12 Jun 2019, 13:30 PM

Ljubljana Pride Festival Opens, Ends With Parade On 22 June, 2019

This year’s Ljubljana Pride Festival presents just under two weeks of LGBTIQ+ activities and events celebrating all the colours of the rainbow in the capital. It started yesterday, 11 June, and ends on Saturday 22 with the annual parade through the city that itself ends in Novi trg with speeches and live performances, before moving on into various clubs and other venues around town.

Ljubljana pride 2019.png

ljubljanapride.org

Last year the theme was intersectionality, and this year’s Pride is motivated by a further call for solidarity and mobilisation among all marginalised groups, with the aim of overcoming a culture of hate, and thus to combat the promotion of fear of and hostility towards “the other” with openness, tolerance and love.

Or as Nina Perger of the Ljubljana Pride Association writes:

With every silence and every lack of response, the line of acceptable political strategies and society building moves further in the wrong direction - further towards normalising and accepting the politics of fear and hate that are rooted in the rhetoric of the victim complex and moral panic, and of intimidation and bullying. Every time we stay silent, what is at least quietly unacceptable today becomes acceptable tomorrow.

Th full (English) program of events – with talks, debates, music, workshops, parties, a roller derby and more – can be found here, while details of the Pride March (Saturday 22 June) are here. Pride’s Facebook page can be found here, while all out stories on the community are here.

17 May 2019, 14:47 PM

Slovenia Calls for Decriminalisation of Same-Sex Relationships Around the World

STA, 17 May 2019 - Marking International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, observed on 17 May, the Foreign Ministry pointed out that human rights applied for all and called for decriminalisation of same-sex relationships around the world.

The ministry noted the recent progress of ensuring human rights for the LGBTI community, but it also pointed out that in more than 70 countries, same-sex relationships were still criminalised and could result in the death penalty.

Even in countries with national legislation safeguarding LGBTI rights, the community is still facing discrimination, hate speech, prejudices or even stigma, said the ministry in its Friday's press release.

Thus, the rights of LGBTI persons are violated, including their citizenship, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

The criminalisation of same-sex intimacy allows the perpetrators of anti-LGBTI hate crimes to go unpunished while encouraging intolerance and violence within individual societies, said the ministry.

Countries thus need to fulfil their obligations based on international human rights protection documents, and do their best to provide equal treatment to everyone without discrimination.

Slovenia will continue to strive at the international level to keep the issues of discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity on the agenda of international and regional organisations, including the UN, CoE and EU.

This is in line with the EU guidelines on promoting and protecting all human rights of the LGBTI community as well as the EU guidelines on non-discrimination in external action.

Since 2016, Slovenia has been actively participating in the international Equal Rights Coalition, which is dedicated to the protection of the rights of LGBTI persons and strives to end discrimination and violence against them.

Marking the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOBIT), the International LGBTI Asscociation ILGA, which cooperates with the CoE, has published the Rainbow Europe Map, ranking countries according to their level of anti-LGBTI discrimination and violation of LGBTI human rights.

Slovenia ranked 20th among 49 countries, ahead of Estonia and following Hungary.

The ILGA warned that Slovenia still did not ensure completely equal marriage laws for everybody, nor did it unequivocally grant same-sex couples the right to adopt children or to artificial insemination.

The association also pointed out that the country had a law banning hate speech based on sexual orientation, but it did not have a law banning hate speech on the grounds of gender identity.

The Slovenian NGO Legebitra called for en end to violence against LGBT persons, including verbal abuse in public, discrediting of LGBT organisations, bullying, discrimination in healthcare or other institutions as well as physical abuse.

The organisation said that homophobia, biphobia and transphobia were still present in society, while LGBT rights NGOs were being targeted more frequently due to the rise of fake news.

According to them, promoting hate and violence against the LGBT community has pervaded some parties' manifestos and politicians' statements ahead of the EU elections.

