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• KOSOVO: ‘Civil society has done most of the effort when it comes to dealing with our recent history’

  CIVICUS speaks about intensifying inter-ethnic violence in north Kosovo and civil society’s ongoing peacebuilding efforts withBjeshkë Guri, coordinator of the ‘Dealing with the Past’ programme atYouth Initiative for Human Rights Kosovo (YIHR-KS). Founded in 2004, YIHR-KS is a civil society organisation (CSO) workingto protect and promote human rights and democratic values with a focus on transitional justice and strengthening the role of young people at the local and regional levels.

  What’s the current security and human rights situation in Kosovo?

  The security and human rights situation in Kosovo is complex and multi-faceted. While Kosovo’s Constitution ensures robust human rights protection and incorporates several international human rights mechanisms into its legal framework, inconsistent law implementation creates a fertile ground for rights violations to flourish. Unfortunately, violations persist across many domains, with discrimination and violence against women, LGBTQI+ people, children and non-majority communities being prevalent issues.

  In recent years, ethnic violence has increased in north Kosovo, triggered by the implementation of ID and licence plate regulations in 2022. These policies increased tension and ultimately led to Kosovo-Serbs resigning from public institutions and boycotting local elections. Violent clashes were reported in north Kosovo between Kosovo-Albanian police factions and peacekeeping soldiers on one side and Kosovar Serbs on the other. On 24 September, an attack unfolded at Banjska Monastery involving around 30 armed people from Serbia and the Kosovo-Serb community. The incident resulted in a fatal shootout that killed one Kosovar police officer and three attackers. This has heightened tensions further and created a fragile political and diplomatic situation between Kosovo and Serbia.

  Political leaders, driven by nationalist propaganda, foster social divisions between two ethnic groups. The risk of secession in north Kosovo, if not properly addressed, would pose a precedent for other separatist conflicts and cause destabilisation in the whole Balkan region. Russia’s war against Ukraine has changed the geopolitical landscape and the stability paradigm in Europe. This created an even greater need to extinguish local conflicts and prevent their recurrence, particularly between Kosovo and Serbia.

  What should be done to normalise relations between Kosovo and Serbia?

  Serbia’s non-recognition of Kosovo’s independence since 2008 has created obstacles against normalising relations between the two states and induced an economic blockade as well as presenting international diplomatic challenges. The normalisation of relations requires a process of social change alongside the implementation of agreements and resolution of underlying problems, such as the establishment of an association of Serb-majority municipalities and the enhancement of institutional functionality in north Kosovo as well as the recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty by Serbia.

  Civil society on both sides constantly works to improve the situation through a range of initiatives, including continuous support in the negotiation process. However, deteriorating political relations are exacerbating public tensions. As a result, CSOs in Kosovo have difficulties in engaging with communities that are predominantly Kosovo-Serbian.

  What are relations between the Kosovo-Albanian and Kosovo-Serbian communities like?

  The war in Kosovo claimed thousands of lives and destroyed the social fabric, replacing it with hatred and isolation. The rupture in communication between most Kosovo-Albanians and Kosovo-Serbs has made the two communities closed and isolated, seeing each other as enemies. Children are often brought up in fear and unaware of the wider context and problems shared by all communities in Kosovo. The influence of media, nationalist organisations and an aggressive environment pressure young people to take sides and view ‘the other’ as the cause of all problems. Ignorance about each other is the source of the prejudices and hostility that persist to this day.

  An important factor lies with the education system. Various nationalist narratives are perpetuated through history books, as evidenced by an analysis we conducted in 2017. Kosovo-Serb young people learn from history books produced by the Serbian government, which barely mention the Kosovo             War and portray Serbian people as the main victims. Xenophobic language has created isolation, prejudice, lack of trust and a feeling of insecurity in both communities.

  How is YIHR-KS working toward reconciliation and peacebuilding in Kosovo?

  Compared to political institutions, Kosovar CSOs have done most of the effort when it comes to dealing with our recent history. Over the years, the Kosovo government initiated efforts related to transitional justice, including the establishment of an inter-ministerial working group to develop a national strategy on transitional justice, a preparatory team for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission and a War Crimes Institute. Unfortunately, these initiatives became politicised and to this day Kosovo hasn’t been able to implement a comprehensive transitional justice strategy.

  To address the current polarised situation, YIHR-KS launched the ‘Dealing with the Past’ programme, aimed at building a collective memory and lasting peace in Kosovo and the Balkan region. We conduct workshops and memory initiatives aimed at educating young people about the Kosovo War and providing them with opportunities to connect with peers from ‘the other side’.

  One notable initiative is the Virtual Museum of Refugees, a digital archive featuring stories of forcibly displaced people. By collecting and sharing refugee interviews, this archive helps preserve memory and provides a basis for the understanding of Kosovo’s past through personal stories. It’s also a platform for refugees to connect with others who may have undergone similar experiences and thus foster a better understanding among survivors of what happened in the war. The museum challenges ethno-nationalistic narratives and builds a shared vision for reconciliation.

  We facilitate residential and regional exchanges for young people from Kosovo-Albanian and Kosovo-Serbian communities so they can share experiences, ideas and opinions and learn about transitional justice, intercultural dialogue and negotiation skills. We also organise visits to sites where war crimes occurred against both Kosovo-Albanians and Kosovo-Serbs for them to hear stories from victims’ family members. This experience is transformative because it bridges gaps created by propaganda, which is based on concealing crimes committed against the ‘other’ group.

  Every year we conduct street actions to commemorate the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances and the National Day of Missing People. We use these to demand greater commitment and engagement from the government of Kosovo to seek truth and establish justice for over 1,600 missing people of all ethnicities.

  We closely cooperate with all YIHR offices in the region, and particularly with Serbia’s due to our shared and troubled past. Together with YIHR Serbia, we issue joint statements and are vocal about the human rights violations committed in the 1990s Balkan wars and the present political and social tensions.

  What further international support does Kosovar civil society need?

  Civil society activities in Kosovo have significantly expanded over recent years, creating space for policy advocacy and the promotion of transparency and democratic ideals. However, despite the large number of CSOs addressing pressing issues, there is a lack of funding for activities.

  We need further support in facilitating the European Union (EU) integration agenda, aligning Kosovo’s legal system with the Community acquis – the accumulated legislation, legal acts and court decisions issued since 1993 that make up EU law, strengthening democratic values and promoting a safe and equal environment for everyone living in Kosovo.

  Kosovo would also significantly benefit from joining the Council of Europe. This would enable access to expertise and resources to advance the transitional justice agenda and encourage a victim-led approach.

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  Civic space in Kosovo is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with YIHR-KS through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@YIHRKosovo on Twitter.

• KOSOVO: ‘Civil society plays a crucial role in maintaining communication in difficult times’

  CIVICUS speaks with Milica Andric Rakic, project manager at New Social Initiative (NSI), about intensifying inter-ethnic violence and deteriorating civic space in Kosovo.

  NSI is a civil society organisation (CSO) that seeks to empower non-majority communities to participate in Kosovo’s social and institutional life and increase trust among communities by helping people to deal with past events and promoting the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

  What’s the current human rights and security situation in Kosovo?

  The situation in Kosovo is highly volatile. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but to this day Serbia doesn’t recognise Kosovo as an independent state and continues to claim it as an autonomous province of Serbia. The longstanding impasse in negotiations is straining inter-ethnic relations within Kosovo, between Kosovar Serbian and Albanian communities. Unlike past tensions that eventually subsided, the security situation has steadily worsened over the past two years.

  Human rights are generally upheld in Kosovo, although rather selectively. For example, successive governments have refused to implement constitutional court decisions regarding the ownership of an Orthodox monastery’s extensive land and the establishment of an association of Serbian-majority municipalities, two longstanding demands of the Kosovo Serb community. There have been break-ins at Orthodox churches and police arrests of Kosovar Serbs without a prosecutor’s order. While the overall human rights situation isn’t bad, there are specific areas where the government fails to respect the law and court orders.

  What was the significance ofviolence in Banjska on 24 September?

  The attack occurred in the context of increased tensions in north Kosovo, which included the resignations of thousands of Kosovar Serbs working in the public sector, including the mayors of four municipalities. On 24 September 2023, Serb militants carried out an attack against the Kosovo police in the village of Banjska, in north Kosovo.

  North Kosovo’s population is 90 per cent Serbian but its police force is mainly Albanian, which leads to a level of mistrust and tensions that pose a threat of violence. Those involved in the attack had a secessionist political agenda. While secession isn’t an imminent threat, it’s definitely a motivating factor, and many on-the-ground processes have had a disintegrative effect.

  What role is civil society playing in normalising relations between Serbia and Kosovo?

  It seems that civil society has been the only healthy player in Serbian-Albanian relations. It has played a crucial role in maintaining communication in difficult times. We’ve acted as mediators between the international community and Kosovar and Serbian governments, trying to understand the perspectives of all sides.

  From 2011 to 2017, effective dialogue and integrative processes were underway, albeit with slow implementation and numerous challenges. The European Union (EU) played a special facilitating role in the negotiations, motivating both sides through the promise of potential EU membership.

