Greece: Another First for LGBTQI+ Rights

Posted on by admin

Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Europe, Featured, Gender, Gender Identity, Headlines, Human Rights, LGBTQ, Religion, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Credit: Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters via Gallo Images

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Mar 1 2024 (IPS) – After almost two decades of civil society campaigning, Greece’s parliament has passed a law enabling same-sex couples to marry and adopt children. It’s the first majority-Orthodox Christian country to realise marriage equality.

Equal marriage is now recognised in 36 countries, with Estonia last year becoming the first post-Soviet state to join the ranks. These notable firsts have however been accompanied by regression elsewhere, including in the country with the world’s biggest Orthodox Christian population, Russia.

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AROUND THE WORLD

A long campaign

Debate on the rights of Greek same-sex couples dates back to 2006. That year and again in 2008, the centre-left PASOK party submitted bills to recognise unmarried couples, including same-sex ones. Neither made it through parliament, and a cohabitation law was eventually passed that didn’t include same-sex couples.

In 2008, LGBTQI+ rights activists exploited a loophole in a law that didn’t specify that marriage must involve a man and a woman. Despite instant backlash and legal threats, the mayor of the island of Tilos, a gay tourist destination, held a civil wedding ceremony for two same-sex couples. Courts soon annulled these weddings, but they helped put the issue on the agenda.

In the run-up to the 2009 election, the Lesbian and Gay Community of Greece sent candidates a questionnaire on LGBTQI+ rights. PASOK, which won the election, said it supported same-sex registered partnerships. But in office it dragged its heels.

LGBTQI+ activists took to regional and international human rights systems. They submitted shadow reports to the UN Human Rights Council’s review of Greece’s human rights record. In 2009, four gay couples brought two cases to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), stating that the restriction of civil unions to heterosexual couples amounted to unjustified discrimination.

In November 2013, the ECHR ruled that there was indeed discrimination, ordering the state to provide compensation. Within days, the PASOK-led government announced it would introduce a bill to extend civil unions to same-sex couples.

But time dragged. A year on, the government again said it was considering the change, but soon after, parliament was dissolved and snap elections were called for early 2015. Amid public anger at economic austerity measures imposed in response to Greece’s debt crisis, left-wing party Syriza won power.

Political change

The pace quickened under the Syriza-led government, and after a long and contentious December 2015 parliamentary debate, same-sex couples gained civil partnership rights. They still weren’t able to adopt or exercise parental rights over non-biological children, but the change was a vital first step. A year on, parliament further amended the law to extend some of the same rights as marriage, including labour rights.

LGBTQI+ rights activists made more gains during Syriza’s four years in power. In 2017, parliament passed a gender identity law enabling people to change gender on official documents without undergoing any medical procedure and allowing trans people to affirm their gender from 15 years onwards. Almost the entire political opposition voted against, including Kyriakos Mitsotakis, leader of the centre-right New Democracy party and current prime minister.

In June 2019, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised his government would legalise same-sex marriage if it won the upcoming election. But he was defeated by New Democracy and its bill was shelved. It renewed its promise ahead of the 2023 election, but again New Democracy won.

In a surprise move, an unlikely champion introduced a same-sex marriage bill in January 2024: Prime Minister Mitsotakis, having consolidated his hold over the political right, now sought to make inroads into socially progressive territory.

On 15 February, several prominent New Democracy parliamentarians abstained or voted against the bill but opposition parties on the left compensated. Syriza lawmakers voted overwhelmingly for.

The religious factor

But powerful forces still oppose equality. According to a 2018 survey, Greece is Europe’s fourth most religious country. Around half of adults consider themselves ‘highly religious’ and 59 per cent say they believe in God with ‘absolute certainty’. Up to 98 per cent identify as Greek Orthodox Christians. For many, belonging to the church goes beyond religion – it’s bound up in Greek identity.

The church has fiercely resisted every victory of the women’s and LGBTQI+ rights movements. It’s been particularly belligerent towards the gender identity law. Church authorities condemned it as ‘a satanic deed’ and shared the same conspiracy theories as far-right groups.

