Austria

[AT] Appeal of the International Human Rights Tribunal on Discrimination against Homosexuals and Transsexuals in the Media

IRIS 1995-7:1/36

Gerhard Oberschlick

Publisher of FORUM

From 9 until 12 July 1995 an International Human Rights Tribunal was held in Vienna under the title "50 Years of the 2nd Republic, 50 Years of Gay and Lesbian Repression". 7 senates each dealing with a different field and made up of rotating teams of experts and other prominent members, heard the accusations and evidence given and pronounced their ruling. Freda Meissner-Blau, the candidate for the presidential elections of 1986 (defeated at the time by Kurt Waldheim) and who is the founding party leader of the Greens in Parliament presided over the court accompanied by the publisher of FORUM, Gerhard Oberschlick. The 7th senate of the Court dealing with public affairs was made up of the authors Heimrad Backer, Josef Haslinger and Doron Rabinovici, the sex therapist and politics and current affairs critic Rotraud Perner, the journalist Trautl Brandstaller, the psychologist Jutta Zinnecker, the University Professor for Dogmatic Religious Sciences Kurt Luthi, and the essayist Claus Tieber.

The Tribunal chose to give its ruling in a quasi legal form and in which it decided that reparative action should be offered at a national level (for instance enacting the right to damages under media legislation in the case of libel, ridicule, provocation and other forms of discrimination which certain individuals have had to bear). If an individual does not exercise this right then this reparative action can be awarded to any group or organisation in whose undeniable interest it is to have the type of discrimination recognised.