By Kenneth F. Hunt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

SKOPJE, Macedonia – This week the Parliament of Macedonia adopted an anti-discrimination law, but failed to include a provision barring discrimination based on sexual orientation. This statute has drawn the criticism of the European Union and some human rights groups, including Amnesty International.

The law was passed by 62 of the 120 members of the Parliament on Thursday April 15. It bars and creates penalties for discrimination based on ethnicity, gender, and religion. The opposition party protested the exclusion of similar protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons in Macedonia.

After the legislation passed, the EU immediately asked Macedonian legislatures to reconsider or otherwise amend the legislation.

In particular, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, pointed to the EU framework which requires that national standards for anti-discrimination align with minimum standards.

These standards, under the Charter of Fundamental Rights adopted in the Lisbon Treaty, require that any “recently enacted antidiscrimination legislation will need to be amended in order to include explicit prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sexual discrimination.”

Even though Macedonia is not a part of the EU, and therefore not required to change the law, it is currently part of the accession process and seeks to join the EU in the next round of enlargement.

In addition to violation European law, human rights groups claim that Macedonia’s law does not comply with international law. Amnesty International, specifically, claims that protecting citizens from all forms of discrimination constitutes a legal obligation under various human rights treaties that Macedonia has signed on to.

The Macedonian opposition has seized on this issue to point out impunity issues in the nation. They claim that conservative Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has a long record of antagonism towards homosexual Macedonians. They also claim that the new law is a deliberately “discriminatory anti-discrimination law”.

Moreover, EU Enlargement Commissioner, Stefan Fuele, claims that he sent a letter to Mr. Gruevski, which has been an ignored to continue domestic discrimination against citizens that are homosexual.

Documented instances of discrimination against homosexuals during the Gruevski administration have included job discrimination, humiliation in public places, and harassment by police officers.

For more information, please see:

ASSOCIATED PRESS – New Macedonian rights law fails to protect gays – 16 April 2010

BALKAN INSIGHT – Macedonia Press Review, April 16, 2010 – 16 April 2010

EU OBSERVER – EU rejects Macedonia anti-discrimination law – 16 April 2010

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

KIEV, Ukraine – The human rights watchdog group, Amnesty International, called on Wednesday for the Ukrainian government to reign in growing allegations of police corruption and human rights violations.

The group’s recommendations were part of a broader report issued by Amnesty International to the new President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych.  Included were suggestions on how the national government could avoid past practices such as police brutality and racial discrimination.  The report also focused on the issue of foreign migrant workers being the targets of these abuses.  Similar concerns over police practices were raised in Amnesty’s report on Ukraine five years ago.  The ultimate objective of these proposed reforms is to bring Ukraine in line with international rights standards.

Amnesty International officials stated that “the new authorities in Kyiv must not squander the progress in the protection of human rights that Ukraine has made over the last 20 years.”

Also emphasized was Ukraine’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers.  The former Soviet republic typically accepts less than 6% of the asylum applicants.  Refugees from nations with questionable human rights records are often sent back, despite the potential for those refugees to face persecution for attempting to leave.

In response to Amnesty’s report, the Yanukovych administration announced that it would support the creation of an independent governmental agency that would investigate allegations of police activity.  Presidential spokesman Hanna Herman stated that “everything possible will be done in order that no case of infringements on these rights be left without relevant reaction from the side of authorities, and those guilty be punished.”

For more information, please see:

ETHIOPIAN REVIEW – Ukrainian authorities respond to Amnesty International’s human rights challenge – 15 April, 2010

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL – Ukraine: Report calls on new President to back ‘words with deeds’ on human rights – 14 April, 2010

AP – Rights group urges Ukraine to end police abusers – 14 April, 2010

RADIO FREE EUROPE – Amnesty Urges Ukraine To End Rights Abuses – 14 April, 2010

By Kenneth F. Hunt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

In a report released on Monday April 12, London-based Amnesty International has documented and criticized the “no-torture” assurance policies of several European countries, and called for the European Union to prohibit member countries from continuing the practice.

Several European countries, including the United Kingdom, require assurances from countries that they will not torture individuals that are deported.

The assurances are used by the deporting European countries to assuage domestic and international concerns over sending individuals to countries that often have egregious human rights records.

The problem with these well-intentioned deals, according to the Amnesty report, is that they do nothing to guarantee compliance. Amnesty described the assurances as both “unenforceable” and “unreliable”, and characterized the practice used in at least half a dozen European countries as a “failed experiment”.

Moreover, Amnesty claims that governments are merely using the practice “to rid themselves of” alleged terrorists in lieu of prosecuting these individuals in domestic courts or releasing them.

The United Kingdom, in particular, was condemned by Amnesty, since the UK uses this method frequently to deport any individual deemed to be a “substantial threat” to national security.

In addition to the general assurance policy required for individual deportaitons, the UK has more formal “memorandums of understanding” with Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Libya. These memorandums of understanding preclude individualized assurances for each separate deportee.

The UK responded vociferously to the report. In particular, officials claimed that no deportees were sent to any country where there was a “significant risk of torture”.

Denmark, Germany, France, and Italy also have used and continue to use “no-torture” assurance policies and were implicated in the report.

The report is available online at Amnesty’s website.

For more information, please see:

BBC – Amnesty International criticise government on torture – 12 April 2010

INDEPENDENT – Diplomatic deals expose deportees to torture risk – 12 April 2010

JURIST – Amnesty condemns use of ‘no-torture’ deals in European deportations – 12 April 2010

By David Sophrin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

MOSCOW, Russia – A Russian judge who had earlier this year sentenced a number of ultra-nationalist leaders for murder and hate crimes was fatally shot today in Moscow.