With public opinion evenly divided, the debate on same-sex marriage was deeply polarising. Parliamentary debates saw a barrage of abusive language and hate speech. Far-right politicians claimed the bill was ‘anti-Christian’ and warned it would enable paedophiles. Church representatives insisted homosexuality was a ‘mortal sin’. The church insisted the bill would destroy the family. Priests propagated disinformation and threatened excommunication.

What – and where – next

As Equaldex’s Equality Index shows, the new law is way ahead of prevailing public attitudes. Activists will need to do much more work to shift public opinion to prevent regression and keep moving forward. But they’re optimistic this latest victory will help further normalise the presence of LGBTQI+ people and bring more social acceptance of diversity.

It matters too outside Greece, which is ahead of the curve among Orthodox-majority states – and could offer an example to follow.

Belarus, Russia and Moldova are the Orthodox-majority countries with the most hostile environments for LGBTQI+ people. Belarus and Russia have closed civic space, making it next to impossible to advocate for rights, and Russia has further intensified its repression of LGBTQI+ people as a matter of national identity during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

But Moldova, along with several other of Greece’s Orthodox-majority neighbours – Bulgaria, Montenegro and Romania – have relatively enabling civic space and active LGBTQI+ movements seeking change.

Activists in Greece will keep pushing for social change to match legal progress. And activists in neighbouring states will keep campaigning, knowing that, sustained advocacy can pay off even in hostile contexts. They’ll keep trying to force open political windows of opportunity so decades-sought change can finally materialise.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

  Source

Russia: Moments of Dissent after Two Years of War

Posted on by admin

Armed Conflicts, Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Europe, Featured, Headlines, Human Rights, Press Freedom, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Credit: Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty Images

LONDON, Feb 26 2024 (IPS) – Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine marked its second anniversary on 24 February. And while civil society is offering an immense voluntary effort in Ukraine, in Russia activists have faced intense constraints. The suspicious death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny is part of a great wave of repression. He’s the latest in a long list of people who’ve come to a sudden end after falling out with Vladmir Putin.

Putin is paying a backhanded compliment to the importance of civil society by suppressing it through every possible means. State-directed murder is the most extreme form of repression, but Putin has many more tricks up his sleeve. One is criminalisation of protests, seen when people showed up at improvised vigils to commemorate Navalny, laying flowers at informal memorials, knowing what would happen. Police arrested hundreds and the flowers quickly vanished.

An unrelenting assault

Human rights organisation OVD-Info reports that since the start of the full-scale invasion, the authorities have detained 19,855 people at anti-war protests, brought 894 criminal cases against anti-war activists and introduced 51 new repressive laws.

Among many other Russians jailed for symbolic acts of protest, Crimean artist Bohdan Zizu was handed a 15-year sentence last June for spray-painting a building in the colours of the Ukrainian flag. In November, artist Alexandra Skochilenko was sentenced to seven years for placing information about the war on supermarket price tags. Now people helping Ukrainian refugees living in Russia are being criminalised.

The government is also making it impossible for civil society and independent media organisations to keep working. Last August, the authorities declared independent TV channel Dozhd an ‘undesirable organisation’, in effect banning it from operating in Russia and criminalising anyone who shares its content. In August, courts ordered the closure of the Sakharov Center, a human rights organisation. Through similar means the authorities have forced several other organisations out of existence or into exile.

The state has also designated numerous people and organisations as ‘foreign agents’, a classification intended to stigmatise them as associated with espionage. In November, it added the Moscow Times to the list. The government has also doubled down on its attacks on LGBTQI+ people as part of its strategy to inflame narrow nationalist sentiments. And it keeps passing laws to further tighten civic space. Putin recently approved a law that allows the government to confiscate money and other assets from people who criticise the war.

The state is criminalising journalists as well. In March, it detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges, sending a signal that international journalists aren’t safe. The authorities are also holding Russian-US journalist Alsu Kurmasheva of Radio Free Europe, detained while paying a family visit to Russia. Putin is likely planning to use them as leverage for a prisoner swap. State authorities have put other journalists based outside Russia on wanted lists or charged them in absentia.

