The erased were deprived of all the rights that arise from the status of permanent residents: they were stripped of all social and economic rights including the right to live in Slovenia, although they had been living in Slovenia for decades with their families; they had their homes, social networks, employments and so fort in this country. According to the Law on Foreigners, which suddenly was applied on them, they became “aliens staying illegally in Slovenia”. By staying illegally in Slovenia they felt under the police jurisdiction. They had to legalise their staying from the very beginning; for many these procedures turned into bureaucratic torture. As a result of the erasure from RPR some of them suffered expulsion from Slovenia – they were expelled from their own homes and by force divided from their family members. In 1999 and in 2003 the “erasure” was recognised by Constitutional court as an anti-constitutional act, but nevertheless discrimination continued. It has been only since 2002 that the erased have gained their political subjectivation and have started publicly fight for their rights. For ten years (since 1992 to 2002) silence and cultural anaesthesia have prevailed over their experiences. The results of analyse of the interviews showed that there is a high co-relation between human rights and citizenship (rights). There has been hardly any human right that has not been violated when one lacks (residential) citizenship.
Keywords
ERASED FROM REGISTER OF PERMANENT RESIDENCE; DISCRIMINATION; EXCLUSION; CITIZENSHIP; HUMAN RIGHTS; BUREAUCRACY; POLICE
Hrčak ID:
14460
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2004.
Visits: 3.020 *