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Practical Access to Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe is a project supported by the European Initiatve for Democracy and Human Rights

Objective: To extend the possibilities of NGOs in five Central and East-Eropean countries to work towards increasing the popularity of freedom to information and freedom of expression issues.

Article 19 works in cooperation with nine NGOs from Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro and Romania and focuses on two important issues, concerning the freedom of expression:

• Litigation about offence and defamation, which continues to be one of the basic means, used by the bodies of executive power to suppress criticism against them;
• Freedom of information legislation. Under proper circumstances, the presentation and education on the act, regulating the freedom of information can present greater possibilities to citizens to take part in the democratic processes.

Results: The project is ongoing.
• AIP organized two training workshops with the project team in Sofia in February 2001 in and in February 2002 to educate the administration on APIA. Eighty-six representatives from the bodies of both central local executive power were present.
• Members of the AIP team took part in seminars in Budva (Montenegro) in May 2001, in Bucharest (Romania) in October 2001 and in Zagreb in May 2002 in the frame of the project. Draft acts for freedom of information in these countries were discussed on the meetings. AIP prepared comments on the Model Act for Freedom of Information presented in Montenegro.
• Two handbooks on APIA were translated in English and distributed in order to serve the activities of our partner organizations. These were the guide for citizens "How to Use the Access to Public Information Act" and "How to Apply ÀPIA - Guide for the Local Administration".
• AIP translated and published in Bulgarian three brochures of Atricle 19 from their International Standards Series.


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English Version • Last Update: 05.07.2002• © 1999 Copyright by Interia & AIP