  But now the only trend we are witnessing is towards disintegration. The lack of proper dialogue over the past two years indicates a need for a political change on at least one side to move the process forward.

  How is NSI working towards peacebuilding in Kosovo?

  As an umbrella organisation, we engage Kosovars in inter-community dialogue through various projects. One initiative promotes reconciliation by creating connections and fostering cooperation among young Kosovar Serbs and Albanians. As there are limited organic opportunities for them to meet, the responsibility for creating personal inter-ethnic ties lies largely on the shoulders of local CSOs. If a Kosovar Serbian and an Albanian know each other, there’s an 80 per cent probability that they’ve met at a civil society activity.

  Another programme focuses on multiculturalism and bilingualism. Albanian and Serbian are both official languages in Kosovo, and our goal is to increase social acceptance and promote the learning of both. For almost 40 years we haven’t been taught each other’s language in school, which has led to a significant linguistic gap. It should be noted that Albanian and Serbian are very different languages and can both be challenging to learn.

  We have a transitional justice programme, where we collaborate with associations that represent various categories of war victims, including families of missing people and internally displaced people. This regional project involves Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia. We support these associations to expand their work from truth-seeking to regional reconciliation, simultaneously enhancing their financial sustainability by securing funding for new projects. We have also participated and proposed policies in the Ministry of Justice’s working group to draft a national strategy for transitional justice.

  Moreover, we’ve organised diverse artistic activities, including a joint photo exhibition, ‘All Our Tears’, in which photographers captured images of war victims in Kosovo, North Macedonia and Serbia. The exhibition was showcased in cities including Kosovo’s capital Prishtina, Serbia’s capital Belgrade and at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Additionally, we have supported regional theatre projects that raise transitional justice issues through performance.

  What challenges do you face in doing your work, and what further support do you need?

  There has been a significant narrowing of civic space in Kosovo, marked by delegitimising campaigns targeting CSOs, political opponents and critics of the government, mainly through online harassment. Our organisation, along with some staff, has faced such attacks.

  Engaging with the government on policy matters has been challenging, as our recommendations regarding the Kosovar Serb community are often ignored or poorly implemented. It’s evident that the government’s outreach to the Kosovar Serb community is influenced more by international pressure than a genuine willingness to engage. The contacts we maintain with government representatives are often facilitated by outside parties, either from embassies or European think tanks that hold roundtable discussions where we can directly discuss issues of the local Serb community with the government.

  Kosovar civil society has sufficient funding opportunities. What we really need is support to maintain our relevance, especially when governments attempt to exclude CSOs from political decision-making processes. Whenever there’s an attempt to narrow civic space, the international community should demonstrate that it’s willing to support local CSOs, signalling their importance and thereby putting pressure on the government to take them into consideration.

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  Civic space in Kosovo is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with New Social Initiative through itswebsite or itsFacebook page, and follow@NSIMitrovica and@AndricRakic on Twitter.

• LATVIA: ‘Faced with hatred, we focus on delivering a human rights message’

  As part of our 2018 report on the theme of reimagining democracy, we are interviewing civil society activists and leaders about their work to promote democratic practices and principles, the challenges they encounter and the victories they score. CIVICUS speaks to Kaspars Zālītis about the challenges faced by LGBTI people in Latvia, and the actions undertaken by civil society to broaden civic space for sexual minorities and therefore to make democracy truly inclusive. Kaspars is the director ofMozaika - Association of LGBT and their friends, currently the only LGBTI rights civil society organisation (CSO) in Latvia. Established in 2006, Mozaika promotes gender equality and anti-discrimination; raises awareness of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions of identity;promotes an understanding of diverse family models and their legal recognition; and advocates for the harmonisation ofLatvian laws with international standards.

  1. What is the current situation of LGBTI rights in Latvia?

  On the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association’s ILGA-Europe Rainbow Map, which measures each country’s respect for LGBTI rights, Latvia ranks 40^th within Europe, and last of all European Union (EU) member countries. In turn, the CIVICUS Monitor has reported several restrictions of civic space in Latvia. CSOs working on controversial topics are being targeted, and civil society has found it increasingly difficult to gain access to policy-makers. Mozaika has tried to lobby politicians and policy-makers for years, but they often prefer to meet in private rather than attract any attention that can lead to attacks from right-wing activists and politicians.

  The political climate is hostile for sexual diversity and for diversity as a whole. ‘Moral upbringing’ amendments introduced into the Education Law in 2015 - which mandate schools to promote ‘family values’ and marriage as part of education - have been implemented through the publication of guidelines that have caused fear among teachers of negative reactions if they touch on any LGBTI issues, and sexual and reproductive rights issues more generally. In 2016, a schoolteacher whose students had requested her to start a Gay-Straight Alliance was asked to refrain from doing so, and another teacher faced calls that he should close all his social media accounts so that students wouldn’t see his ‘LGBT-friendly’ attitudes - in other words, he was asked to hide his sexual orientation. Legislators bashed him on social media and insinuated that he was ‘recruiting’ children.

  In March 2018, parliament was quick to dismiss a Cohabitation Bill that would have granted basic rights to non-married couples, including same-sex ones. It did so on the grounds that couples could access these rights by getting married, even though the Latvian Constitution prohibits same-sex marriage. The initiative had started three years earlier through an online petition that gathered 10,000 signatures, which was why parliament had to consider it.

  2. What is the role of religious groups in this?

  Indeed. The Catholic Church has a lot of influence, and it is taking the lead in fighting the LGBTI community and pushing back against women’s rights. For instance, there has been a lot of disagreement over the ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, also known as the Istanbul Convention, and parliamentary debate on the issue has been postponed until after parliamentary elections are held in October 2018.

  Church leaders and many public officials oppose ratification of the Istanbul Convention because one of its non-discrimination clauses concerns sexual orientation and gender identity. The Catholic Archbishop is rallying against it and has gathered considerable support among political parties and parliamentarians. He has managed to convince them that ratification is part of the secret agenda of so-called ‘genderists’ – an expression that originated in Russia, a country with a very strong cultural influence in Latvia. Church officials, right-wing activists and politicians and anti-LGBTI and anti-abortion groups depict the Convention as contrary to Latvian traditional values and as being aimed at over-sexualising and ‘converting’ children. These arguments are gaining ground among the public.

  This rhetoric is not the exclusive preserve of the Catholic church: the Lutheran church, which is the largest Protestant church in Latvia, is also taking a lead in fighting us and the Istanbul Convention. This is quite strange, because Lutherans, prevalent in Nordic countries, tend to be more liberal. But in Latvia they even voted against having female priests, following the lead of the Catholic church. Additionally, new religious organisations with direct links with US evangelical groups are emerging. Some of their leaders have been trained in the USA and are quite good at influencing people.

  Although religious leaders and organisations don’t have a direct and institutionalised role in policy-making, given that the Latvian Constitution establishes a separation between church and state, in practice they have a lot of influence. Church-state separation notwithstanding, the state has a religious advisory council, as does the City Council. It is not uncommon for the Catholic Archbishop to meet with the ruling coalition’s leading party, and for the party’s leader to then say that he has ‘consulted’ with the Catholic church and has decided to vote in one way or another. You can see a direct link because all this happens in public.

  We, on the contrary, don’t have access to leading politicians because they are not willing to risk their reputations by meeting us in public. At the most, we can expect to have a private meeting here and there. This has a lot of impact on us, especially as we see the religious right rise all over Europe. Religious organisations and right-wing parties are increasingly organised and coordinated to fight against gender equality and LGBTI rights at the European level, and they are getting a major influx of resources from the USA. They have way more resources than we do, and their message also resonates better with the latent homophobia in Latvian society, which is becoming increasingly vocal. And after the Brexit vote and the Trump victory, they are emboldened. The latest developments in Hungary and Poland are also proof to them that they may be closer to winning.

  3. Has this discourse penetrated the media?

  Most definitely. Our media landscape is quite pluralistic, and the state channel and public broadcaster at least try to provide balanced coverage. But some media outlets are outright hostile towards LGBTI groups, and one of them, a Russian outlet with a major agenda against the rights of women, migrants, refugees and LGBTI people, is clearly leading a crusade against us.

  Vilification of women’s and LGBTI rights groups is also increasingly taking place online. We are now constantly harassed on Facebook. At some point we realised these were not the usual people who used to attack us and we did some research to find out where the attacks were coming from, and found links to evangelical churches.

  Since January 2018, Mozaika has reported over 200 posts that are openly homophobic to social media administrators, and most of them have been taken down and their authors temporarily or permanently blocked. This caused all Mozaika activists to be blocked from accessing certain groups and pages, and we have evidence that a number of secret Facebook and WhatsApp chat groups have been created to follow our activities.

  4. Can you tell us more about the significance of Pride in Latvia and the Baltic Pride that was recently held in the capital, Riga?

  Pride in Latvia is the most visible LGBTI event in the country. It draws widespread social and media attention to our cause, but it also attracts a large number of expressions of hatred and brings to the surface negative attitudes towards the LGBTI community. Pride in Latvia grew from 70 participants who faced 3,000 protesters in 2005, to 5,000 participants at EuroPride 2015, which was held in Riga, and 8,000 in the recent Baltic Pride. In between, it was banned by Riga City Council three times.

