International Day of Persons with Disabilities in Macedonia was marked with a series of activities both by civil society associations and by the competent institutions whose primary goal is the care for these persons. Many municipalities did not miss the opportunity to mark this day mostly by donating in the centers that care for these persons.
An event was held in the Government of Republic of Macedonia titled “Strengthening persons with disabilities and providing inclusiveness and equality”. The event was addressed by Prime Minister, Zoran Zaev, the Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Mila Carovska, the National Coordinator for implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Sase Dodevski, the Chief of the EU Delegation, Samuel Zbogar and a representative of the National Council of Organizations of People with Disabilities in Macedonia, Cedomir Trajkovski.
The Report from the research conducted on the inclusion of children with disabilities in pre-school education was presented in the Office of the Ombudsman, which has been prepared based on data of the survey questionnaires submitted to all pre-school institutions in Republic of Macedonia.
This International Day was also marked in the Institute for Defectology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, where among else a humanitarian art workshop was also organized with students from the Faculty of Fine Arts.
Constitutional changes
With 63 votes “for”, today the third draft amendment for constitutional changes was adopted in the Parliament. Regarding draft amendment 35 of the Constitution: “The Republic respects the sovereignty, the territorial integrity and political independence of the neighbouring countries”, 14 were against and two abstained from voting.
The Parliament continued immediately with a debate on the fourth amendment that regards the expatriates. The MPs according to this amendment will discuss the “Republic protects the rights and interests of its citizens who are living or staying abroad, and promotes their connections to their homeland, while not interfering in the sovereign rights of other states and in the internal affairs”.
There are yet to be protests in front of Parliament
Although this morning only empty tents protested in front of Parliament, blocking the traffic, this did not scare the MPs from voting for the constitutional changes anticipated with the draft amendments. Still, VMRO-DPMNE is announcing a protest for Wednesday, December 5, starting at 5.00 pm.
This time the purpose of the protest, as they say in their call, is the economic blackness, against poverty and increased taxes.
Strike
The Union of workers from the administration, judicial bodies and citizens’ associations of Republic of Macedonia (UPOZ), today through a strike expressed their dissatisfaction with the decision of the President of the Court Council, Zoran Karadzovski, who informed that the judges would receive the compensation of 35 percent for the month of November. With this decision the judicial workers are once again excluded, although Minister Renata Deskovska had promised them the changes in the law, with which they too would receive compensation.
An obstacle remains as to how the Court Council will return the money from the reduced salaries during the strike of 2016.
Health care system will be defending itself from the pollution with masks
Minister of Health, Venko Filipce, today stated that an alternative is being considered and data is being collected as to which risk group of citizens can be additional protected from the air pollution with special masks.
How the masks will be procured and how they will be distributed depends on these data, and once we have that figure, we will see in which way we can procure them and distribute them, said today Minister of Health, Venko Filipce.
CIVIL activities
CIVIL today at a press conference announced details for the Month of activism for human rights during the entire month of December, every day of December. CIVIL will be reminding of the Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
CIVIL calls for all of the days in the year to be marked in a similar way, that is, for every first day of the month to be dedicated to an according article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, up to the last Article 30 of the Declaration.
The least that can be done is for an article of this international document to be shared every day in a status on the social networks, but essays can also be written, messages, columns and information on cases of violation of human rights and freedoms. That is why, photos and videos of citizen journalists are more than welcome in the efforts to reveal and expose such cases.
B. Jordanovska