Meanwhile, Putin has pardoned real criminals for joining the fight. They include one of the people jailed for organising the 2006 assassination of pioneering investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

It’s hard to hope for any let-up in the crackdown, at least as long as the war lasts. A non-competitive election will approve another term for Putin in March. No credible candidates are allowed to oppose him, and recently an anti-war politician who’d unexpectedly emerged to provide a focus for dissent was banned from standing. Last year the government amended laws to further restrict media coverage of the election, making it very hard to report on electoral fraud.

Weak or strong?

For a time last year Putin seemed weakened when his former ally Yevgeny Prigozhin rebelled, marching his Wagner Group mercenaries on Moscow. The two sides agreed a deal to end the dispute, and sure enough, two months later, Prigozhin died in a suspicious plane crash.

Putin has reasserted his authority. He may be gaining the upper hand in the war. Russia has greater firepower and is largely surviving attempts to isolate it financially, with repressive regimes such as China, India and Turkey picking up the slack in demand for its fossil fuels. It’s turned itself into a Soviet-style war economy, with state spending strongly focused on the military effort, although that can’t be long-term sustainable. Some of the world’s most authoritarian governments – Iran and North Korea – are also supplying weapons.

In comparison, Ukrainian forces are running out of ammunition. Support for Ukraine’s effort has come under greater strain due to political shifts in Europe and the breaking of political consensus in the USA, with Trump-affiliated Republicans working to block further military aid.

Putin may be riding high, but such is the level of state control it’s hard to get an accurate picture of how popular he is, and the election will offer no evidence. Given repression, protest levels may not tell the full story either – but some have still broken out, including those in response to Navalny’s death.

A vital current of dissent has formed around unhappiness with war losses. Last September, an independent poll suggested that support for the war was at a record low. Morale among Russian troops is reportedly poor and deserters have called on others to quit. Families of men serving in the military have held protests demanding the fighting ends.

Protesters have offered other recent moments of opposition. In November, people held a demonstration in Siberia against a local initiative to further restrict protests. In January, in Baymak in southern Russia, hundreds protested at the jailing of an activist. There’s also domestic unhappiness at high inflation.

Moments don’t make a movement, but they can offer inspiration that turns into one, and that often happens unexpectedly. Putin’s story is far from over. As with tyrants before, he’ll likely look invincible until just before he falls.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

  Source

Serbia’s Suspicious Election

Posted on by admin

Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Democracy, Europe, Featured, Headlines, Human Rights, LGBTQ, Press Freedom, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Credit: Vladimir Zivojinovic/Getty Images

LONDON, Jan 26 2024 (IPS) – Serbia’s December 2023 elections saw the ruling party retain power – but amid a great deal of controversy.

Civil society has cried foul about irregularities in the parliamentary election, but particularly the municipal election in the capital, Belgrade. In recent times Belgrade has been a hotbed of anti-government protests. That’s one of the reasons it’s suspicious that the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) came first in the city election.

Allegations are that the SNS had ruling party supporters from outside Belgrade temporarily register as city residents so they could cast votes. On election day, civil society observers documented large-scale movements of people into Belgrade, from regions where municipal elections weren’t being held and from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. Civil society documented irregularities at 14 per cent of Belgrade voting stations. Many in civil society believe this made the crucial difference in stopping the opposition winning.

The main opposition coalition, Serbia Against Violence (SPN), which made gains but finished second, has rejected the results. It’s calling for a rerun, with proper safeguards to prevent any repeat of irregularities.

Thousands have taken to the streets of Belgrade to protest about electoral manipulation, rejecting the violation of the most basic principle of democracy – that the people being governed have the right to elect their representatives.

A history of violations

The SNS has held power since 2012. It blends economic neoliberalism with social conservatism and populism, and has presided over declining respect for civic space and media freedoms. In recent years, Serbian environmental activists have been subjected to physical attacks. President Aleksandar Vučić attempted to ban the 2022 EuroPride LGBTQI+ rights march. Journalists have faced public vilification, intimidation and harassment. Far-right nationalist and anti-rights groups have flourished and also target LGBTQI+ people, civil society and journalists.

The SNS has a history of electoral irregularities. The December 2023 vote was a snap election, called just over a year and a half since the previous vote in April 2022, which re-elected Vučić as president. In 2022, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) pointed to an ‘uneven playing field’, characterised by close ties between major media outlets and the government, misuse of public resources, irregularities in campaign financing and pressure on public sector staff to support the SNS.

