November 14, 2007
Dear Sir/Madam,
I'm writing to you as an American citizen, a researcher and advocate with the Urban Justice Center (a non-profit in New York City), and a progressive activist invested in international solidarity.
It is with much regret that I learned that the Anti-Discrimination Bill, whose impending legislation was announced by the Ministry of Justice on October 2, will be presented to the National Assembly after the deletion from the original draft of 7 categories of personal attributes open to discrimination including "sexual orientation."
Our understanding is that this deletion of the 7 categories defeats the purpose of introducing such a legislation in the first place, and will set a bad legal precedent by allowing discrimination towards people who belong to the 7 deleted catogories.
Since there is still time and opportunity available to you, we urge you to reconsider this bill and amend it to include the 7 deleted categories as was originally proposed. We hope that you will intervene to guarantee that the Anti-Discrimination Act is created not simply as a "more progressive" law but as the best possible law for all disadvantaged minorities.
We further request you to listen to the civil society groups' voices so that the proposed bill would truly be an all-encompassing "Anti-Discrimination Act."
Thank you very much.
Rebecca Widom
Director of Research
Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project
Urban Justice Center
123 William Street, 16th Floor
New York, NY 10038-3804
(646) 602-5674 - phone
(212) 533-4598 - fax
rwidom@urbanjustice.org
http://www.urbanjustice.org/hopp
Dear Sir/Madam,
I'm writing to you as an American citizen, a researcher and advocate with the Urban Justice Center (a non-profit in New York City), and a progressive activist invested in international solidarity.
It is with much regret that I learned that the Anti-Discrimination Bill, whose impending legislation was announced by the Ministry of Justice on October 2, will be presented to the National Assembly after the deletion from the original draft of 7 categories of personal attributes open to discrimination including "sexual orientation."
Our understanding is that this deletion of the 7 categories defeats the purpose of introducing such a legislation in the first place, and will set a bad legal precedent by allowing discrimination towards people who belong to the 7 deleted catogories.
Since there is still time and opportunity available to you, we urge you to reconsider this bill and amend it to include the 7 deleted categories as was originally proposed. We hope that you will intervene to guarantee that the Anti-Discrimination Act is created not simply as a "more progressive" law but as the best possible law for all disadvantaged minorities.
We further request you to listen to the civil society groups' voices so that the proposed bill would truly be an all-encompassing "Anti-Discrimination Act."
Thank you very much.
Rebecca Widom
Director of Research
Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Project
Urban Justice Center
123 William Street, 16th Floor
New York, NY 10038-3804
(646) 602-5674 - phone
(212) 533-4598 - fax
rwidom@urbanjustice.org
http://www.urbanjustice.org