  Mozaika applied for permission to hold Baltic Pride in February 2018. Latvian laws state that applications must be submitted no earlier than four months prior to the event and that if there is more than one application for an event to be held at the same time, priority will be given to the first applicant. Mozaika’s representative arrived at Riga City Council an hour before opening to make sure that Baltic Pride was the first applicant, and just seconds after he entered the building Antiglobalists, an anti-rights organisation, arrived to submit another request for an event that would take place at the exact same time and venue, but under the name “Promotion of paedophilia, zoophilia, necrophilia and other perversions.” They wanted to make the statement that if ‘homosexuals’ can promote their ‘perversions’, then they should also be allowed to promote any other perversion they could think of.

  Since it became known in late 2017 that Riga would host Baltic Pride, both Mozaika and Baltic Pride became targets. The leader of the Latvian Green Party-Riga Unit started a //medium.com/@juriskaza/latvian-science-fund-head-asks-to-ban-riga-pride-event-87173b6e2cbe">personal campaign against so-called ‘genderists’. He insisted that Baltic Pride should be banned and set up a Facebook page to ‘inspire’ activists for ‘traditional values’. Starting in January, Baltic Pride organisers received over a hundred personal attacks, warnings or threats. We were insulted, called sick and branded perverts on our Facebook pages on a daily basis. Hate campaigns were launched to convey the idea that Pride is a ‘sex festival’. Countless posts were made showing rainbows and guns, to create fear among potential participants and the LGBTI community and dissuade them from attending. Antiglobalists, Tautas tiesību kustība (National Rights Movement) and activists inspired by right-wing politicians also constantly posted statements to encourage others to stand against Baltic Pride. Sometimes they provided details about our activities, forcing us to restrict them to registered participants to ensure safety. We also had to take unprecedented security measures for Pride events.

  Fortunately, we could find common ground and work closely with the police. Counter-protesters attack and humiliate the police, but we treat them with respect. No public official or security officer supporting us would ever say so publicly, but we have been able to work together behind closed doors. In the end, Baltic Pride was a great success. We would have considered it a success if 2,000 people had attended, but over 8,000 did. There were no major incidents, although at some point eggs and smoke bombs were thrown at participants.

  5. How do you counter the anti-rights message?

  We focus on delivering a human rights message. We never blame the church or call anyone by name - we don’t talk about them. We counter argument with argument, and fiction with facts. If they say that perverts will march, we state the fact that 70 per cent of those ‘perverts’ are straight people with children. Against arguments that ‘naked people’ will march, we simply say we don’t know what Pride they are referring to because we have never had people marching naked in Latvia. When we are called perverts, we thank them for their opinion but insist that we want to have a conversation within a human rights framework. That is, we don’t want to limit anyone’s rights and we want to be able to exercise ours. Compromising and always staying within the confines of a positive message may be personally difficult for many activists, but that is what we are going for, no matter what we hear. We might explode afterwards, but while we meet we listen and stay calm.

  I always meet the Catholic Archbishop at state visits or embassy receptions and we have polite exchanges. I’ve told him I’m non-believer but I know that the message of Jesus is all about love and respect and I don’t see that coming from him – that’s when he leaves the conversation. Within Mozaika there are also religious people, and we have invited churches to have an open and public dialogue, but so far, they have always refused.

  6. What is civil society in Latvia doing to overcome these challenges?

  Civil society uses all the available mechanisms to highlight rights violations in the international arena, including at the EU level, and to try and influence decision-makers and politicians. However, our Minister of Justice, who is openly homophobic and transphobic, ‘does not see’ any restrictions. While we were organising our Pride event, the government was putting a lot of effort into organising celebrations for the centennial of the Latvian state, and often blamed critical CSOs for shaming the country abroad as such an important date approached.

  In this context, Mozaika planned several actions, including a social media campaign (‘I support freedom’) in which public personalities publicly expressed their support for LGBTI rights, and human rights more generally, and demanded that our government ensure that Baltic Pride could take place safely. We aimed to bring in people who are not typically seen as supporters of human rights and LGBTI rights, and then amplify their voices as allies of the LGBTI community. Ultimately, what we wanted to show is that the LGBTI community and its supporters were a lot more numerous and diverse than the handful of activists and the few hundred people who normally show up to our events. We also undertook efforts targeted at international organisations and foreign governments and activists. We asked them to encourage people to participate in Baltic Pride and demand that the authorities guarantee their safety.

  Of course, we continue to monitor, document and report online and offline abuses against LGBTI people, activists and organisations. We take down hate comments and instruct the community to report any attacks that they experience on social media to us so we can work to take down the posts. If prominent hate expressions get out there, we try to respond to them with a counter-message. But we have limited resources, so sometimes we leave them for liberal commentators to deal with, and we focus on using social media to counter the most blatant expressions of hatred, particularly if someone is attacked physically.

  Finally, we are trying to place LGBTI issues and broader diversity issues on the agenda of the campaign for the upcoming October 2018 parliamentary election. We are promoting public debate on these issues, presenting political parties with examples of the rights restrictions that LGBTI people face on a daily basis and asking them to provide policy solutions to create a safe environment for LGBTI people and other minorities. We will consider it a success if three or four political parties include LGBTI issues or other diversity issues on their agenda.

  7. What are your needs and what can donors do to help?

  The one thing we have wanted to do for a long time is a long-term communications campaign – not the kind that individual CSOs put together on their own, but a broader one coordinated by various CSO leaders and activists who provide the substance and set the tone, and that is executed and managed by a professional communications team. The problem is that all CSOs live from project to project and are barely sustainable. Mozaika is able to function thanks to the work of volunteers. So what we need most is resources to ensure sustainability. This includes building capacity, but this has to be done on the basis of the expertise that we already have. We have attended countless training events and seminars, and are tired of going to international meetings just to be told ‘this is the right way to do it’. We need customised approaches to find practical solutions to our specific problems. There is a lot for us to learn from France, Germany, or the USA, but lessons must be customised and they should come alongside the resources to ensure sustainability.

  Civic space in Latvia is rated as ‘narrowed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with Mozaika through their Facebook page or follow @lgbt_mozaika and @KasparZ on Twitter and Instagram.

• LES GROUPES ANTI-DROITS DE L'HOMME: "Ils ne pensent pas que les droits de l'homme sont universels ou ils ne considèrent pas toutes les personnes comme des êtres humains égaux "

  Dans le cadre de notre rapport thématique de 2019, nous interrogeons des militants de la société civile, des dirigeants et des experts sur leur expérience des réactions hostiles de la part des groupes anti-droits humains. CIVICUS parle de la montée de l'extrémisme des groupes d'extrême droite et du fondamentalisme religieux en Europe de l'Est avec Gordan Bosanac, co-auteur d'une étude de cas sur l'Europe de l'Est pour le rapport du Global Philanthropy Project: « Conservatisme religieux sur la scène mondiale : Menaces et défis pour les droits LGBTI ».

   

  Vous avez travaillé sur diverses questions, du racisme et de la xénophobie au conservatisme religieux et aux droits LGBTQI. Pensez-vous que la montée du nationalisme et attaques contre les droits des migrants et les droits sexuels et reproductifs font tous partie de la même tendance ?

  Tout cela fait indéniablement partie du même phénomène. La grande majorité des organisations qui se mobilisent contre les droits des femmes rejettent également les personnes LGBTQI et les migrants et réfugiés. Ils font tous partie du même mouvement mondial qui rejette les idées démocratiques libérales, et ils se mobilisent tous contre les minorités ou les groupes vulnérables.

  Il s'agit d'un ensemble très hétérogène de groupes et d'organisations. Leur dénominateur commun est ce contre quoi ils luttent : la démocratie libérale. Les groupes néonazis, misogynes, anti-LGBTQI et anti-migrants ont des objectifs différents, mais ils partagent le même programme et y collaborent. Beaucoup de ces groupes se réunissent au Congrès mondial des familles, où vous trouverez beaucoup de discours de haine contre la communauté LGBTQI, contre les femmes et contre les migrants. Ils partagent la même philosophie.

  Pour moi, ces groupes sont exactement l'inverse du mouvement des droits de l'homme, où certaines organisations se concentrent sur les droits des femmes, d'autres sur les droits des LGBTQI, d'autres encore sur les migrants ou les peuples indigènes, ou sur les droits sociaux, culturels ou environnementaux, mais nous avons tous une philosophie fondée sur une vision positive des droits humains. Nous faisons tous partie du mouvement des droits de la personne. C'est exactement le contraire pour eux : ils partagent tous une vision négative des droits de l'homme, ils ne pensent pas qu'ils sont universels, ou ils ne considèrent pas tous les gens comme des êtres humains égaux. Quoi qu'il en soit, ils se mobilisent contre les droits de l'homme.

  Quand et pourquoi des groupes fondamentalistes chrétiens sont-ils apparus en Europe de l'Est ?