These same problems were seen in December 2023. Again, the OSCE concluded there’d been systemic SNS advantages. Civil society observers found evidence of vote buying, political pressure on voters, breaches of voting security and pressure on election observers. During the campaign, civil society groups were vilified, opposition officials were subjected to physical and verbal attacks and opposition rallies were prevented.

But the ruling party has denied everything. It’s slurred civil society for calling out irregularities, accusing activists of trying to destabilise Serbia.

Backdrop of protests

The latest vote was called following months of protests against the government. These were sparked by anger at two mass shootings in May 2023 in which 17 people were killed.

The shootings focused attention on the high number of weapons still in circulation after the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia and the growing normalisation of violence, including by the government and its supporters.

Protesters accused state media of promoting violence and called for leadership changes. They also demanded political resignations, including of education minister Branko Ružić, who disgracefully tried to blame the killings on ‘western values’ before being forced to quit. Prime Minister Ana Brnabić blamed foreign intelligence services for fuelling protests. State media poured abuse on protesters.

These might have seemed odd circumstances for the SNS to call elections. But election campaigns have historically played to Vučić’s strengths as a campaigner and give him some powerful levers, with normal government activities on hold and the machinery of the state and associated media at his disposal.

Only this time it seems the SNS didn’t think all its advantages would be quite enough and, in Belgrade at least, upped its electoral manipulation to the point where it became hard to ignore.

East and west

There’s little pressure from Serbia’s partners to both east and west. Its far-right and socially conservative forces are staunchly pro-Russia, drawing on ideas of a greater Slavic identity. Russian connections run deep. In the last census, 85 per cent of people identified themselves as affiliated with the Serbian Orthodox Church, strongly in the sway of its Russian counterpart, in turn closely integrated with Russia’s repressive machinery.

The Serbian government relies on Russian support to prevent international recognition of Kosovo. Russian officials were only too happy to characterise post-election protests as western attempts at unrest, while Prime Minister Brnabić thanked Russian intelligence services for providing information on planned opposition activities.

But states that sit between the EU and Russia are being lured on both sides. Serbia is an EU membership candidate. The EU wants to keep it onside and stop it drifting closer to Russia, so EU states have offered little criticism.

Serbia keeps performing its balancing act, gravitating towards Russia while doing just enough to keep in with the EU. In the 2022 UN resolution on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it voted to condemn Russia’s aggression and suspend it from the Human Rights Council. But it’s resisted calls to impose sanctions on Russia and in 2022 signed a deal with Russia to consult on foreign policy issues.

The European Parliament is at least prepared to voice concerns. In a recent debate, many of its members pointed to irregularities and its observation mission noted problems including media bias, phantom voters and vilification of election observers.

Other EU institutions should acknowledge what happened in Belgrade. They should raise concerns about electoral manipulation and defend democracy in Serbia. To do so, they need to support and work with civil society. An independent and enabled civil society will bring much-needed scrutiny and accountability. This must be non-negotiable for the EU.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

  Source

Fear as Russian Anti-LGBT Law Comes into Effect

Posted on by admin

Civil Society, Crime & Justice, Democracy, Editors’ Choice, Europe, Featured, Freedom of Expression, Gender, Headlines, Human Rights, LGBTQ, TerraViva United Nations

Human Rights

The Russian Supreme Court ruling making the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organization will come into effect on January 9, 2024. Graphic: IPS

The Russian Supreme Court ruling making the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organization will come into effect on January 9, 2024. Graphic: IPS

BRATISLAVA, Jan 3 2024 (IPS) – “This is what you get after ten years of state propaganda and brainwashing,” says Anatolii*.

The Moscow-based LGBT rights activist’s ire is directed at a recent ruling by Russia’s Supreme Court declaring the “international LGBT movement” an extremist organization.

Details of the ruling, made on November 30 after a closed hearing, have yet to be made public—it will not be enforced until January 9, 2024, and until then, no one is likely to be any the wiser about its practical implementation, says Anatolii.

