Geneva 1991
They will permit the competent authorities to inform the Office for Free Elections of
all scheduled public elections on their territories, including those held below national
level. The participating States will consider favourably, to the extent permitted by law,
the presence of observers at elections held below the national level, including in areas
inhabited by national minorities, and will endeavour to facilitate their access.
IV.
The participating States will create conditions for persons belonging to national minorities to have equal opportunity to be effectively involved in the public life, economic
activities, and building of their societies.
In accordance with paragraph 31 of the Copenhagen Document, the participating States
will take the necessary measures to prevent discrimination against individuals, particularly in respect of employment, housing and education, on the grounds of belonging or
not belonging to a national minority. In that context, they will make provision, if they
have not yet done so, for effective recourse to redress for individuals who have experienced discriminatory treatment on the grounds of their belonging or not belonging to a
national minority, including by making available to individual victims of discrimination
a broad array of administrative and judicial remedies.
The participating States are convinced that the preservation of the values and of the cultural heritage of national minorities requires the involvement of persons belonging to
such minorities and that tolerance and respect for different cultures are of paramount
importance in this regard. Accordingly, they confirm the importance of refraining from
hindering the production of cultural materials concerning national minorities, including by persons belonging to them.
The participating States affirm that persons belonging to a national minority will enjoy
the same rights and have the same duties of citizenship as the rest of the population.
The participating States reconfirm the importance of adopting, where necessary, special measures for the purpose of ensuring to persons belonging to national minorities
full equality with the other citizens in the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and
fundamental freedoms. They further recall the need to take the necessary measures to
protect the ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious identity of national minorities on
their territory and create conditions for the promotion of that identity; any such measures will be in conformity with the principles of equality and non-discrimination with
respect to the other citizens of the participating State concerned.
They recognize that such measures, which take into account, inter alia, historical and
territorial circumstances of national minorities, are particularly important in areas
where democratic institutions are being consolidated and national minorities issues are
of special concern.
Aware of the diversity and varying constitutional systems among them, which make
no single approach necessarily generally applicable, the participating States note with
102 OSCE Human Dimension Commitments
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