Ljubljana, 22 Jan - February 26 2008 will mark 16^th anniversary of the unlawful erasure of the group of citizens from ex Yugoslavia republics from the registry of permanent residents. In view of this 18 leading representatives of Amnesty International sections in EU countries who met in Ljubljana for a two day meeting signed an open letter addressed to Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša.

Directors and lobbyists in AI EU sections appealed on him personally to actively engage to publicly acknowledge the erasure as an illegal act and a violation of Human Rights and to guarantee that any adopted measures will be in line with the decisions and opinions of the Constitutional court and international human rights bodies.   They also again called on Slovenian government to withdraw the draft Constitutional Law, presented to the parliament last year. This constitutional change is intended to resolve the status of the "erased". AI strongly believes that this draft is not in line with relevant human rights standards and that it does not comply with the Constitutional Court's decisions and other recommendations of international institutions. Among other contentious issues, the draft law seeks to legalize the act of erasure ex tunc, denying acknowledgment of the "erasure" and denying appropriate redress including compensation.  

Apart from Constitutional Court of Slovenia (1999 and 2003), the March 2006 report of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and the concluding observations of the UN Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights of November 2005 clearly note the erasure as illegal. As a member state of the UN Human Rights Council and currently holding the EU Presidency, Slovenia's conduct and lack of political will to properly resolve the issue sends the wrong signal to the international community regarding Slovenia's compliance to its obligations under international human rights law and its commitment to the promotion and respect of human rights.

At least 18,305 people were unlawfully removed from the Slovenian registry of permanent residents in 1992. They were mainly people from other former Yugoslav republics, many of them Roma, who had been living in Slovenia and had not acquired Slovenian citizenship after Slovenia became independent. As a result of the "erasure", they became foreigners or stateless persons, and one of the most vulnerable and marginalized group in the country.