ILGA-Europe
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On Wednesday 19 March, ILGA-Europe and ENAR (the European Network Against Racism), together with some of the main European political parties, launched an Appeal for an election campaign free from discrimination and intolerance.
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On 19 March, we published the update for March month on our Come Out campaign. 163 candidates for the European elections had already signed ILGA-Europe’s Come Out Pledge. Since then 26 new signatures have been added - just within a week. Today we can count 212 supporters. ILGA-Europe looked in details into the European parties they represent. Moreover we explored the Come Out sub-theme of Come Out for Human Rights.
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8 March is marked as the International Women’s Day. The day gives us a platform to highlight the widespread gender inequalities in Europe, and to remind us all that the roots that nurture gender inequality and discrimination against LGBTI people are the same. This is why the fight for women’s rights are everyone’s fight.
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On 20 March, ILGA-Europe and other LGBTI organisations met with US Vice-President Joe Biden. The meeting was set up with the partners of the global programme called Dignity for All: LGBTI Assistance Program, and on the agenda was the US government’s work on LGBTI issues in foreign policy.
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Nigel Warner, ILGA-Europe Council of Europe adviser, remembers Peter Ashman.
Peter Ashman died on 21 February 2014, at the age of 63, after a short, brave struggle with pancreatic cancer.
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On 18 March, economist Dr. Ralph De Haas became the winner of the first Willem F. Duisenberg Fellowship Prize. He decided to donate a significant part of the prize to support the work of ILGA-Europe in the hope that his contribution will in particular help ILGA-Europe to strengthen its activities in former-USSR countries.
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Bias motivated speech
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At the Council of the Heads of the Christian Orthodox Church held in Istanbul last week, Cyprus’ Archbishop Chrysostomos urged all Orthodox Churches to “condemn homosexuality.” The Archbishop stated that governments demonstrated “weakening moral integrity” by ensuring equal rights, for example through civil partnerships or equal marriage.
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Bias motivated violence
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ILGA-Europe has just published its Transposition Guidelines on the EU's Victims' Rights Directive. This Directive is a new legislation that Member States have to implement by November 2015. All EU Member States and EU candidate countries will eventually have to comply with its provisions. They can also decide to do better and to provide even more rights to victims of crime. ILGA-Europe's guidelines explain in full details all the new obligation of the States in relation to hate crimes and victims of hate crimes.
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Germany has to do more in its fight against racism and intolerance, according to the Council of Europe's Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI). In its report, published on 25 February, ECRI demands tougher penalties and greater sensitivity for racist and homophobic crimes.
Read more about ECRI's criticism here
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The Liège Court of Assizes has sentenced a man to 25 years in prison for a murder based on homophobia. It's the first time in Belgian history that homophobia has been cited as an aggravating circumstance in a Belgian murder case.
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On 2 March, the Turkish parliament accepted the 6th Democratization Package which prohibits discrimination as well as hate crime, however, not on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
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Equality and non-discrimination
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On 5 March, the European Parliament's Intergroup on LGBT Rights held a seminar “10 years of LGBT rights: Successes, failures, challenges.” Under the chairing of Ulrike Lunacek, Co-President of the LGBT Intergroup, ILGA-Europe, Transgender Europe, Amnesty International, MEPs and the EEAS discussed both concrete achievements of the last five years, and issues to be tackled after the 2014 elections.
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Chair of the Lithuanian Parliament Loreta Graužinienė and Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevičius presented the tasks for the spring session of the Parliament on 10 March. Four homophobic bills and amendments to the existing laws are scheduled for the Spring session.
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The European Youth Forum has launched in-depth survey into multiple discrimination. The survey is aiming to collect information at both European and national levels about discrimination based on age and interlinked to other forms of discrimination such as that based on race, ethnicity, nationality, sex and sexuality.
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ENAR (the European Network Against Racism) has launched their 2012/2013 shadow report. The report shows that Black people, Roma, Muslims, migrants from non-EU countries, and women with a minority or migrant background living in Europe, discrimination is a major obstacle when looking for a job.
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Family
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On 28 March, the Prime Minister of Georgia Irakli Garibashvili announced the initiative to define “family” as union between a man and a woman in the Georgian Constitution. Mr. Garibashvili addressed the State Constitutional Commission of Georgia today and introduced this initiative at the government meeting.
Read more about the initiative here
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A working group including members of all four parties in the Estonian parliament is initiating a law proposal that will allow cohabitation to be officially registered by both different-sex and same-sex couples. The law proposal is a candidate to be fast-tracked - the goal is for the legislation to come into force on 1 July.
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On 14 March, the Portuguese parliament rejected a law proposal that would allow second parent adoption for same-sex partners. The proposal was rejected by 112 votes against, mainly from the centre-right coalition government, 107 against and four abstentions.
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On 21 March, the parliament of Gibraltar approved the Civil Partnership Act 2014. The act is applicable to both same-sex and different-sex couples. Morover same-sex couples are now also capable to apply for joint adoption. Thus what was a binding judicial decision concerning these rights to same-sex couples now pass to being legislatively enshrined. Lastly full rights in all areas regarding pensions, allowances, and tax and parallel to those available under Marriage. The law came into force on 28 March, and the date for operation of the Register is still to be announced. It is expected this is likely to take no more than 6 weeks.
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Freedom of expression
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The draft amendment to the Lithuanian Code of Administrative Violations, proposed by MP P. Gražulis, seeks to introduce administrative liability for any public defiance of the constitutionally established family values. According to this amendment, actions considered as defying traditional family values will result in administrative fine ranging from 1000 to 6000 LTL (300-1800 EUR).
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Foreign policy
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Sweden has suspended some of its financial aid to Uganda over a law that toughened punishment for LGBT people, becoming the fourth donor to do so. Sweden follows the World Bank, Norway and Denmark, who have withheld or diverted aid totalling about $110 million.
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Health
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In 2013, representatives of United States, Thaïland and other countries sent a proposal to the WHO Executive Board to address LGBT issues in health. Harsh discussions took place at the Executive Board meeting in May 2013 and a number of members refused this item to be kept on the agenda. From May to January 2014, the WHO’s Director General, Dr Chan led negotiations with different regions to agree on a compromise wording but despite her efforts, no agreement could be reached. As a result, over 300 LGBT rights NGOs and organisations working on sexual and reproductive health from 92 countries wrote a letter to Director General Chan to encourage further dialogue and to ask for more research on LGBT health.
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Human rights defenders
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On 12 March, the European Parliament adopted two new laws at first reading to reform data protection in the European Union. Until now, the EU regulated data protection via a 1995 directive, ill fitted for the modern omnipresence of personal data. The European Commission proposed a new EU framework in the form of two legal texts: a directive and a regulation. The European Parliament adopted several amendments to these two proposals. They include measures to protect private information relating to individuals’ sexual orientation and gender identity.
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Notice board
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The Université Libre de Bruxelles is organising on 15-16 May 2014 an international conference aiming at deconstructing arguments of those who oppose LGBT rights based on what they call the “gender theory” or “gender ideology”. The objectives of the conference are to explore where those arguments come from, how they are disseminated, why they are so successful and which networks and alliances are using them.
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UK based Pink Therapy is organising a five day non-residential training course is primarily aimed at psychologists, psychotherapists and sexologists working outside the UK who would like to update their knowledge on contemporary issues of working with LGBTIQ or Gender and Sexual Diversity clients and to share their experiences of working with these diverse populations.
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