But its vagueness—critics point out that no “international LGBT movement” exists as an organization—has already fueled fears that it could lead to the arbitrary prosecution of anyone involved in any activities supporting the LGBT community.

And the potential punishments for such support are draconian, with participating in or financing an extremist organization carrying a maximum 12-year prison sentence under Russian law.

In the weeks since the ruling was announced, fear has spread among LGBT people.

“Russian queers are really scared,” Anatolii tells IPS.

But while fearful, many see it as the latest, if potentially the most drastic, act in a decade-long campaign by the Kremlin to marginalise and vilify the LGBT community in the country through legislation and political rhetoric.

The first legislative attack on the community came in 2013, not long after Vladimir Putin had returned to power as President, when a law came into effect banning “the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” to anyone under the age of 18.

This was followed by increasingly homophobic political discourse, and Kremlin campaigns—prominently backed by the country’s powerful Orthodox Church—promoting ‘traditional family values’ in society and casting LGBT activism as a product of the degenerate West and a threat to Russian identity.

Then in 2022, the ban on “LGBT propaganda” was extended to cover all public information or activities supporting LGBT rights or displaying non-heterosexual orientation and implicitly linked the LGBT community with paedophilia—the law refers to the “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations and/or preferences, paedophilia, and sex change.”

A ban on same sex marriage has also been written into the constitution; authorities have labelled a number of LGBT organizations as “foreign agents,” stigmatizing them and forcing them to adhere to a set of funding and bureaucratic requirements that can be liquidating, and earlier this year a law was passed banning transgender people officially or medically changing their gender.

With each new piece of pernicious legislation, and an accompanying rise in intensity and normalization of homophobic hate speech from politicians, the LGBT community has suffered, its members say.

“The Supreme Court ruling is just a continuation of Russia’s homophobic policies. The amount of physical violence against LGBT people has been growing in Russia for 10 years. After each such law, it intensifies even more noticeably,” Yaroslav Rasputin, editor at the Russian-language LGBT website www.parniplus.com, told IPS.

“We expect homophobes will feel justified in attacking LGBT people [after the ruling], both through cyberbullying and physical assaults,” he added.

Members of the LGBT community and rights campaigners who spoke to IPS said there was a desperate fear among many LGBT people now. While the threat of physical violence was often felt as being very real, there was also a crippling concern over the uncertainty many would now face in their daily activities.

Many do not know what will constitute “support” for the LGBT community. Some are trawling through years of social media records, deleting any possible positive references to LGBT or reposted messages on the topic for fear of the information being used against them by authorities.

And there are worries that simply being openly gay could somehow be interpreted as extremism.

Lawyers who have advised LGBT people and groups in the past say that it will be much easier for security forces to initiate and prosecute cases of extremism than propaganda, as the latter is more difficult to prove.

“Although the government says these ‘repressions’ concern only political activists, in reality this is not the case. We know this from previous homophobic laws. Sometimes people spontaneously get caught for who they are. No one knows when it will be safe to come out and when not,” said Rasputin.

Anatolii said the organisation he works for has been inundated with calls from people “in panic and despair” over the ruling, many of whom are looking for help to leave the country.

LGBT groups outside Russia have also reported a huge uptick in calls from people trying to find safe passage to other countries.

“We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of people contacting us, perhaps three or four times more. LGBT people in Russia are really worried about the ruling; they don’t know what might be defined as extremist,” Aleksandr Kochekovskii from the Berlin-based organisation Quarteera e. V, which helps LGBT refugees and migrants to arrive and find their way around Germany, told IPS.

“Unfortunately, a lot of people will leave Russia because of this ruling because they feel in danger. There is a ubiquitous psychological pressure on LGBT people in Russia now,” he added.

Even some openly gay figures in Russia have publicly acknowledged that LGBT people may be forced to flee the country.

“This is real repression. There is panic in Russia’s LGBT community. People are emigrating urgently. The actual word we’re using is evacuation. We’re having to evacuate from our own country. It’s terrible,” Sergei Troshin, a gay municipal deputy in St Petersburg, told the BBC.

But others warn the Kremlin may be looking to use the ruling to crack down on the community as a whole as much as individuals.