Legebitra has thus urged all the parties and candidates standing in the upcoming EU elections to oppose this discrimination and to protect LGBT rights.

19 Mar 2019, 11:44 AM

Feature: Slovenia Gets New Far-Right Party, the “Homeland League”

STA, 18 March 2019 - A new far-right party is emerging on the Slovenian political scene two months before the EU election, modelled on the Italian League and Fidesz in Hungary, and drawing on former and current supporters of the opposition Democrats (SDS). It is seen as complementary with, or a competition to, the SDS.

Called the Homeland League (Domovinska liga) and using the acronym DOM (home), the party has a Twitter account and has so far sent out broad outlines of its policies, centred around opposition to migrations, to LGBT-friendly policies and to EU federalism.

One tweet reads that the party sees French President Emanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European People's Party (EPP) top candidate Manfred Weber as "destroyers of the EU".

"The European spring is coming, the spring of European nations... The European spring is symbolised by the sovereignist bloc under the leadership of Matteo Salvini. The Homeland League wishes to be a part of that undertaking," another tweet reads.

The party was officially registered on 26 February, which means that it had to satisfy the statutory requirement of having at least 200 members, and is provisionally headed by Žiga Jereb, a former mid-ranking member of the SDS who is largely unknown among the general public.

Quizzed by Dnevnik newspaper, Jereb did not specify what his current relationship with the SDS is, but the paper said in a report published on Saturday that individuals who parted ways with the SDS form the core of the Homeland League.

While remaining somewhat secretive until it formally presents its programme on 6 April, the party already has some visible supporters.

One of them is Bernard Brščič, a former senior aide to SDS leader Janez Janša who works as economist for power grid operator Eles and has become a leading ideologue of the Slovenian alt-right.

A leading proponent of the White Genocide theory, which holds that brown Muslims are bent on displacing whites with high fertility and terrorism, he uses Twitter to disseminate anti-Muslim and anti-immigration messages.

He has often warned against proponents of a "multiculti" society and "negroids" invading what he says is becoming "EUrabia".

Brščič is also a staunch supporter of the Generation of Identity, the Slovenian version of the identitarian movement. He wrote the foreword to a book the group published with Nova Obzorja, a book and magazine publisher co-owned by the SDS.

Brščič has confirmed he is in talks with the Homeland League to become their top candidate for the EU election and participated in drawing up the party's platform, though he is not a member.

Quizzed by the STA, he described himself as having "unparalleled experience and knowledge of the political situation in Europe" and said he doubted the party "will have a better candidate than me."

Domovinska liga se ne vidi v EPP, ker:
1. Nasprotujemo Globalnemu sporazumu o migracijah
2. Nasprotujemo Združenim državam Evrope
3. Nasprotujemo širjenju LGBT+P oznanila v državnih institucijah
4. Vidimo Macrona, Merklovo, Junckerja, Webra & Co. kot uničevalce EU. pic.twitter.com/FlQrInASEM
— Dom (@DomovinskaLiga) March 12, 2019

Some of DOM's positions

Another prominent supporter is Lucija Šikovec Ušaj, a lawyer who ran on the SDS ticket in the general election but later left the SDS because she thought the party was too soft on migrations.

Šikovec Ušaj is currently the legal counsel of Andrej Šiško, who is on trial for inciting to subvert the constitutional order with a local militia he formed in Maribor called the Štajerska Guard.

She is also a regular columnist for nova24tv.si, the web portal of the TV station co-owned by senior SDS members and businessmen with close ties to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

She rose to prominence on social media with staunch anti-immigrant rhetoric and is currently being processed by the disciplinary body of the Bar Association for hate speech against migrants.

The emergence of the party is seen by some as an attempt to brandish the image of the SDS, which has veered far to the right in recent years, and move it back towards the centre.

