Open Estonia Foundation in November and December 2007 – Selected Highlights

Black Nights Film Festival and Open Estonia Foundation partnered for a special film program and seminar on human rights
The Black Nights Film Festival featured 5 documentaries and 5 feature films in its special program Ordinary Hell, which examined human rights violations in Burma, Sudan, China, Israel, Chechnya, Russia, Iraq, Iran, and the situation of kurds. The program, supported by the foundation, included Total Denial on French company TOTAL and American UNOCAL that were sued for cooperating with Burmese military hunta for creating a gas pipeline in Burma. At a seminar following the films, human rights activists, members of the parliament, and Estonian civil society organizations and students discussed current violations of human rights. The seminar focused on "hot topic" countries of world press that are relatively unknown in Estonia, such as the situation in Burma, genocide in Sudan’s Darfur province and China that is currently preparing for upcoming Olympic Games. Speakers included Shawkat Amin Korki, a Kurdish director who has lived in Iran and Iraq, Moataz el Fegiery (Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies) who spoke about “death fields” of Darfur and Mark Farmaner (Burma Campaign UK).

Estonia launched €2.3 million NGO fund A €2.3 million NGO fund was launched at the the 5th Estonian Civil Society Conference in Tallinn, along with the fund’s first call for project proposals from NGOs and social partners organizations. Over the coming three years small-scale grants will be provided through Open Estonia Foundation to Estonian NGOs. Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway are supporting the Estonian NGO fund with €2.1 million, with the Estonian government providing the remaining ten percent of the fund. Grassroots cooperation with NGOs in the European Economic Area is welcomed under the fund, and 20 Norwegian NGOs were present at the launch to explore opportunities of engaging in partnership projects. Further details on the open call and the NGO Fund: www.oef.org.ee/en/programs/6/   OEF supported gender-related study and performance The Thought of Adam… The thought of Adam was not as… is an OEF-supported “men and gender equality” culture project, which shows the opinions of Estonian men about masculinity. In Estonian society, men are under strong social pressure – a man has to be pushy, successful, aggressive, defending, resolute. The culture project is comprised of a dance piece, documentary film and photo exhibition. The basis of the dance piece is a collection of interviews carried out with men from different towns of Estonia. In reverse to the widespread sense of masculinity, dancing is mostly presumed to be a feminine activity. Part of the piece is also a documentary that explains the work progress and a photo exhibition that is presented through the eyes of two young female photographers (Kadri Mikkor-Roselius and Eret Kuusk) about Estonian man in his different roles in the 21st century. Open Estonia Foundation spoke out demanding public discussion regarding the justice chancellor (ombudsman) Lawmakers failed to support a new term for the country’s justice chancellor despite a strong recommendation from President Toomas Hendrik Ilves and support from many NGOs as well as the people. Allar Jõks, who had served as the country’s top law auditor and ombudsman for seven years, mustered only 36 votes in the 101-seat Riigikogu (parliament) in a secret ballot. The ruling Reform Party voted against his candidacy, saying Jõks had not been productive enough, while it is an open secret that the party in fact did not like his attempts to make the funding of parties transparent. Earlier this year, the justice chancellor addressed the Supreme Court with an application to declare the Political Parties Act to be against the Constitution and partly void, as it does not stipulate efficient mechanisms to examine the funding of Parties. Prior to voting, Open Estonia Foundation and Estonian Network of NGOs made a joint declaration criticizing the lack of open discussion regarding the voting, and seeing the closed discussion as threat to democracy in Estonia. No clear reasons to the public were given to explain the shortcomings of the chancellor who had the support of roughly 80% of the people according to polls. The declaration triggered a major debate among politicians, intellectuals, journalists, and the general public.