  L'une de mes collègues dit que ces groupes existent depuis longtemps. Elle enquête actuellement sur la troisième génération de ces groupes et affirme qu'ils ont vu le jour dans les années 1970, lorsqu'ils se sont mobilisés pour la première fois autour des idées néonazies et contre les droits des femmes. Le tournant le plus récent en Europe de l'Est s'est produit au début des années 2010. Dans de nombreux cas, il s'agit d'une réaction contre les débats politiques nationaux sur les LGBTQI et les droits reproductifs. La Croatie, d'où je viens, était l'une des exceptions en ce sens que ces groupes ne se sont pas mobilisés en réaction aux avancées politiques des groupes de défense des droits des femmes et des LGBTQI, mais plutôt par anticipation et à titre de mesure préventive contre les processus qui progressaient au niveau international, et en particulier contre le mariage homosexuel.

  L'expérience croate s'est déroulée en trois phases. A partir des années 1990, un mouvement anti-avortement s'est développé, dirigé par des prêtres catholiques charismatiques. Après la chute du communisme, l'avortement a été présenté comme étant contraire à la foi religieuse, aux valeurs familiales et à l'identité nationale. L'Église catholique a créé des " centres familiaux " qui offrent des services de soutien aux familles. Depuis le début des années 2000, des organisations indépendantes de la société civile (OSC) formées par des citoyens religieux " concernés " sont apparues. Leur naissance est liée à l'introduction de l'éducation sexuelle dans les programmes scolaires publics. Une troisième phase a commencé vers 2010, avec la montée en puissance d'OSC fondamentalistes liées au niveau national et international, indépendantes de la structure de l'Eglise. Par exemple, les nouveaux groupes avaient des liens avec les mouvements polonais ultraconservateurs "Tradition, Famille, Propriété" et "Ordo Iuris". L'Église catholique est restée à l'arrière-plan et le rôle des porte-paroles anti-droits a été relégué aux citoyens religieux " concernés ".

  En Croatie, les fondamentalistes ont fait bon usage des référendums nationaux organisés à l'initiative des citoyens. En 2013, ils ont rejeté l'égalité en matière de mariage, en grande partie grâce à des lois électorales qui n'exigent pas une participation électorale minimale aux référendums nationaux; la faible participation d'environ 38 %, suffisant à permettre un changement constitutionnel. En revanche, des référendums similaires ont échoué en Roumanie et en Slovaquie grâce à l'exigence d'une participation minimale de 50 %.

  Les groupes de défense des droits de l'homme semblent avoir fait beaucoup de progrès en Europe de l'Est depuis le début des années 2010. Pourquoi ?

  Nous avons commencé à suivre de près ces groupes en Croatie au moment du référendum, et ce que nous avons vu, c'est que leur progression a été liée à la redéfinition de leurs stratégies. Ils étaient démodés, peu attrayants pour leurs publics potentiels et peu habiles dans l'utilisation des instruments de la démocratie directe. A partir de 2010, ils ont changé de stratégie. Le mouvement de lutte contre les droits de l'homme a connu un renouveau rapide, et ses nouveaux dirigeants étaient très jeunes, éloquents et conscients du potentiel des instruments démocratiques. Dans leurs apparitions publiques, ils ont commencé à minimiser la religion, passant du symbolisme religieux à des visuels contemporains, colorés et joyeux. Ils ont commencé à organiser des mobilisations de masse telles que les marches contre l'avortement "Walk for Life", ainsi que des actions de rue à petite échelle, comme la prière contre l'avortement devant les hôpitaux ou la mise en scène de performances. Ironiquement, ils ont appris en observant de près ce que les OSC progressistes en matière de droits de la personne avaient fait : tout ce qu'elles faisaient avec succès, ils l'ont copié. Ils ont également relancé et amélioré les méthodes traditionnelles de pétition, en allant en ligne avec des plateformes telles que CitizenGo.

  Sur le plan international, les groupes de lutte contre les droits ont commencé à prendre forme au milieu des années 1990 en réaction à la quatrième Conférence mondiale des Nations Unies sur les femmes, tenue en 1995 à Beijing. C'est alors qu'un consensus s'est formé autour des droits des femmes en tant que droits humains, et que le genre est apparu à l'ordre du jour. Les groupes religieux se sont sentis vaincus à Pékin. Beaucoup d'universitaires qui ont étudié ce processus ont conclu que l'Église catholique était alors irritée parce qu'elle avait perdu une grande bataille. Ils ont subi plusieurs défaites dans les années qui ont suivi, ce qui les a rendus encore plus furieux. En 2004, la candidature de Rocco Buttiglione, candidat italien à la Commission européenne, a été retirée sous la pression du Parlement européen en raison de ses positions sexistes et homophobes. Les fondamentalistes chrétiens ont également été furieux lorsque des discussions animées ont eu lieu sur la possibilité que les "racines chrétiennes" de l'Europe soient mentionnées dans la Constitution européenne. Tout cela a mis le Vatican très en colère. Il y a eu quelques moments symboliques qui les ont rendus furieux et les ont poussés à lutter plus fermement contre les idées libérales.

  En réaction à cela, ils se sont modernisés, ce qui leur a permis d'avoir des liens de plus en plus étroits avec des groupes évangéliques fondamentalistes basés aux États-Unis, ayant une longue expérience dans l'élaboration de politiques à l'intérieur et en dehors des États-Unis.

  Pensez-vous qu'il s'agit surtout d'un processus du sommet vers la base, ou ces groupes ont-ils véritablement atteint la base ?

  En Europe de l'Est, il s'agit surtout d'un processus descendant, peut-être lié au fait que la plupart de ces groupes sont catholiques chrétiens, et non évangéliques. Ces idées viennent de très haut. Elles sont produites et diffusées par le Vatican depuis des décennies. Ces groupes ne sont pas spontanés et sont très bien organisés. Leurs stratégies ne se sont pas répandues par imitation, mais plutôt parce qu'elles sont toutes dictées par le sommet.

  Cela ne veut pas dire qu'ils n'ont pas pu faire appel aux citoyens ; au contraire, ils l'ont fait avec beaucoup de succès, encore plus que les groupes anti-droits humains. C'est parce qu'ils utilisent un langage très simple et jouent sur les peurs et les insécurités des gens. Ils construisent leur popularité sur les préjugés et les craintes des autres qui sont différents. La peur semble être un moyen facile de mobiliser les gens, mais les gens de gauche ne veulent pas l'utiliser parce qu'ils estiment qu'il n'est pas juste de manipuler les gens. Les groupes de défense des droits, par contre, n'ont aucun problème à faire peur aux gens. Lorsqu'ils sont apparus pour la première fois en Croatie, ces groupes ont obtenu un énorme soutien parce qu'ils ont suscité la peur et se sont ensuite présentés comme les protecteurs et les sauveurs des citoyens contre ce monstre fictif qu'ils avaient créé.

  Quelles sont les principales stratégies que ces groupes ont utilisées pour se développer ?

  Premièrement, ils partagent un discours unifié qui s'articule autour du rejet de ce qu'ils appellent "l'idéologie du genre", qui n'est qu'un signifiant vide pour désigner toute menace qu'ils perçoivent dans un contexte particulier. Ils se déclarent les protecteurs de la famille et de l'ordre naturel et utilisent des stratégies de diffamation et un discours pseudo-scientifique contre les droits des femmes et des personnes LGBTQI. Une rhétorique nationaliste est également omniprésente dans les pays d'Europe de l'Est.

  Deuxièmement, ils ont coopté le discours sur les droits de l'homme et adopté les pratiques d'organisation civique du mouvement des droits de l'homme. Ils profitent non seulement de l'accès direct aux citoyens qui vont à l'église, mais ils mobilisent aussi la base à travers des conférences, des formations, des camps de jeunes et les réseaux sociaux. Ils bénéficient également d'un financement suffisant pour emmener les gens en bus aux rassemblements importants comme les marches « Walk for Life », payer les dépenses de nombreux bénévoles et couvrir le coût de la publicité dispendieuse.

  Troisièmement, ils ont utilisé avec succès des mécanismes référendaires à l'initiative des citoyens. En Croatie et en Slovénie, ils ont recueilli le nombre requis de signatures pour lancer des référendums nationaux contre le mariage homosexuel, qu'ils ont remportés. En Roumanie et en Slovaquie, à leur tour, ils ont réussi à recueillir les signatures mais n'ont pas réussi à satisfaire à l'exigence minimale de participation. Le taux de participation à tous ces référendums a varié de 20 % en Roumanie à 38 % en Croatie, ce qui montre que les fondamentalistes ne bénéficient d'aucun soutien majoritaire, mais qu'ils utilisent toujours intelligemment les mécanismes démocratiques pour faire avancer leur programme.

  Quatrièmement, ils ont recours aux poursuites judiciaires à la fois pour influencer et modifier la législation et pour arrêter les militants des droits humains et les journalistes qui critiquent leur travail. Afin de les faire taire, ils les poursuivent en justice pour diffamation et 'discours de haine contre les chrétiens'. Bien que ces affaires soient généralement rejetées, elles les aident à se positionner en tant que victimes en raison de leurs croyances religieuses.