Reporter, a right-leaning magazine, says in Monday's commentary that the Homeland League is "a satellite of the SDS, which appears to want to move back to the centre ahead of the election and leave the space on the right to its loudest and most controversial extremists."

The paper says this tactic could help the SDS effectively secure an extra MEP, but it argues the move could also potentially backfire.

News portal Siol similarly says in a report released on Monday that the move helps the SDS in that the new party is conceived as a "special purpose vehicle onto which the SDS will shift the most radical portion of the party."

It says this would help SDS leader Janez Janša keep a part of his base while still coming across as "more moderate and less radical and Orbanite."

According to Siol, such a move is the latest in Janša's long history of founding or subjugating rightist parties, which function as "planets that circle around a single sun following predictable orbits."

But there are also reports suggesting the party is a project not controlled by the SDS.

Commercial broadcaster Kanal A said in a report last week it had unofficial information indicating that SDS leader Janša is "very angry" at Brščič and Ušaj.

Political analyst Andraž Zorko described the new party for the news portal Zurnal24 as an attempt to consolidate the far-right base so that it could support the SDS from the fringe.

But while the move is designed to consolidate votes previously picked up by multiple parties, "it could also invariably chip off some votes from the SDS and the People's Party (SLS), if the latter plays the anti-migration card as it did in the general election," he said.

Keep up with Slovenian politics here

07 Mar 2019, 09:42 AM

Ljubljana’s Red Dawns International Feminist & Queer Festival, March 06-10, ‘19

Slovenia was recently assessed as the 28^th most LGBT-friendly travel destination in the world (see here), and the capital prides itself on being particularly welcoming to this community, at least in terms of the City of Ljubljana’s official programmes.

https://www.total-slovenia-news.com/travel/3147-gay-slovenia-ranked-28-for-lgbt-travellers-highest-in-ex-yugo

Yesterday, March 6, saw the official start of the Red Dawns International Feminist & Queer Festival, which offers several days of events, exhibitions, discussions and concerts to bring people together for art and activism. The full programme for the event, in English, can be found here, while the Facebook page is here.

One large event, not strictly part of the festival but surely related, will be the Women’s Day march that’ll take place on Friday (08/03), starting at 17:00 in Congress Square (Kongresni trg), the main square downtown that’s also home to Zvezda Park.

All our stories about LGBT+ issues and Slovenia can be found here

02 Mar 2019, 08:00 AM

Slovenia Ranked #28 for LGBT Travellers, Highest in Ex-Yugo

While there seem to be few explicit appeals to the LGBT community in the official promotional efforts of the Slovenian Tourist Board, the country ranks fairly high on this year’s Spartacus Gay Travel Index, at #28. In terms of ex-Yugoslavia this compares to Bosnia-Herzegovina at 47, Croatia at 48, Serbia and Montenegro both at 68, and Macedonia at 83.

In contrast, when it comes to Slovenia’s other neighbours Austria ranks much higher, in 4^th place, while Italy is at 41 and Hungary 57.

The ranking, which the German-based organisation carries out each year, is based on 14 criteria in three categories, from civil rights to discrimination and threats, based on information from Human Rights Watch, the UN Free & Equal campaign, and reports of human rights abuses against members of the LGBT community collected over the previous 12 months.

As the related webpage states:

The first category consists of civil rights. Among other things, it assesses whether gays and lesbians are allowed to marry, whether anti-discrimination laws exist or whether the age of consent is the same for heterosexual and homosexual couples. Discrimination is included in the second category. These include, for example, travel restrictions for HIV-positive persons and the prohibition of Pride parades and other demonstrations. The third category includes threats to the person through persecution, imprisonment or death penalty.