“At this point, the state’s main goal is to erase the LGBT community from society and [the country’s] history,” Mikhail*, a Russian LGBT activist who recently left the country and now works for a pan-European NGO campaigning for minority health rights, told IPS. “It is hard to imagine how many organisations defending the rights of LGBT people will be able to exist in Russia any more since such support is [considered to be] advocating terrorism,” he added.

Some such organisations have already decided to close in the wake of the ruling. The Russian LGBT Sports Federation announced it had stopped its activities, and one of the most prominent LGBT groups in the country, Delo, which provided legal assistance to people in the community, also closed following the court decision.

But other mainstays of the LGBT community are also shutting their doors. The owners of one of the oldest gay clubs in Russia, “Central Station” in St Petersburg, said they had been forced to close the club after the site’s owners refused to rent to them. Its closure came as other gay clubs and bars in Moscow were raided by police just 24 hours after the Supreme Court ruling. People’s names taken, and ID documents copied.

Although police said the raids were part of anti-drug operations, LGBT activists said they could see the true purpose behind them.

“The state has made it very clear that it is ready to use the apparatus of force against LGBT people in Russia,” said Mikhail.

But the ruling is also expected to have effects for LGBT people beyond their interactions with other individuals or groups within the community.

Accessing specific healthcare services, for instance, seems likely to become more difficult.  Some practitioners, such as psychiatrists and psychologists, have until now openly indicated their services as LGBT-friendly. But according to some Russian media reports, it is thought many will no longer be able or willing to do so, and that others may simply stop providing their services to LGBT people altogether out of fear of repercussions.

Experts warn that without qualified help, the risks of suicide, PTSD, and the development of other mental disorders will rise, especially among children, something that was seen after the first law banning the promotion of LGBT to minors was passed in 2013.

International rights groups have condemned the court ruling and urged other countries to provide a safe haven for those forced to flee Russia and to support Russian LGBT activists working both inside and outside the country.

Whatever the effects of the law eventually are once it is fully implemented, it looks unlikely there will be any improvement for the LGBT community in the near future.

Activists predict anti-LGBT political rhetoric will probably only intensify as President Putin looks to cement support among voters ahead of elections in March, and as the Kremlin tries to draw the public’s attention away from the country’s problems, not least those connected to the war raging in Ukraine.

“It’s easier to create an artificial enemy than to struggle with the real problems the war has caused. The LGBT+ community in Russia is a kind of collective scapegoat, taking a punch and feeling the people’s wrath,” said Anatolii.

Others say that as the war drags on, repression of the LGBT community may start being repeated among other minority groups.

“Everything the Kremlin does in Russia is an attempt to divert people’s attention from the war. ‘Othering’ is typical for all dictatorial regimes. I am quite sure that soon [the Kremlin] will start targeting other groups like migrants and foreigners,” Nikolay Lunchenkov, LGBT Health Coordinator for the Eurasian Coalition on Health, Rights, Gender, and Sexual Diversity NGO, which works with the LGBT community in Russia, told IPS.

Note: *Names have been changed for safety reasons.

IPS UN Bureau Report

  Source

Latvia: A Vital First Step Towards Marriage Equality

Posted on by admin

Civil Society, Europe, Featured, Gender, Gender Identity, Headlines, Human Rights, LGBTQ, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Credit: Ilmars Znotins/AFP via Getty Images

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Dec 12 2023 (IPS) – Last month the Saeima, Latvia’s parliament, passed a package of eight laws recognising same-sex civil unions and associated rights. The new legislation came in response to a 2020 Constitutional Court ruling that established that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to the benefits and legal protections afforded to married opposite-sex couples.

Equal marriage rights are still a long way away, and civil unions are only a first step in the right direction. But in one of Europe’s most restrictive countries for LGBTQI+ rights, activists view it as a significant shift, achieved after numerous attempts over more than two decades. Anti-rights forces agree, and they’re not going to let it happen quietly. They’ve already responded with an attempt to stop the new law being adopted by campaigning for a referendum.

The breakthrough

The first registered partnership bill was submitted by the National Human Rights Office in 1999 but rejected by parliament’s Human Rights and Public Affairs Committee and never debated. Initiatives accelerated in the mid-2010s but were all rejected – the latest attempts coming in 2020 and 2022.