  Cinquièmement, ils bénéficient non seulement d'une bonne couverture de leurs événements dans les médias grand public, mais ils ont aussi leurs propres médias, principalement des portails d'information en ligne, dans lesquels ils publient de fausses nouvelles qui diffament leurs adversaires, qu'ils diffusent ensuite sur les réseaux sociaux. Ils accueillent et couvrent également des événements conservateurs mettant en vedette des " experts internationaux " qui sont présentés comme les plus hautes autorités sur des questions telles que la sexualité et les droits de l'enfant.

  Sixièmement, ils s'appuient sur une collaboration transnationale à travers l'Europe et avec des groupes basés aux États-Unis.

  Septièmement, ils ciblent le système scolaire, par exemple avec des programmes extrascolaires destinés à influencer les enfants âgés de 4 à 14 ans, lorsqu'ils sont les plus vulnérables et les plus facilement convertibles.

  Enfin, ils travaillent non seulement par l'intermédiaire d'OSC, mais aussi de partis politiques. De cette façon, ils sont également présents aux élections et, dans certains cas, ils acquièrent un pouvoir significatif. C'est le cas du parti d'extrême droite polonais Droit et Justice, qui a pleinement intégré ces groupes dans ses activités. Dans d'autres cas, ils créent leur propre parti politique. C'est ce qui s'est passé en Croatie, où la principale OSC fondamentaliste, "Au nom de la famille", a créé un parti politique appelé "Project Homeland". Le cas de la Roumanie est particulièrement préoccupant à cet égard, car il montre comment les positions fondamentalistes chrétiennes sur les droits LGBTQI peuvent être intégrées dans l'ensemble du spectre politique et religieux.

  En d'autres termes, ces groupes sont présents dans divers espaces, pas seulement au sein de la société civile. Et ils ciblent les principaux partis conservateurs, notamment ceux qui sont membres du Parti populaire européen, le groupe de centre-droit du Parlement européen. Ils essaient de déplacer les partis de centre-droit et conservateurs vers l'extrême droite. C'est leur combat crucial parce que cela peut les mener au pouvoir. Il est de la responsabilité des partis conservateurs du monde entier de résister à ces attaques, et il est dans l'intérêt des groupes progressistes de les protéger également, car s'ils perdent, nous perdons tous.

  Pensez-vous qu'il y a quelque chose que la société civile progressiste puisse faire pour arrêter les groupes anti-droits ?

  Je ne suis pas très optimiste parce que nous les combattons depuis plusieurs années et c'est très difficile, d'autant plus que la mouvance mondiale est aussi en train de changer : il y a une tendance générale à droite qui semble très difficile à contrer.

  Cependant, il y a encore plusieurs choses à faire. La première chose à faire serait de faire la lumière sur ces groupes, de dire aux gens qui ils sont vraiment. Nous devons les exposer pour ce qu'ils sont- les fondamentalistes religieux, les néonazis et ainsi de suite - parce qu'ils cachent leur vrai visage. Selon le contexte local, ils ne sont parfois même pas fiers d'admettre qu'ils sont liés à l'Église. Une fois que ces liens sont mis en évidence, de nombreuses personnes deviennent méfiantes à leur égard. Il faudrait aussi espérer qu'il y ait du bon sens, que les circuits d'argent sale soient dévoilés et que les gens réagissent, ce qui arrive parfois, mais pas toujours.

  Le rôle principal devrait être joué par les croyants qui refusent d'accepter l'utilisation abusive de la religion à des fins extrémistes. Les croyants sont les porte-paroles les plus authentiques contre le fondamentalisme et leur voix peut être beaucoup plus forte que celle des laïcs mobilisés ou de l'opposition politique. Toutefois, l'absence de tels groupes au niveau local, en raison des pressions exercées par les autorités religieuses locales, peut être un problème. Le pape François a sérieusement affaibli les groupes fondamentalistes et il est un excellent exemple de la manière dont les chefs religieux peuvent combattre l'extrémisme religieux et le fondamentalisme.

  Il est également productif d'utiliser l'humour contre eux. Ils ne savent pas vraiment plaisanter ; les situations sarcastiques et humoristiques les déconcertent. Cela peut susciter des soupçons chez de nombreuses personnes. Mais nous devons veiller à ne pas en faire des victimes, car ce sont des experts en matière d'auto-victimisation et ils sauront comment s'en servir contre nous.

  Enfin, permettez-moi de le redire parce que c'est fondamental. Cela peut sembler contre-intuitif, mais il est très important de donner aux partis conservateurs du monde entier les moyens de tenir bon et de résister aux tentatives de détournement d'extrême droite. Les progressistes doivent protéger les partis conservateurs contre les attaques d'extrémistes, sinon ils deviendront des véhicules de l'extrême droite pour accéder au pouvoir, et il sera alors trop tard.

  L'espace civique en Croatie est classé comme " rétréci " par le Monitor CIVICUS.

  Suivez @GordanBosanac sur Twitter.

• LITHUANIA: ‘Civil society must humanise the public narrative around irregular migration’

  CIVICUS speaks about a new law enabling pushbacks of asylum seekers at the Belarus-Lithuania border withMėta Adutavičiūtė, head of Advocacy at the Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HRMI).

  Established in 2003, HRMI is a Lithuanian human rights civil society organisation (CSO) thatadvocates for national laws and policies consistent with the state’s international human rights obligations and works to ensure the effective enjoyment of human rights.

  What are the main points of the new legislation allowing for the pushback of asylum seekers?

  The amended Law on State Border and its Protection, passed in April 2023, recognises and enables the practice that began in August 2021 of discouraging people from attempting to cross the border at non-designated places and returning them to Belarus once they have crossed the border into Lithuanian territory.

  The amended law provides legal ground for pushbacks without the need to declare a state of emergency. Now pushbacks can be carried out on the government’s decision any time it considers there is an extraordinary situation caused by a ‘mass influx of aliens’. A novelty introduced by the law are the civilian volunteer units to support border guards. Both are allowed, under certain circumstances, to use coercive measures. The State Border Guard Service has recently announced a call for this volunteer service.

  What are the issues around pushbacks?

  According to both Lithuanian and international refugee law, unlawful entry should not be penalised when a person is eligible to request asylum in a country. However, pushbacks are being carried out with regard to people who might have genuine grounds for asylum, such as those coming from Afghanistan and Syria.

  Under the amended law, the State Border Guard Service should perform an individualised assessment to determine whether a person is fleeing persecution and is in fact a refugee as defined in the 1951 Refugee Convention. However, the procedure for such an assessment hasn’t yet been established, and there are good reasons to doubt that border guards can carry out an assessment properly. In our opinion, the decision on whether a person has grounds to request protection should be made by the migration department, while state border officers should only find out whether a person intends to seek asylum and register asylum applications.

  Our preliminary assessment is that although the provisions of the law shouldn’t apply to people fleeing military aggression, armed conflict or persecution or trying to enter Lithuania for humanitarian reasons, people continue to be pushed back without an individualised assessment of their circumstances and without any human rights safeguards being applied.

  How has HRMI advocated against the new law?

  HRMI submitted comments to the draft law and alternative proposals, urging lawmakers to refrain from legalising pushback practices and instead ensure access to asylum procedures for all people irrespective of their means of entry.

  We also continue advocating for the rights of migrants and asylum seekers by raising public awareness on the current disturbing situation.

  Our next steps are to closely monitor the implementation of the new legislation and prepare a comprehensive report based on interviews with asylum seekers. Meanwhile, our colleagues and volunteers from Sienos Grupė provide humanitarian aid to migrants and asylum seekers stuck at the border.

  Additionally, HRMI has a strategic litigation programme that includes 17 cases. The purpose of this programme is to seek justice for asylum applicants and call for judicial review of the most pressing legal issues in the Lithuanian migration and asylum system.

  What obstacles does Lithuanian civil society working on migration face?

  Even though there are no legal restrictions on the work of CSOs helping migrants and refugees, one of our largest challenges is that the public generally approves of restrictive government policies and practices and only a minority support a human rights-based approach in managing increased irregular migration. The government’s strategy of deterrence, constantly picturing migrants and asylum seekers as a threat, has largely influenced the public. Opinion polls conducted in 2021 indicated growing negative attitudes towards migrants and refugees. This is why civil society’s advocacy efforts must focus not only on laws and policies, but also on humanising the public narrative around irregular migration.

  Moreover, lack of information makes it difficult for CSOs to assess the full implications of this law for asylum seekers. Official statistics only include the people who were pushed back on specific days, and there are no statistics available of people who were let in and provided with the opportunity to lodge asylum applications. We also don’t have access to demographic data such as countries of origin, gender, age and other individual characteristics that could allow us to identify the specific vulnerabilities of people who were pushed back.

  How has the international community reacted to the new policy?

  Many international organisations and media outlets immediately contacted us seeking information and requesting our assessment of the situation. A strong statement came from the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatović, who called on the Lithuanian parliament to reject the amendments and ensure that the legislative process is guided by human rights standards with a robust, human rights-compliant and protection-oriented legal framework. The law was also criticised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In contrast, the reaction from the European Union has been lacking.

  Overall, however, we are grateful for the crucial international support we have received in our advocacy efforts, as well as for legal advice provided by our allies. It is very important they remain engaged and continue monitoring the developments on the border.

  ---

  Civic space in Lithuania is rated ‘open’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with HRMI through itswebsite or itsFacebook page.

