After the fun we had at the October event, it is time to take a closer look at a more serious topic in the Estonian society – racism and hate crimes.
Estonia´s current penal code is futile against hate speech for its wording requires words to be accompanied by direct danger to one’s well-being. This makes Estonia one of the very few countries in the European Union, where hate speech laws are basically powerless, which can lead to more hate discourse and hate crimes.
This issue has already been raised to numerous occasions in the last eight years to no avail, mainly due to an ignorant attitude by successive justice ministers.
There has also been an increasing number of incidents meanwhile, which have also been fuelled by the rise of far-right politicians in Estonia.
Estonishing Evenings, in collaboration with the Estonian Human Rights Centre, wants to tackle the topic openly and come up with possible solutions at this event.
– The evening will start with an overview of the current situation, statistics and trends in Estonia.
– It will be followed by personal stories of three persons living in Estonia, who happen to have a different skin colour, both native Estonian and non-native.
– The event aims to find concrete and practical solutions to this matter and everyone is encouraged to participate in the discussion and team work that follows last.
Speakers
-
Amna Ahsan
digital marketer
Amna Ahsan moved to Estonia in 2018 from the UK. She's originally from Pakistan, where she was born and raised before she got a travel bug and found herself living the expat life. She works as a digital marketer and is interested in understanding the root cause of racism, gender inequality and Islamophobia in Europe.
-
Jene Walker
professional dancer and choreographer
Jene Walker is originally from Los Angeles, California, and lived in Houston, Texas, before moving to Estonia 12 years ago, after marrying an Estonian woman. Jene has for 25 years worked as a professional dancer/choreographer, working for a number of famous artists. He's also a professional chef. He's divorced from his first wife, but is now in a new relationship and has a six-week old daughter with his girlfriend.
-
Kari Käsper
Founder and CEO
Kari Käsper is the founder and leader of Estonian Human Rights Centre, an independent humanrights NGO. He also works as a lecturer of EU and Human Rights Law at Tallinn University of Technology. In the past, Kari led the awareness raising campaign, “Diversity enriches”, in Estonia.
-
Ken Saburi
IT specialist
Ken first arrived from Singapore to Estonia as a student back in 2012. A baffling decision to many, a spontaneous one for him. Physically surviving in Estonia was not a major challenge. However, realizing and witnessing first-hand the reality of the society beneath the digital marketing hype is more toilsome to one's psyche.
Worked, interacted and connected with locals from both extreme ends of the economic spectrum, Ken is constantly reminded that someone else in Estonia is having a more difficult time surviving as compared to the average foreigner.
Ken is currently working for an IT company in Tallinn.
-
Manan Anwar
Visiting lecturer
Manan Anwar was born and raised in Pakistan. He came to Estonia in 2014 to study the Design and Engineering Program in TTU as an Erasmus Mundus Scholar. He finished his Masters Degree with honors and then went on to work as a Mechanical Design Engineer in Estonia. He is also a visiting lecturer in TTU and teaches Basics of Industrial Design to Bachelor students.
