Out of the spotlight: The rights of foreigners and minorities are still a grey area Following this decision, the applicants attempted to re-register their association by filing an application with the Single-Member Court of First Instance in Florina in June 2003. On 19 December 2003 the Court rejected the application because of “the unclear wording of the articles [which] has led to confusion concerning the activities of the association. More specifically, the word ‘Macedonian’ – defining the culture to be preserved – implies that this culture is something particular and self-contained, so that it is not clear whether the word is being used in its historical sense to refer to an integral part of Greek civilisation with its local specificities, or in its geographical sense, in which case it is left undefined which part of the broader region of Macedonia is meant, as its territory took shape after the Balkan Wars. This lack of clarity is not only not removed by the name of the association, which insists on the indiscriminate use of the term, but is in fact exacerbated by the association of this culture with a non-existent language, claimed to be ‘Macedonian’, despite the fact that in the geographical area of Macedonia it is the Greek language which is spoken, except by a small portion of the population, which also speaks – in addition to Greek – an idiom which is essentially Slavic. Thus the confusion caused by the general use of the terms Macedonia and Macedonian, without distinction as to geographical or historical reference – a confusion existing in the mind of the states with which the association will be dealing, in pursuit of its objective through demarches to and collaboration with these states, and in the mind of persons interested in participating in the work of the association in pursuit of this objective – contains a direct danger to public order and provides an opportunity for exploitation by external agents who have tried from time to time, unsuccessfully, to Amnesty International 5 October 2005 create a historically ‘Macedonian nation’.”122 61 non-existent The reasoning of this decision is similar to the reasoning presented to the European Court of Human Rights, which had found Greece to be in violation of Article 11 of the ECHR, relating to the right to freedom of association. In this sense it would appear that the authorities have failed, through this new decision, both to uphold the provisions of Article 11 of the ECHR, as well as those of Article 53 of the same Convention stating that “the High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the decision of the Court in any case to which they are parties”. In addition to this case, Amnesty International has also been informed that on 11 May 2004, the Single-Member Aridea Criminal Court of First Instance found Archimandrite Nikodimos Tsarknias guilty of establishing and operating a house of worship without the authorization of the local religious and educational authority, as required by Law 1363/1938, and sentenced him to three months’ imprisonment. The defence’s argument that Article 1 of this Law, which requires places of worship to be registered with the authorities before they are given permission to operate, contravened Article 9 of the ECHR regarding freedom of religion was rejected. In 1997 Greece was found guilty of violating the provisions of the ECHR because of the stipulations of Law 1363/1938.123 Thus, these recent decisions appear to similarly violate both the provisions of the ECHR regarding freedom of religion, and those regarding the treaty obligation to abide by the European Court of Human Rights’ rulings. It should be 122 http://www.greekhelsinki.gr/bhr/english/special_i ssues/home_of_macedonian_civilization.html 123 European Court of Human Rights, Manoussakis and Others v. Greece [Manoussakis et autres c. Grèce], Judgment of 26 September 1996, 23 E.H.R.R. 387 AI Index: EUR 25/016/2005