• MALTA: ‘People should be able to access abortions locally without the risk of criminalisation or stigmatisation’

  CIVICUS speaks about the struggle for abortion rights and the anti-rights backlash in Malta with Break the Taboo Malta.

  Break the Taboo Malta is a storytelling platform that documents abortion experiences to highlight the lived reality and address abortion stigma in Malta.

• MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS: ‘Europe instrumentalises human suffering to deter migration’

  CIVICUS speaks about the situation of migrants and refugees in Greece with Maya Thomas-Davis, an Advocacy and Communications Officer at the Legal Centre Lesvos AMKE, a Greek civil society organisation that provides free legal information and assistance to migrants who arrive by sea to Lesvos, where the Centre is based. The Legal Centre also documents violations of migrants’ rights, advocates for safe and legal migration routes and engages in advocacy and strategic litigation to hold the Greek government, member states of the European Union (EU) and European institutions accountable for their treatment of migrants.

  

  Photo: Legal Centre Lesvos @Instagram

  What kind of work does the Legal Centre Lesvos do, and how have you managed under the pandemic?

  The Legal Centre Lesvos (LCL) is a civil non-profit legal and political organisation based on principles of solidarity, not charity. Since August 2016, it has provided access to legal information, assistance and representation to migrants arriving by sea on the Greek island of Lesvos. LCL also works towards collective justice and structural change as part of movements resisting Europe’s border imperialism on many fronts, including through advocacy and strategic litigation. LCL was founded following the March 2016 EU-Turkey statement, an agreement of questionable legality through which the European Union turned people seeking freedom, safety and dignity into commodities and bargaining chips: agreeing to pay 6 billion euros to Erdogan’s authoritarian regime in exchange for Turkey acting as a border guard to fortress Europe. This ‘deal’ transformed the island of Lesvos into a site of indefinite imprisonment for migrants. LCL provides access to legal information and assistance in solidarity with migrants trapped here, without losing sight of the fact that migration to Europe is intimately connected with the continent’s imperialist past and present and the interests of global capitalism; that the brutal violations witnessed here are always political choices; and that the people most affected are the most important political actors in challenging and resisting this.

  LCL has an open-door policy, meaning that nobody is turned away or refused legal information or assistance because their case is not ‘strong’ enough, or is unsuitable for strategic litigation. We maintain this position because we believe that, as a bare minimum, everyone has the right to understand the legal framework they are subject to, particularly in the context of asylum law, where consequences can be a matter of life or death.

  To facilitate access to information, prior to the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions LCL had been running regular group information sessions about asylum procedures, in multiple languages. This is certainly one aspect of our work where the pandemic has created difficulties. In Lesvos lockdown measures have been in place since March 2020, varying in degrees of intensity. Group information sessions have been impossible due to limitations on office capacity mandated by restrictions. We have managed to keep the open-door policy in place with strict appointment schedules, with many of us working from home at least some of the time, and we are trying to continue to facilitate broader access to information through other means, such as through updates in multiple languages on our website and social media.

  How did the situation of migrants and refugees evolve in 2020 as a result of the pandemic? 

  The Greek state’s unlawful suspension of the right to asylum on 1 March 2020 and its violent border fortification – with the EU praising Greece as Europe’s ‘shield’ and The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex, providing increased material support – coincided with the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. Although the EU has been perpetrating violence against migrants at its borders for many years, including through pushbacks, it seems Greek and EU officials believed the pandemic would provide the perfect cover to escalate their attack on migrants in the Aegean, with complete impunity.

  Since March 2020, the official number of arrivals by sea to Greece has drastically dropped by a reported 85 per cent as compared to 2019. In the same timeframe, numerous reports and investigations have revealed a systematic practice of collective expulsions on the part of Greek authorities, carried out through a consistent modus operandi, with Frontex’s documented complicity. In every account shared with LCL by pushback survivors, Greek authorities have summarily expelled migrants from Greek territory without registering arrival or facilitating access to asylum procedures. Whether in the middle of the sea or following a landing on an Aegean island, Greek authorities forcibly transfer migrants towards Turkish waters before abandoning them at sea on motorless, unseaworthy dinghies or life rafts, with absolute disregard for whether they live or die. Despite numerous reports, statements, investigations and denunciations of this ongoing attack against migrants, pushbacks at the Aegean Sea border continue with impunity, functioning as an unofficial implementation of the EU-Turkey deal’s objectives while the Turkish border remains officially closed.

  Meanwhile in Lesvos, pandemic-related restrictions have only compounded the situation of police violence, discrimination and effective mass detention for migrants. COVID-19-related restrictions, including curfews and the requirement to carry a justification for movement, have been applied in an unjustifiably discriminatory manner. Recently, on 15 February 2021, for example, the curfew for the general population of Lesvos was lifted from 6pm to 9pm, yet for migrants living in the camp a separate regime of restrictions remains in place: people are subject to a more stringent curfew starting at 5pm and only one family member can leave the camp once a week except for medical or legal appointments. Even with written justification, permission to leave the camp is often arbitrarily denied. The police disproportionately target racialised people in checking documents and justifications for movement as well as in imposing fines.

  Meanwhile changes in the operations of the Regional Asylum Office and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) in Lesvos, which had been conducting remote interviews with applicants for international protection, have led to further procedural violations. These include obstacles in access to legal aid at first instance and to file appeals within deadlines due to pandemic-related movement restrictions and restricted access to EASO offices; failure to ensure the requisite confidentiality of interviews due to remote interviews via telephone or video being held in inadequate facilities; and inability to comprehensively present grounds for applications due to practical and technical disruptions of asylum interviews.

  As for the sanitary situation, the state has systematically failed to evacuate individuals at risk from overcrowded, unsanitary camps in Lesvos, where distancing measures are impossible. Like the previous Moria camp, which burned down in September 2020, the new reception and identification centre in Mavrovouni/Karatepe – widely known as ‘Moria 2.0’ – is not fit for human habitation. As if conditions of inadequate shelter, healthcare, privacy, food, electricity, running water, hot showers, toilets and other hygiene facilities were not bad enough, since 1926 and until its hasty transformation into a camp in September 2020, the site of Moria 2.0 had been a military firing range, and the Greek government has admitted that a high concentration of lead has been found in samples taken from the site. Lead poisoning causes organ damage, cancer and developmental harm in foetuses and children. There is no level of lead exposure known to be without harmful effects. In such conditions, the Greek state’s failure to transfer people who are disproportionately exposed to danger and death in the inhumane conditions of Moria 2.0 to appropriate living conditions amounts to an attack on migrants’ lives.

  Which would you say are main rights violations that migrants and refugees face in Lesvos?

  That hundreds of people have been, and continue to be, forcibly transferred then abandoned in the middle of the sea by Greek authorities without means to call for rescue, on unseaworthy, motorless dinghies and life rafts, constitutes a spectacular form of state violence against migrants. Beyond rights violations, LCL’s position is that the constituent elements of the consistent modus operandi of collective expulsions in the Aegean, along with the widespread and systematic nature of this attack, amount to crimes against humanity. The practice of systematic pushbacks with impunity reveals the extent to which fortress Europe treats migrants’ lives as disposable, in a manner that has historically accompanied the commission of atrocity crimes.

  The same disregard for migrants’ lives is inherent in the conditions in camps and detention centres people are forced to endure in Lesvos, which are violations of the right to freedom from inhumane and degrading treatment and torture, the rights to liberty and security, to private and family life, to effective remedy, to freedom from discrimination and to life. It is inherent in people being forced to wait in limbo for years, cut off from family, friends, community and purpose, without being able to move forwards or backwards. It is inherent in the EU increasingly prioritising and funding mass effective detention of migrants, through ‘hotspot’ systems, accelerated border procedures, forcible deportations, border militarisation and border externalisation through deals of questionable legality with third countries and by making aid and other financial packages conditional on border fortification.

  While the violence of pushbacks in the Aegean is scandalous and should be treated as such, it is by no means an aberration from the logic of Europe’s border regime, which instrumentalises human suffering for the purpose of deterring migration, at any cost. Even if due process and reception standards mandated by the Common European Asylum System were complied with in Lesvos, many people would still be excluded, and the system would remain violent and fundamentally insufficient to secure the conditions of human flourishing that everyone deserves. For this reason, while the LCL will continue to document, denounce and seek redress for the systematic rights violations in Lesvos, we are conscious that we must simultaneously organise for systemic change: Europe’s human rights framework cannot fail people it was never designed to protect.

  What is your position regarding refugee protests over living conditions in camps and blockages of asylum requests?

  LCL has always acted and organised in solidarity with migrant-led resistance. Over the years this has taken many forms, including protests, hunger strikes, collective publications, assemblies and occupations. The state has responded with attempts to collectively punish organised resistance by migrants in Lesvos. A case in point is that of the Moria 35 a few years ago. But there are many more recent examples of this. Of course, such resistance can be understood as an exercise of human rights such as the rights to the freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression, and as a legal organisation, this is always one way of viewing and supporting this kind of action. However, in Lesvos – where rights are systematically violated with complete impunity, where conditions of misery are deliberately imposed, where the situation always seems to get progressively worse just when it already seemed as bad as could be imagined – organised resistance is also in many ways often the only remaining option.

