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Wikipedia

The Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR) (Dutch: Centrum voor gelijkheid van kansen en voor racismebestrijding, French: Centre pour l'égalité des chances et la lutte contre le racisme or CECLR) is a Belgian government agency under the responsibility of the Prime Minister of Belgium. Its director is Jozef de Witte.

The Centre was founded in 1993 by an Act of the Belgian Chamber of People's Representatives.

Tasks and goals

The Centre lists as its principal tasks:

Fighting Racism and Discrimination
Spotlight on Integration Policy
Foreigners' Rights and Recent Immigration
Fighting Poverty
Fighting Human Trafficking
Training / Documentation / Information Campaigns

The CEOOR has as its main goal to aid victims of discrimination, after an act of discrimination has occurred, or to prevent such acts.

It has four ways of achieving this goal :

Assisting discrimination victims. This can be done by giving (legal) advice or support, mediation or going to court.
Creating awareness among the public opinion for discrimination issues, by training, education, documentation and public relations.
Working with authorities and different actors in society on preventive anti-discrimination and integration policies.
Recommendations to policy makers on the different issues it addresses.

Cases

The CEOOR was, together with the Liga voor Mensenrechten, a plaintiff in the law case that led to the conviction of three Vlaams Blok organisations for "incitement to hate and discrimination.

In April 2002 the Centre lodged a complaint against the Centre Islamique de Belgique because of a video on its web site in which Israel was equated with a Nazi dictatorship. In June 2002, the CEOOR lodged another complaint against the Belgian Arab European League, also for racism.

Criticism

The Centre has been criticized by, among others, Matthias Storme. Storme sees the Centre as leading a "political inquisition" in suppressing alternative political views. Storme was earlier successful in fighting a case before the Belgian Supreme Court, where he showed that some articles of the Belgian anti-discrimination law were in violation with the constitutionally protected right of freedom of speech.

On 21 July 2004, the Centre was awarded (together with the Belgian Liga voor Mensenrechten) the annual Belgian "Democracy Award". The award is given yearly to persons or organisations that "protect or enhance political democracy or facilitate the participation of citizens in society". The jury from the organisations, Trefpunt and the anti-globalist Democratie 2000, awarded this prize to the Centre and Liga for their role in the condemnation of the Vlaams Blok in a case before the Ghent Court of Appeals.

Financials

The 2005 financial report of the Centre showed that of its total revenue of €6.2 million, €4.4 million came from the Belgian National Lottery and €1.0 million from the Centre's projects. Expenditure for personnel were €4.0 million. The Centre posted a net result of €705,000 in 2005. The balance at the end of the year 2005 showed, that the Centre's equity was €4.94 million.