Slovenia’s 28^th position is shared with Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Guadeloupe, Martinique and South Africa. The top countries on this list, sharing first place, are Canada, Portugal and Sweden, while the bottom four are Iran and Saudi Arabia (194), Somalia (196) and Chechnya (197). The United Kingdom is 4^th, Germany 23^rd, and the United States 47^th

Gay rights in Slovenia in more detail…

Nations gain points if they have anti-discrimination legislation, same-sex marriage or civil partnerships, adoption and transgender rights and an equal age of consent. In contrast, they lose points if religion influence legislation, if there are HIV travel restrictions or anti-gay laws, if homosexuality is illegal, if Gay Pride is banned, if the locals are hostile to the gay population, or if there are prosecutions, murders, or death sentences for members of the LGBT community.

On this basis Slovenia got a total of 6 points, with the breakdown as follows

Anti-discrimination legislation: 3

Marriage/civil partnership: 2

Adoption allowed: 1

Transgender rights: 0

Equal age of consent: 1

Religious influence: -1

HIV travel restrictions: 0

Anti-gay Laws: 0

Homosexuality illegal: 0

Pride banned: 0

Locals hostile: 0

Prosecution: 0

Murders: 0

Death sentences: 0

You can read more about the report here, while you can read all our stories about the LGBT community and Slovenia here

26 Feb 2019, 11:50 AM

Dentist Guilty of Discriminating Against HIV Patient in Landmark Ruling

STA, 25 February 2019 - A dentist from north-eastern Slovenia has been found guilty of discriminating against an HIV patient in what is the first such ruling in Slovenia, a decision considered a key milestone in discrimination case law.

This is the first time a healthcare employee was found guilty of discriminating against an HIV patient, the newspaper Večer says on Monday about the court case that was closed to the public.

The dentist was ordered to pay EUR 2,700 in compensation to her former patient by the Maribor Higher Court in mid-2018.

The HIV-infected man saw the dentist in March 2016 and told her during the first visit that he was being treated for HIV. The dentist sent him for a dental x-ray.

The next week, when he came back for treatment, she told him he should get a new dentist. In court, the dentist claimed that she sent him away because she had only one set of particular instruments, which she could not sterilise in one afternoon.

However, both the first and the second instance courts ruled against her. The patient was eventually admitted by another dentist working at the same health centre, Večer reports.

The man reported the incident to Patient's Rights Ombudsman Vlasta Cafnik, who turned for help to the Medical Chamber but did not receive any response despite sending several emails and letters to several people in the organisation.

The patient also turned to the healthcare inspectorate, which responded that the Medical Chamber was in charge of such issues. He wrote to the chamber as well but received no answer and ultimately opted to hire a lawyer.

A mediation with the dentist was launched. It took a year before she wrote him an email, saying that she was aware that her treatment was demeaning and discriminatory.

The patient, who felt that the apology was not sincere, decided to take the dentist to court after her malpractice insurance company rejected his complaint.

She was found guilty at the first instance in April 2018. She appealed but the Higher Court upheld the first instance ruling in July 2018 and she ultimately paid the EUR 2,700 fine.

In response to the newspaper report about the case on Monday, the Medical Chamber said it was unacceptable to turn away a patient infected with a contagious disease.

"It needs to be taken into consideration, however, that such a case may affect organisation of work in the sense of rescheduling the appointment of the patient or other patients to ensure safe treatment of everyone present.

"All health staff has a duty to act in a way so as not to expose other patients to the risk of infection," the chamber said in a release.

The chamber said that it had received queries about the case from the patents' rights ombudsman in the previous term. In this term oversight was conducted with the dentist but "no departure from expert doctrine or work in comparable doctor's offices was established".

20 Feb 2019, 14:30 PM

Volunteer for Ljubljana Pride, Get Free Accommodation, Expenses & Food, June, 2019

February 20, 2019

Ljubljana Pride Parade will happen on June 22 this year, and preparations for the event have already started.

To make sure everything works as it should, Pride is calling for Slovenian and foreign volunteers, preferably LGBTIQ+ people aged between 18 and 30 who are interested in LGBTIQ+ organisations, topics and politics. Legal EU residence is a must.