On 29 October 2020, a popular initiative calling for the passage of a civil union law that had gathered more than 10,000 signatures was voted down by parliament. Campaigners immediately started a new initiative for the ‘legal protection of all families’, which attracted over 23,000 signatures – but that too was rejected by parliament in December 2022.

Following the 2020 parliamentary vote, however, two court rulings catalysed change. In November 2020, the Constitutional Court found the labour law in violation of the constitution because it didn’t provide for parental leave to the non-biological parent in a same-sex relationship.

As the result of a 2006 anti-rights initiative to ban same-sex marriage, the Latvian Constitution defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. The concept of family, however, isn’t explicitly defined in reference to marriage, and the court understood it more broadly as a stable relationship based on understanding and respect. It concluded that the constitution demanded protection for same-sex partners and gave parliament a deadline of 1 June 2022 to amend the law to provide a way for same-sex couples to register their relationship.

A year later, in December 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that if the deadline was missed, same-sex couples would be allowed to resort to the courts to have their relationship recognised.

Anti-rights backlash

The anti-rights reaction was quick in coming. Two months after the Constitutional Court ruling, parliament introduced a constitutional amendment that went further than ratifying the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, defining family as based on marriage.

To comply with the Constitutional Court’s ultimatum, in February 2022 the Ministry of Justice submitted a civil union bill and two months later, despite an attempted boycott to deny a quorum, parliament approved its first reading.

When it became apparent that the court’s deadline would be missed, same-sex couples started petitioning the courts for recognition as family units. The first of dozens of positive rulings was issued on 31 May 2022.

That same day a tight parliamentary vote resulted in the appointment of Latvia’s first out gay president. Momentum was building, and parliament finally passed a law to allow same-sex civil unions on 9 November 2023.

But conservative politicians managed to put the new law on hold as they seek to gather the signatures required to force a referendum that they hope will prevent its entry into force.

A long way to go

Even if it survives the challenge, the new law is no panacea. Ultimately, access to marriage is the only way to ensure LGBTQI+ couples have the same legal rights as heterosexual couples. Recognition of same-sex relationships is a step forward, but still leaves Latvia behind neighbouring Estonia, which legalised same-sex marriage in June.

If upheld, the new legislation will give registered same-sex couples some but not all the rights associated with marriage – they’ll have hospital visitation rights and tax and social security benefits, but not inheritance rights or the right to adopt children.

Beyond the legal sphere, the biggest challenge will come in influencing public attitudes, as signalled by Latvia’s scores on Equaldex’s Equality Index. This ranking combines a legal index that assesses key laws and a public opinion index that measures attitudes towards LGBTQI+ people. Latvia scores far lower for public opinion than for its laws. A 2019 Special Eurobarometer poll found that only 49 per cent of Latvians thought that LGBTQI+ people should have the same rights as heterosexuals.

The message is clear: changing laws and policies won’t be enough – and any legal victories will remain in peril unless social attitudes change.

Latvian LGBTQI+ organisations are fully aware of this, which is why they’ve worked on both fronts for many years. A centrepiece of their work to challenge prejudice is the annual Pride event, which Latvia pioneered for the Baltic region in 2005. As recounted by its organisers, Latvia’s Pride grew from 70 participants who faced 3,000 protesters in 2005 to 5,000 participants at EuroPride 2015, held in Latvia’s capital Riga, and 8,000 in the 2018 Baltic Pride, also held in Riga. Pride was repeatedly banned by Riga City Council, and it invariably faced hostile counter-protesters – but fewer each time, while the number of Pride participants has grown, boosting people’s self-confidence.

Global trends show progress towards the recognition of LGBTQI+ rights to be much stronger than regression. Latvian LGBTQI+ advocates will continue to push forward on both the policy and awareness-raising fronts. They’ll continue working to secure what they’ve already achieved while striving for more. They’re on the right course.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

  Source

Georgia: Danger Averted, for Now

Posted on by admin

Cedit: Daro Sulakauri/Getty Images

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Mar 17 2023 (IPS)

Georgian civil society can breathe a sigh of relief. A proposed repressive law that would have severely worsened the space for activism has been shelved – for now. But the need for vigilance remains.