  What kind of support would you need from international civil society to continue doing your work?

  Over the past year, the Greek state brought in new legislation on the registration of civil society organisations, introducing onerous, complex registration and certification requirements that present unnecessary, disproportionate barriers for organisations working in solidarity with migrants in Greece. This will certainly make the work of LCL harder as, of course, it is designed to. The Expert Council on NGO Law of the Conference of INGOs of the Council of Europe has already expressed its concerns on these new requirements, and further challenges to these measures would be a welcome form of support from international civil society.

  In general, international support and solidarity is needed in the struggle against the increasingly hostile environment for migrants and those working in solidarity with migrants in Greece. Far-right disinformation campaigns making allegations of criminality against migrants and migrant solidarity organisations are increasingly reflected in Greek state practice, such as in the Greek police’s identification of four human rights and migrant solidarity groups in an investigation that accuses them of espionage, forming and membership of a criminal organisation; the Greek state’s systematic prosecution of migrants for facilitation of illegal entry/exit; its perverse decision to prosecute the father of a six-year-old child who tragically drowned in a shipwreck near Samos in November 2020 for endangering his son’s life; and its decision to bring criminal charges against a woman who set herself on fire in desperation in Moria 2.0 in February 2021. Such measures to frame migrants and those who act in solidarity with them as criminals and threats to the nation is a deliberate and effective tactic to obscure the fact that it is states that possess the monopoly on violence and to distract from their systematic violations of migrants’ rights. 

  More broadly, it is clear from the legislative proposals contained in the ‘new’ EU migration and asylum pact that the EU will attempt to roll out the model that has been tested in the laboratory of Lesvos and the other Greek ‘hotspot’ islands, across Europe’s external borders – including detention on arrival; accelerated border procedures in detention based on nationality and asylum recognition rates; deportation sponsorship as a form of ‘solidarity’ between member states; and expanded use of migrants’ personal and biometric data. A new ‘controlled’ camp is set to be constructed in Lesvos this year, in a location that is a known forest fire danger zone and is intentionally remote. Internationalist solidarity will always be our best weapon to organise resistance from below to all these measures.

  Civic space in Greece is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with the Legal Centre Lesvos through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@lesboslegal on Twitter and@legalcentrelesvos on Instagram. 

• MIGRATION : « La propagation du COVID-19 n’est pas une excuse pour traiter les personnes vulnérables avec plus de violence »

  CIVICUS s’entretient avec Maddalena Avon, coordinatrice de projet au Centre d’études sur la paix (CPS), sur la situation des migrants et des réfugiés en Europe dans le contexte de la pandémie et sur la manière dont la société civile répond à la pression croissante des gouvernements européens hostiles aux frontières.

  Le CPS est une organisation de la société civile (OSC) qui promeut la non-violence et le changement social par l’éducation, la recherche, le plaidoyer, les campagnes et l’activisme. Fondée en 1996, elle travaille dans trois domaines : l’asile, l’intégration et la sécurité humaine ; l’éducation à la paix et l’affirmation de la non-violence ; et la lutte contre les inégalités. Le CPS est un membre actif du Border Violence Monitoring Network, un réseau indépendant d’OSC basé principalement dans les Balkans et en Grèce, qui surveille les violations des droits humains aux frontières extérieures de l’Union européenne et plaide pour la fin de la violence à l’encontre des personnes déplacées.

  

  Quelles ont été les principales tendances migratoires en Europe, et plus particulièrement dans les Balkans, pendant la pandémie ?

  Le paysage de l’accès à l’asile a radicalement changé depuis l’entrée en vigueur des restrictions mises en place en réponse à la pandémie. Le Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) avait déjà publié des rapports faisant référence à l’asile comme à un ensemble de droits érodés, mais la procédure régulière pour les demandes de protection internationale a été davantage remise en question dans le contexte de l’urgence sanitaire de ces derniers mois.

  Premièrement, les mesures de refoulement persistantes aux frontières continuent de priver les personnes de l’accès à la protection internationale, les États procédant à des expulsions collectives. Deuxièmement, les décisions gouvernementales de suspendre ou de fermer les bureaux d’asile sans offrir d’alternative ou de recours efficace ont placé les réfugiés et autres migrants dans une situation de flou et de risque de refoulement. De même, la mise en œuvre de mesures anti-COVID-19 a donné la possibilité à des pays comme la Croatie, la Grèce et la Hongrie de restreindre davantage l’accès aux protections garanties au niveau international.

  Au milieu de l’escalade de l’épidémie de COVID-19, l’Union européenne (UE) a lancé son plan d’action conjoint pour les droits humains. Cependant, l’esprit de cette déclaration diverge fortement de la réalité sur le terrain. En particulier, les violations des droits fondamentaux par les États membres de l’UE et les pays tiers qui ont conclu divers accords avec l’UE sur la migration, l’asile et la sécurité des frontières, ainsi que des systèmes de camps financés, se poursuivent. Au lieu d’aider les communautés vulnérables en cette période de précarité, les politiques et les réglementations ont permis le renforcement des frontières de la plupart des États membres, ce qui a eu pour effet d’éroder encore davantage les droits à l’asile, à des procédures régulières et à un traitement humain.

  Selon un récent rapport du BVMN, en mars et avril 2020, la Slovénie a connu une diminution du nombre de franchissements irréguliers de la frontière par rapport aux deux premiers mois de 2021 et à la même période en 2019, ce qui s’est traduit par un nombre beaucoup plus faible de personnes détenues dans les postes de police en raison de franchissements irréguliers de la frontière. Toutefois, le nombre d’expulsions collectives vers la Croatie est resté constamment élevé. Début 2020, pendant l’épidémie de COVID-19 et les restrictions qui ont suivi, la Slovénie a continué à refuser systématiquement le droit d’asile et a utilisé son accord de réadmission avec la Croatie - qui l’autorise à remettre des personnes à la police croate s’il existe des preuves qu’elles ont franchi illégalement la frontière au cours des dernières 48 heures - pour expulser un grand nombre de personnes, bien que l’accord de réadmission ne s’applique pas si la personne a demandé l’asile ou est un demandeur d’asile potentiel. Elle a continué à le faire en pleine connaissance du risque élevé de torture et de nouvelles expulsions illégales vers la Bosnie-Herzégovine.

  En Croatie, comme ailleurs, la pandémie a changé beaucoup de choses, mais certains éléments, comme le régime d’expulsion, sont malheureusement restés les mêmes. La seule différence est que ces expulsions collectives violentes attirent désormais moins l’attention, car tous les regards sont tournés vers la pandémie et les observateurs des droits humains n’ont pas été autorisés à rester sur le terrain en raison de restrictions sanitaires. Les expulsions et les violences aux frontières ont persisté : dans un cas sur les centaines documentés par le BVMN, un groupe comprenant une personne gravement blessée et un mineur a été battu à coups de matraque par des officiers croates, qui ont également brûlé leurs vêtements, et le groupe a été renvoyé en Bosnie-Herzégovine.

  Un phénomène relativement nouveau dans les pratiques de refoulement est le marquage de groupes de personnes avec des bombes de peinture orange, comme le rapporte No Name Kitchen, une organisation de base et membre du BVMN qui fournit une assistance directe aux personnes en déplacement dans les villes frontalières le long de la route des Balkans. Les refoulements en série se sont également poursuivis de la Slovénie à la Croatie, renvoyant les migrants sur le même chemin par lequel ils sont arrivés.

  Les rapports faisant état d’une brutalité accrue dans le contexte des refoulements sont inquiétants, compte tenu de l’autonomie accrue que les autorités étatiques ont acquise grâce à la pandémie. Les refoulements sont illégaux et la propagation de la COVID-19 n’est pas une excuse pour traiter les personnes vulnérables avec plus de violence.

  Comment le CPS et le BVMN répondent-ils à ces tendances ?

  La valeur du travail effectué par le BVMN réside dans l’interconnexion de différentes méthodes : le travail de terrain, qui comprend l’établissement de relations de confiance avec les personnes situées dans les zones frontalières, la collecte de témoignages, et le travail de plaidoyer, qui consiste à demander clairement aux institutions de rendre compte de certaines actions. Le travail juridique est également essentiel lorsque les victimes de violations des droits humains veulent réclamer justice. Chaque membre du BVMN présente une compétence propre dans l’une ou plusieurs de ces méthodes de travail, et notre force collective est de les combiner toutes dans une approche holistique.

  Au sein du réseau, le CPS mène des recherches qui alimentent nos efforts de sensibilisation et de plaidoyer sur l’accès au système d’asile, la protection des droits humains des réfugiés, les comportements policiers illégaux, la criminalisation de la solidarité et l’intégration, en mettant l’accent sur l’emploi et l’éducation.

  En termes d’intégration, deux de nos grandes réussites ont été le Danube Compass, un outil web qui comprend toutes les informations pertinentes pour l’intégration des migrants et des réfugiés dans la société croate, et notre programme d’éducation non formelle pour les demandeurs d’asile, « Let's Talk about Society » (Parlons de la société), qui offre aux nouveaux membres de notre communauté une introduction à la société et aux institutions croates, les informe sur leurs droits et encourage leur participation active dans la société.