In return for help with organisation of the event, volunteers will get accommodation and food expenses covered, some pocket money, and other benefits. There are only 15 vacancies to be filled, so hurry and secure your place in Ljubljana this summer.

Find more details here and here.

Contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

17 Dec 2018, 14:38 PM

Around 40% of LGBT Students Suffer Violent Abuse at Slovenian Schools

STA, 14 December 2018 - The Council of Europe and UNESCO are urging against violence towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender individuals at schools in their latest report, which shows that in Slovenia 43% of young people were subject to this type of violence in 2014.

This can be psychological, physical or sexual violence that happens on school grounds and also on-line. Its most frequent forms are verbal violence and harassment, the CoE says in the report.

Such violence targeting members of the LGBTI community was detected in all CoE countries, most notably in Turkey (67%) and Belgium (47%).

In the section on the situation in Slovenia, the report refers to a 2013 research carried out by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency.

The survey showed that 59% of the 636 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons "always" or "frequently" heard negative remarks about their classmates' sexual orientation or sexual identity and 30% of them are "always" or "frequently" the targets of such remarks themselves.

All our stories tagged LGBT can be found here

The report also refers to the 2014 survey in which 42.8% of respondents aged between 15 and 30 years reported of at least one experience of a homophobic attack during their education.

Slovenia is among the 32 CoE members that have explicitly banned discrimination based on sexual orientation at schools and is one of the 24 CoE countries that have explicitly banned discrimination based on sexual identity in education.

In 2016, the Slovenian anti-discrimination legislation expanded the list of the types of discrimination banned to discrimination based on sexual identity, while discrimination based on sexual orientation is banned by the Constitution.

The report released on Thursday is based on responses of public sector employees from 35 CoE member states.

The full report, in PDF form, can be read here

20 Nov 2018, 17:00 PM

The World of LGBT+ Film Returns to Slovenia, 11/24–02/12 (Trailers)

The Festival of LGBT Film has come a long since the days when the organisers were building an underground event around a collection of VHS tapes hand collected from London, often screened without anyone involved knowing quite what they contained. Now getting ready to start it’s 34^th edition, the festival is a well-established annual affair, put on with the support of public and private sponsors, and with a large, well-curated programme of features and shorts from around the world. Over twenty titles will be shown in Ljubljana, at Kinodvor, Kinoteka and Metelkova’s Klub Tiffany, with additional screenings in Maribor (IntimiKino), Koper (MKSMC), Ptuj (Mestin kino), Bistrica ob Sotli (Mladinski center), Idrija (Filmsko gledališče) and Trst/Trieste (Cinema Ariston).

English and Slovene subtitles keep the event open

The films come from Slovenia, the USA, China, Germany, Italy, Myanmar, Columbia, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain, France, Paraguay, Brazil, Scotland, Kenya and elsewhere, with all screenings including both English and Slovene subtitles, when needed. The related website also has an English version, here, which includes the full schedule of screenings and events, and there’s also a Facebook page.

The festival presents a round-up of the last year or so in LGBT+ film from around the world, with both fictional and documentary presentations, including Chi salverà le rose? (Who Will Save the Roses?), Sydney and Friends, Mr Gay Syria, Call Her Ganda, Freak Show, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Rafiki, Carmen & Lola, Martesa (The Marriage Film), Consequences (Posledice), Obscuro Barroco, Queercore and The Handmaiden (Agassi), although note this list is incomplete and a fuller account can be found elsewhere online.

All our LGBT+ stories can be found here

19 Oct 2018, 20:40 PM

Go East! LGBT + Literature in Eastern Europe, in English & Open to All, October 25 & 26

The Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, and ŠKUC are co-hosting an international conference on LGBTQ+ literature in Eastern Europe on 25 and 26 October 2018, which will examine, among other issues, the following questions:

Ljubljana related

Gay rights in Slovenia in more detail…

English and Slovene subtitles keep the event open

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