Case study Minorities in the media Supporting minority language media is a key way to promote minority cultures and identities, and provide marginalized groups with access to information about wider social issues. It is equally important that minority voices and issues are incorporated into mainstream media and culture. In Slovenia, Italians and Hungarians are official national minority communities. Under the Constitution, minorities are guaranteed the right to develop activities in the field of publishing and public media, and the state provides financial and moral support for this. The public service broadcasting law has implemented these rights and guarantees support for radio and television programmes for Italians and Hungarians. The public broadcasting service RTV Slovenia carries, produces and broadcasts these programmes with support from the government. Dedication to coverage of minority issues is explicit in RTV Slovenia’s ethical code. While positive, a question remains about adequate programming for other minority communities in the country. This underscores the need to revisit any special measures regularly, in order to ensure that they truly reflect and address the concerns of minority communities – including those which may have been established more recently. States have this obligation for all individuals but because minorities are often more vulnerable, it is explicitly stated here. Implementing this article may require states to take ‘special measures’ for minorities to address the impact of discrimination and specific barriers minorities face in achieving their rights. For example, Brazil reserves university entrance places for students from Afro-descendant and indigenous communities, in numbers proportional to their population in each state. 2. States shall take measures to create favourable conditions to enable persons belonging to minorities to express their characteristics and to develop their culture, language, religion, traditions and customs, except where specific practices are in violation of national law and contrary to international standards. It is not enough for a state to just tolerate minorities; it must actively support minority cultures, especially in the case of language. This requires both institutional and economic support and includes permitting expression of identity and promotion of culture. Cultural practices of any group may not violate human rights standards and any restrictions of practices must have reasonable and objective grounds. 3. States should take appropriate measures so that, wherever possible, persons belonging to minorities may have adequate opportunities to learn their mother tongue or to have instruction in their mother tongue. Language binds culture together, and minorities that wish to pass on their language to their children must be given support to do so. Mother-tongue education for minority children in primary school is one way to improve access to education and increase the attendance of minorities at secondary schools. Education in other national languages should be included to ensure access to employment and services in the wider society. This right is restricted by the words ‘wherever possible’, which means that states may decide it is not realistically feasible (for example, if the minority is dispersed throughout the country and there is a lack of adequate resources to provide for mothertongue instruction). Over the last two decades Ethiopia has reformed education policy to allow the use of mother-tongue languages in primary schools, despite relatively limited resources. Primary level students now receive education in a mix of their mother tongue, Amharic (former official language), and English depending on the region. 4. States should, where appropriate, take measures in the field of education, in order to encourage knowledge of the history, traditions, language and culture of the minorities existing within their territory. Persons belonging to minorities should have adequate opportunities to gain knowledge of the society as a whole. This is important because the history and culture of minorities are often neglected or misrepresented. Negative stereotypes and misrepresentations can contribute to discrimination and sometimes xenophobia, hate speech and violence. Encouraging inter-cultural dialogue can help