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SIGN-ON: Georgia’s authorities must protect, without discrimination, the universal and fundamental rights of all people in Georgia, including freedoms of assembly and expression of LGBT+ groups and their supporters, and human rights defenders.We, the undersigned Georgian and international human rights and civil society organizations, condemn the 8 July attack against the Tbilisi Pride festival and call on the Georgia authorities to fully investigate and hold to accountable all those responsible.
On 8 July, a violent mob broke into the private venue where the Tbilisi Pride festival was to be held. During the ensuing violence, attackers vandalized the venue stage, set fire to LGBT+ flags and festival banners, looted materials, and damaged property and equipment. However, this attack did not spontaneously erupt. It began as a far-right rally near the venue and comes within the context of heightened homophobic rhetoric by the ruling Georgia Dream party, calls by the Georgian Orthodox Church calling for “queer propaganda law”, and statements by far-right groups rejecting the rights and freedoms of LGBT+ groups and their supporters, and human rights defenders. The violent attack perpetrated against the Tbilisi Pride festival organizers, supporters, and participants appears to have been organized and orchestrated by Alt Info, a far-right group with a homophobic agenda. Due to threats of violence and recent history of attacks against Tbilisi Pride, in the days leading up to the Tbilisi Pride festival and subsequent violent attack, the Georgian Interior Ministry had pledged greater security. However, videos and photographs taken during the attack appear to show law enforcement officers allowing far-right rally participants to enter the Pride festival venue unimpeded or, in some cases, with the help of law enforcement officers themselves. Ultimately, Pride Festival participants were evacuated from the venue by police and two members of the far-right were administratively detained by the police. Over the years, the Georgian authorities have failed to live up to their international commitments and adequately protect the LGBT+ community and their supporters and defenders in the exercise of their human rights. We have seen homophobic assaults on people celebrating international Day against Homophobia, transphobia and biphobia (IDAHOT in 2012 and violent attacks on mass scale on May 17, 2013. In 2015, the European Court of Human Rights held that the police’s failure to protect those participating in the IDAHOT march amounted to violations of freedom of assembly and prohibition against ill-treatment and were discriminatory in nature. In 2019 the first pride march was almost forced to shut down due to the activities of violent groups in Georgia. In 2019 the first Pride March was almost forced to shut down due to the activities of violent groups in Georgia, organizers held an impromptu march which lasted 30 minutes due to the threat of far-right groups. In 2021 pride-march was cancelled again after violent homophobic protests broke out in the city center, 50+ journalists and media workers have been attacked and physically injured. Cameramen Lekso Lashkarava died few days after he was seriously injured from the side of violent groups, the exact reason of his death is still not investigated. At the same time, Tbilisi Pride office, Shame movement office and Human Rights House Tbilisi offices have been attacked by violent groups. We welcome the statement made by the President of Georgia following the attack in which she stated, “people were not given the opportunity to hold their own event in a closed space that was planned in advance, agreed upon with law enforcement officers, which the law enforcement agencies had promised the protect.” But this is not enough. The Georgian government has an obligation to protect, without discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, the universal and fundamental rights of all people in Georgia. These rights include the freedoms of assembly and expression. Therefore, we urge the Georgian authorities to:
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Följande CSP- appeller har OSSE-nätverket under 2021 anslutit sig till:
1. 20.01.2021: Civic Solidarity Platform calls for the release of Andrei Aliaksandrau 1. 22.01.2021: BELARUS: AUTHORITIES SHOULD IMMEDIATELY RELEASE DETAINED HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER LEANID SUDALENKA 1. 29.01.2021: Kazakhstan: End Campaign against Human Rights NGOs 1. 05.02.2021: Belarus: Stop Pressure on Civil Society Organisations in Connection to their Right to Access to Funding 1. 10.02.2021: CSOs call Human Rights Council Members to strongly denounce Russia’s domestic human rights violations 1. 17.02.2021: Belarus: Unprecedented crackdown on human rights defenders, civil society activists and independent journalists must be stopped 1. 01.03.2021: Georgia: Authorities should immediately release Nika Melia and engage in a genuine dialogue with the opposition 1. 24.03.2021: CSOs call for the immediate operationalisation of the Human Rights Council’s new mandate on Belarus 1. 31.03.2021: CSP Strongly Condemns the Politically Motivated Detention of Ukrainian Journalist Vladyslav Yesypenko in the Occupied Crimea and Calls for his Immediate Release 1. 27.05.2021: BELARUSIAN AUTHORITIES MUST RELEASE RAMAN PRATASEVICH IMMEDIATELY 1. 04.06.2021: Designations of “undesirable organisations” by Russia must end 1. 22.06.2021: YOUNG WOMAN AT RISK OF TORTURE AND ABUSE AFTER ABDUCTION AND RETURN TO CHECHNYA 1. 15.07.2021: NO BUSINESS AS USUAL POSSIBLE WITH THE LUKASHENKO REGIME: INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SHOULD IMMEDIATELY AND STRONGLY REACT TO A NEW MASSIVE WAVE OF REPRESSION AGAINST CIVIL SOCIETY IN BELARUS 1. 30.07.2021: Belarus: Global letter in solidarity with the Belarusian civil society 1. 19.10.2021: The 2021 Warsaw Declaration of the Civic Solidarity Platform 1. 03.11.2021: PRESSURE ON TURKMEN NATIONALS IN TURKEY MUST BE STOPPED. THEIR RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS MUST BE SECURED 1. 10.11.2021: Civil Society Calls on the Uzbekistani Authorities to Register the Independent Human Rights Organization Human Rights House 1. 22.11.2021: Public call by human rights and other organizations in the OSCE region due to the intention of the Russian authorities to wind up two oldest human rights organizations in the country 1. 06.12.2021: An Appeal On Turkmenistan to the OSCE 09.12.2021: Civil society demands decisive actions by the international community to stop repression and support a democratic transition in Belarus KAZAKHSTAN: DO NOT PASS POORLY PREPARED LAW ON PUBLIC PROTEST DURING COVID-19 CRISIS
We, the undersigned members of the Civic Solidarity Platform (CSP) urge authorities in Kazakhstan to reconsider the passing of the revised law on procedures for organizing and holding peaceful assemblies in the Republic of Kazakhstan. We urge the authorities to carefully consider the recommendations provided by representatives of civil society in Kazakhstan, including the detailed analysis of the draft law submitted by the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law (KIBHR) as well as those of the International Centre for Non-Profit Law. We urge the authorities to study all relevant international standards, OSCE/ODIHR Guidelines, Draft of the General Comment #37 and cases concerning Kazakhstan from the UN Human Rights Committee as well as the final report of Mr. Maina Kiai, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, who carried out an official visit to Kazakhstan in 2015. We also urge the authorities to send this Law for review either to the OSCE/ODIHR Panel of Experts on Freedom of Assembly and Association or to the Office of UN High Commissioner on Human Rights while both announced readiness to conduct such review, or to the Venice Commission of Council of Europe. Finally, we are deeply concerned that authorities seem to be pushing to pass the law while Kazakhstan and indeed the world is in the midst of a global pandemic, which greatly limits the possibility of the public to exercise the very right this law concerns: Freedom of assembly. The Law is generally not compliant with international human rights standards and there are severe and unjustified restraints on time and place, and burdens placed on the organizers of assemblies, in particular: - retention of the requirement to obtain government approval prior to conducting peaceful meetings including permission to hold marches and demonstrations; - extensive requirements for submitting notification and permit applications; - assemblies (except picketing) remain permitted only in specialized places, as identified by local authorities; - only Kazakhstani citizens, aged 18 years or older, are permitted to organize and participate in peaceful assemblies; - an extensive list of reasons for local authorities to reject the conduct of peaceful assemblies; - a burdensome list of responsibilities and increased liability for organizers and participants of peaceful assemblies; - prohibition on conducting “spontaneous” assemblies. Freedom of Assembly and Association has been a constant issue in Kazakhstan over several years. The right to carry out peaceful, public protest is a vital part of any modern democracy and should no longer be denied citizens of Kazakhstan. The rights enshrined in the Constitution must be respected in practice, without the imposition of regulations that appear to be designed still to curb this constitutional right. Kyrgystan February 2020