Eduard Chuvashov, a Moscow City Circuit judge, was killed in what is believed to be a contracted killing in a stairway in the apartment building.  According to initial police reports, the assailant used a gun equipped with a silencer and collected the spent bullet shells.  Chuvashov was shot once both in his chest and head.

It is believed that the growing neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist movement is responsible for this killing.  In recent weeks, many of these nationalist groups called for Chuvashov’s death on their websites.

Just last week Chuvashov had sentenced two members of the Ryno Gang to significant prison terms for their role in killing twenty migrant workers.  This past February, Chuvashov oversaw the trial of nine members of a organized gang known as the White Wolves, who had also attacked and killed eleven similar victims from central Asian countries.

In response to the killing, Russian President Dimitry Medvedev declared that “everything will be done so that the organizers and perpetrators of this cynical murder be found and punished.”

In recent years Russia has experienced a significant rise in violent acts perpetrated by neo-Nazi and far-right ultra-nationalist groups.  Approximately 60 people were killed and 306 injured in hate crimes last year, according to a Russian hate-crimes watchdog group.  Last year one of the lawyers who helped bring the White Wolves defendants to trial was killed in Moscow.

Chuvashov’s killing has raised questions about whether Russia’s ultra-nationalist groups are targeting political and legal leaders who attempt to punish them for their attacks on migrants. “[Cheuvashov’s death] could be retribution from far-right groups” stated Allison Gill of Human Rights Watch.

For more information, please see:

AP – Moscow judge who sentenced neo-Nazis shot to death – 12 April, 2010

DEUTSCHE WELLE – Russian judge murdered in Moscow – 12 April, 2010

TELEGRAPH – Russian judge gunned down in ‘neo-Nazi’ revenge killing – 12 April, 2010

REUTERS – Moscow judge who sentenced neo-fascists shot dead – 12 April, 2010

RT – Russian judge killed in Moscow, police cite race hate motives – 12 April, 2010

  

By Elizabeth A. Conger
Impunity Watch Reporter, Europe

BUDAPEST, Hungary – Jobbik, a far-right party which has openly expressed anti-Semitic and anti-Roma rhetoric, achieved a breakthrough in Hungarian elections, entering Parliament for the first time and finishing third in national polls. The center-right party, Fidesz, won fifty-two-percent of the vote, and the incumbent Socialist party only received nineteen percent of votes. Jobbik, with seventeen percent of the vote, acquired twenty six seats in the Hungarian Parliament

Hungary’s largest Jewish organization, the Association of Hungarian Jewish Religious Communities, warned that the political gains by Jobbik mark “the first occasion that a movement pursuing openly anti-Semitic policies” has taken steps to power since the Nazi era.

A recent copy of the Jobbik party’s weekly newspaper shows a statue of the Hungarian saint, Saint Gellert, holding a menorah instead of a cross. The picture’s caption reads: “Is this what you want?”

The rise of Jobbik, which is allied with the right-wing British National Party, coincides with a surge of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Hungary, and parallels the rise of far-right parties across Europe.

Jobbik has close links with a banned  paramilitary wing organization, Magyar Garda. Magyar Garda, which has an insignia modelled on the Arrow Cross used by Hungarian Nazis during the Second World War, have staged a series of marches against “gypsy crime” in towns and villages throughout Hungary where the largest Roma communities are located. The rise of the Magyar Garda has coincided with a series of attacks on Roma villages in 2008 and 2009 which claimed six lives.

Laszlo Molnar, a member of the Magyar Garda, said: “Actually, I am a racist . . . So what? Why do I have to like those who are in fact my enemies?”

Gabor Vona, the thirty-one year old leader of Jobbik, has vowed to be sworn in as an MP while wearing the banned uniform of the Magyar Garda. He said: “I will keep my promise to go into parliament on the first day in a Garda vest.”

According to analysts, the Socialist Party, which has dominated Hungarian politics for the past eight years, allowed large parts of eastern Hungary to become an economic wasteland, and allowed the situation of the Roma to further deteriorate, which has inflamed social tensions. Hungary was only able to avoid financial meltdown at the end of 2008 through a twenty billion euro bailout from the IMF, the World Bank, and other institutions.

Gergely Böszörményi NagyGergely Borszomeny-Nagy of the the Perspective Institute, a think tank, said: “This is a supposedly leftist Government but over the past eight years the gap between rich and poor has drastically widened.”

Unemployment in Hungary is currently at eleven percent and  inflation is at six percent. 

As the economic crisis in Hungary deepens, the Roma people have increasingly been targeted as scapegoats. George Soros, the Hungarian-born financier and philanthropist said:  “There is no question that the crisis that hits people unexpectedly . . . gets them angry and they want to take it out on someone.”

Jobbik has drawn much of its support from young Hungarians, and is especially strong in the nation’s universities. Many young people who have been unable to find work have taken refuge in nationalist politics, which blame outsiders for the nation’s economic problems. 

Tamas Vardai, a university student in Budapest said: “Jobbik is the only party that can put this country in order.”

For more information, please see:

euronews – Hungary’s far right secures seats in parliament – 12 April 2010

Times Online – Far-right party Jobbik makes breakthrough in Hungarian elections – 12 April 2010

Telegraph – Hungary elections: first step to power for far-Right since Nazi era – 11 April 2010