Kocáb’s SOPPRAN meets for the first time

The Czech Human Rights Minister has decided to create a Permanent Expert Panel against Racism and Violence (Stálý odborný panel proti rasismu a násilí – SOPPRAN) in connection with the rise in extremism, xenophobia and in some cases even open racism in the Czech streets. The panel will attempt to re-introduce the missing ethical/philosophical dimension of the public debate on intercultural and interreligious dialogue. The first inaugural meeting of SOPPRAN took place on the afternoon of 16 July 2009.

The expert panel is comprised of leading Czech intellectuals and personalities from public life. As of now, the following people have accepted membership on the panel: Václav Havel, Otakar Motejl, Petr Pithart, Eliška Wagnerová, Anna Šabatová, Jacques Rupnik, Václav Bělohradský, Jan Ruml, Jan Urban, Petr Uhl, Karol Sidon, Karel Holomek, Luboš Dobrovský, Jakub Trojan, Tomáš Halík, Jan Švejnar, Jiří Musil, Jiřina Šiklová, Ivan Gabal, Vladimíra Dvořáková, Jan Hartl, Tomáš Sedláček, Šimon Pánek, Kumar Vishwanathan, and Ondřej Cakl. Guests will also be invited to participate.

SOPPRAN is based on the idea that all people enjoy equal, inalienable rights, that they have been created to live in freedom and that their dignity must be honored under all circumstances. This idea, which was created in Europe, is one of the basic values of the European political order. It was taken up and significantly developed by the United States of America and subsequently became the property of all of humanity when it was incorporated into UN documents.

The purpose of SOPPRAN is to discuss current topics in the area of human rights protections and tolerance and to seek comprehensible formulas for human rights advocacy that will be respected by the general public.