Statement by members of the Civic Solidarity Platform This statement is an expression of support for the members of civil society in Kyrgyzstan who want to maintain an open climate for the work of their organizations, and who are concerned about proposals to impose excessive reporting and control requirements on civil society organizations. The statement is issues by members of the Civic Solidarity Platform, a network of civil society organizations from across the OSCE region. At the end of December 2019, the Parliament of Kyrgyzstan (Jogorku Kenesh) published a draft law on the parliament’s website on amending several laws affecting noncommercial organizations (NCOs), including the Law on NCOs and the Law on State Registration of Legal Entities, Branches (representative offices) (hereinafter - the draft law) for public discussion. The draft law № 6-2328/20 as of February 6th, 2020, introduces additional reporting requirements for NCOs. Specifically, in addition to the annual income and expenses reports, NCOs will need to detail the sources of its funding, the size and structure of its income and expenditures, the value of its assets and the number of employees. Further, NCOs will be required to publish this report on the website of the Ministry of Justice of the Kyrgyz Republic. Currently, NCOs, as well as commercial organizations, regularly submit three reports to state bodies in the Kyrgyz Republic: the tax authorities, the Social Fund, and the statistics bodies. The information provided in these reports will be duplicated, largely, in the proposed new draft law. Moreover, the draft law proposes a rule that "The form and procedure for providing information shall be determined by the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic." This situation creates the possibility and risk that new reporting may become excessive and unduly burdensome. The reality in the Kyrgyz Republic is that the procedure for drafting, adopting and implementing laws and regulations is non transparent, with limited access for NCOs and active citizens during the discussion process. In this regard, there is a risk that the new reporting requirements may become unreasonably burdensome for both the government and NCOs, when they are not tied to real risks, and could serve a political goal of limiting the activities of NCOs and civil society as a whole and it will contribute to the shrinking of the space for the civil society in whole. Later in January 2020, other amendments to the Tax Code were proposed by some Members of the Jogorku Kenesh, ostensibly, in order to strengthen state tax oversight specifically over the NCOs. The adoption of the draft laws will grant the authorities excessive rights to control and supervise the activities of civil society. Civil society of Kyrgyzstan believes that these legislative initiatives that are imposing excessive reporting and control requirements on civil society organizations and expanding government tax control over the accounting management and financial reporting of NCOs, would run afoul of freedom of association guaranteed by the Article 35 of Kyrgyzstan’s Constitution, the Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the Article 8 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Kyrgyzstan is a party. Kyrgyzstan has a well-deserved reputation as one of the most progressive countries in Central Asia and the CIS in ensuring and protecting fundamental human rights and freedoms, and in creating a legal environment where civil society assists parliament and the government in carrying out their fundamental mission of improving the lives of citizens and furthering the respect for human rights and democratic freedoms in the country . Unfortunately, the provisions of the draft law undermine and would reverse Kyrgyzstan's efforts in this area and weaken its ability to develop human resources, attract foreign investment, and enjoy the support of its citizens and the international community to maintain Kyrgyzstan's sustainable position as a democratic state. The undersigned Civic Solidarity Platform members appeal to the Kyrgyz authorities to stay within the course of cooperation with civil society. The organizations urge Kyrgyzstan to withdraw the above mentioned draft laws as it contradicts to the State’s domestic and international obligations. It also is seen as non-sovereign and non-domestically grown idea, as civil society and government relations in Kyrgyzstan are developing in very dynamic and non-confrontational manner. Hence, the agenda of limiting civil society space is something that contradicts the positive partnership tradition of cooperation between the government and NCOs in Kyrgyzstan. This is another reason why this attempt of limiting civil society space should be dropped immediately |
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August 2023
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