Russia-style law

A proposed ‘foreign agents’ law would have required civil society organisations (CSOs) and media outlets in Georgia receiving over 20 per cent of funding from outside the country to register as a ‘foreign agent’. Non-compliance would have been punishable with fines and even jail sentences.

The law’s proponents, including Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, claimed it was modelled on one passed in the USA in 1938. The US law was introduced to check the insidious spread of Nazi propaganda in the run-up to the Second World War, and wasn’t targeted at CSOs.

For civil society it was clear the source of inspiration was much more recent and closer to home: Russia’s 2012 law, since extended several times, which allows the state to declare a ‘foreign agent’ any person or organisation it judges to be under foreign influence. The law has been used extensively to stigmatise civil society and independent media. It’s been imitated by other repressive states looking for ways to stifle civil society.

In Georgia, as in Russia, the ‘foreign agent’ terminology is deeply suggestive of espionage and treachery. Any organisation it’s applied to can expect to be instantly viewed with suspicion. This meant the law would stigmatise CSOs and media organisations.

Alarmingly, the proposed law was no isolated event: the government has been ramping up the rhetoric about groups ‘opposing the interests of the country’ and the need to save Georgia from foreign influence.

The initial proposal for the law came from a populist political faction, People’s Power, that split from the ruling party, Georgian Dream, but works in coalition with it. People’s Power has a track record of criticising foreign funding, particularly from the USA, which it claims undermines Georgia’s sovereignty, and has accused CSOs and the main opposition party of being US agents.

CSOs insist they already adhere to high standards of accountability and transparency, making any further regulations unnecessary. They point to the vital role civil society has played over the years in establishing democracy in Georgia, providing essential services the state fails to offer and helping to introduce important human rights protections.

This work necessarily requires financial support, and since there are few resources within Georgia, that means foreign funding, including from the European Union (EU) and other international bodies – sources the government is also happy to receive funding from.

The power of protest

The scale of the reaction took the government by surprise. Many states around the world have enacted repressive civil society laws, and it’s often hard to get the public to take an interest. But the issue cut through because of the larger concerns many people have about Russian influence, heightened by the war on Ukraine.

Russia is an ever-present issue in Georgian politics. The two countries went to war in 2008, and two breakaway parts of Georgia – Abkhazia and South Ossetia – claim autonomy and receive heavy Russian support. Georgian Dream, founded by billionaire business tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili, has an official policy of pragmatism towards Russia while also cultivating links with the EU – but opponents accuse it and People’s Power of being too close to Russia.

Many see the country’s future as lying within a democratic Europe and fear returning to Russia’s domination. This made the proposed law about a fundamental question of national identity.

That’s why, when parliament started discussing the bill in early March, thousands gathered over several nights, many waving Georgian and EU flags and chanting ‘no to the Russian law’.

When the bill passed its hurried first reading it sparked some violent clashes. Some people threw stones and the police responded disproportionately with teargas, stun grenades, pepper spray and water cannon. But people kept protesting and the government feared the situation could spiral out of its control. So, at least for the time being, it backed down.

What next?

The immediate threat may have passed, but it isn’t game over. The government hasn’t said the law was a bad idea, merely that it failed to explain it properly to the public and withdrew it to reduce confrontation.

Georgia was one of three countries that applied to join the EU following the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While the other two, Moldova and Ukraine, were quickly granted EU candidate status, Georgia wasn’t.

The EU cited the need for both economic and political reforms. This includes measures to reduce corruption, organised crime and oligarchic influence, improve the protection of human rights and enable civil society to play a stronger role in decision-making processes. In introducing the proposed law, the government took steps further away from the EU and made clear it doesn’t trust civil society.

This raises concerns the bill could return in some revised form, or other restrictions on civil society could be introduced. In numerous countries, the kind of verbal attacks on civil society recently made by the government have led to restrictions.

But Garibashvili should be more attentive to the message of the protests. By taking to the streets, people told the government they’re paying attention and disagree with its current direction – and forced it to back down. Civil society has shown its power, and deserves to be listened to rather than treated with suspicion.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

 


!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);  

Source