  Au sein du réseau, le CPS est un acteur juridique fort, puisque nous avons jusqu’à présent déposé 12 plaintes pénales contre des auteurs inconnus en uniforme de police. Grâce à un contentieux stratégique, nous avons empêché une extradition et réussi à déposer deux plaintes contre la République de Croatie devant la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme. Grâce à notre travail de plaidoyer, plusieurs institutions internationales et européennes, dont l’Agence des Nations unies pour les réfugiés, ont commencé à remettre en question et à condamner les pratiques des autorités croates.

  En raison de notre dénonciation publique des pratiques illégales à l’égard des réfugiés, nous avons subi de fortes pressions et avons été interdits d’accès et de travail dans les centres d’asile. Cela a rendu notre travail plus difficile, mais n’a pas compromis notre autonomie.

  Pensez-vous que des progrès ont été réalisés pour tenir Frontex, l’agence européenne des frontières, responsable de son incapacité à protéger les droits humains ?

  Frontex a fait face à de graves allégations de violations des droits humains de la part de divers acteurs et institutions, et la société civile s’est unie autour de multiples campagnes et actions sur la question, notamment #DefundFrontex. Avec le soutien de 22 OSC et réseaux de la société civile, dont le BVMN, cette campagne appelle à la suppression de l’agence et à la réorientation de son budget vers la création d’un programme civil européen de sauvetage en mer géré et financé par les gouvernements.

  Le principal problème est que Frontex opère dans une zone grise juridique et est considérée comme n’ayant aucune responsabilité pour ses actions : la responsabilité incombe toujours à l’État membre dans lequel Frontex opère. Les règles de l’agence sont rédigées de telle manière qu’elles lui permettent de ne pas avoir à rendre de comptes. Cependant, nous constatons de petits pas vers un changement dans cette direction, par exemple avec l’implication active du bureau du Médiateur européen.

  Comment la société civile peut-elle faire pression sur l’UE pour que celle-ci étende son engagement en faveur des droits humains aux migrants et aux réfugiés, et comment peut-elle encourager les États membres à respecter leurs droits ?

  L’un des moyens que les membres du BVMN ont trouvé pour unir des forces multiples et faire entendre leurs voix sur des demandes clés est de construire des réseaux transfrontaliers. Nous sommes convaincus que l’implication active de la société civile dans chaque zone frontalière, pays et village peut faire une réelle différence quant à l’influence des citoyens. Il est très important de parler haut et fort des droits des réfugiés et des migrants. Il est également important de relier une variété de luttes qui sont fortement interconnectées et se déroulent au-delà des frontières, comme les luttes liées au changement climatique et aux droits des femmes.

  L’espace civique en Croatie est classé « rétréci » par leCIVICUS Monitor.

  Contactez le Centre d’études sur la paix (CPS) via sonsite web ou sa pageFacebook, et suivez@CMSZagreb sur Twitter.
  Contactez le Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) sur sonsite web ou sa pageFacebook, et suivez@Border_Violence sur Twitter. 

• MIGRATION: ‘The spread of COVID-19 is no excuse to confront vulnerable people with more violence’

  CIVICUS speaks with Maddalena Avon, project coordinator at the Centre for Peace Studies (CPS) about the situation of migrants and refugees in Europe under the pandemic and the ways in which civil society is responding to increasing border pushbacks from hostile European governments.

  CPS is a civil society organisation (CSO) that promotes non-violence and social change through education, research, advocacy, campaigning and activism. Founded in 1996, it works in three areas: asylum, integration and human security; peace education and non-violence affirmation; and combating inequalities. CPS is an active member of the Border Violence Monitoring Network, an independent network of CSOs based mostly in the Balkans and Greece, monitoring human rights violations at the external borders of the European Union and advocating to stop the violence against people on the move.

  

  What have been the key trends in migration in Europe, and specifically in the Balkans, under the pandemic?

  The landscape of asylum access has changed drastically since pandemic restrictions came into force. The Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) had already reported on asylum as an eroded set of rights, but due process for international protection claims has been further challenged in recent months under the health emergency.

  Firstly, persistent pushbacks from borders continue to deny people access to claim international protection, with states performing collective expulsion. Secondly, government decisions to pause or close asylum offices with no effective alternative or remedy have placed refugees and other migrants in an effective limbo and at risk of pushback. Accordingly, the development of COVID-19 measures has allowed countries such as Croatia, Greece and Hungary to further restrict internationally mandated access to protection.

  In the midst of the escalating COVID-19 outbreak, the European Union (EU) launched its Joint Action Plan for Human Rights. However, the intention of this communication exhibits acute divergence from the reality on the ground. Most notably, violations of fundamental rights continue by EU member states and non-EU countries that have various EU agreements on migration, asylum and border security, alongside funded camp systems. Rather than assisting vulnerable communities in this precarious period, policy and guidance have allowed the strengthening of borders across a majority of member states to erode further the rights to asylum, due process and humane treatment.

  According to a recent report by the BVMN, in March and April 2020 Slovenia saw a decrease in the number of irregular border crossings compared to the first two months of 2021 and the same period in 2019, and this was reflected in the much lower number of people detained at police stations due to irregular border crossings. The trend of collective expulsions to Croatia, however, remained consistently high. In early 2020, during the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent restrictions, Slovenia continued to systematically deny asylum rights and used its readmission agreement with Croatia – which allows it to hand people over to the Croatian police if there is proof that they illegally crossed the border within the last 48 hours – to deport large numbers of people, although the readmission agreement does not apply if the person has asked for asylum or is a potential asylum seeker. It has continued to do so despite full knowledge of the high risk of torture and further illegal pushback to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

  In Croatia, as elsewhere, the pandemic has changed many things, but some aspects, such as its pushback regime, have unfortunately stayed the same. The only difference is that these violent collective expulsions now attract less attention, as all eyes are on the pandemic and human rights monitors have not been allowed in the field due to health restrictions. Pushbacks and violence at borders have persisted: in one case out of the hundreds documented by the BVMN, a group including a severely injured person and a minor was beaten with batons by Croatian officers, who also burnt their clothes, and the group was pushed back into Bosnia and Herzegovina.

  A relatively new development in pushback practices is the tagging of groups with orange spray paint, as reported by No Name Kitchen, a grassroots organisation and member of the BVMN that provides direct assistance to people on the move in border towns along the Balkan Route. Chain pushbacks from Slovenia via Croatia, with migrants being sent back the same way they came, have also continued.

  Reports of increased brutality during pushbacks are worrying due to the increased autonomy that state authorities have gained under the pandemic. Pushbacks are illegal and the spread of COVID-19 is no excuse to confront vulnerable people with even more violence.

  How are the CPS and the BVMN responding to these trends?

  The value of the work done by the BVMN lies in the interconnection of a variety of methods: field work, including trustful contact with people in border areas, testimony collection and advocacy work with clear demands being presented to institutions to hold them accountable for certain actions. Legal work is also essential, when people who have survived human rights violations want to seek justice. Each of the BVMN’s partners has its own strength in one or more of these working methods, and our collective strength is to combine all of them with a comprehensive approach.

  Within the network, CPS conducts research that feeds into our awareness-raising and advocacy efforts on access to the asylum system, protection of refugees’ human rights, illegal conduct of the police, the criminalisation of solidarity and integration, with a focus on employment and education.

  On integration, two of our big successes has been the Danube Compass, a web tool including all information relevant to the integration of refugees and migrants into Croatian society, and our non-formal education programme for asylum seekers, Let’s Talk about Society, which introduces our new community members to Croatian society and institutions, informs them of their rights and encourages their active participation in society.

  Within the network, CPS is a strong legal actor, as we have so far filed 12 criminal complaints against unknown perpetrators in police uniforms. Through strategic litigation, we prevented an extradition and succeeded in filing two lawsuits against the Republic of Croatia at the European Court of Human Rights. As a result of our advocacy, several EU and international institutions, including the United Nations Refugee Agency, started questioning and condemning the practices of the Croatian authorities.

  As a consequence of our public exposure of illegal practices towards refugees, we experienced a lot of pressure, and were banned from entering and working in asylum centres. This made our work more difficult but has not compromised our autonomy.

  Do you see any progress in holding Frontex, the European border agency, accountable for its failure to protect human rights?

  Frontex has faced severe allegations of human rights violations coming from different actors and institutions, and civil society has come together around multiple campaigns and actions on the matter, including #DefundFrontex. Supported by 22 CSOs and networks, including the BVMN, this campaign calls for the agency to be defunded and its budget redirected towards building a government-led and funded European civil sea rescue programme.

  The main challenge is that Frontex operates in a grey legal zone and is perceived to have no responsibility for its actions – responsibility always lies with the member state in which Frontex operates. The agency’s rules are made in a way that allows for it to be largely unaccountable. However, we are seeing small steps towards a change in that regard, for example with the active engagement of the European Ombudsman.

  How can civil society put pressure on the EU so that its commitment to human rights extends to migrants and refugees, and how can it encourage member states to respect their rights?

  One of the ways that BVMN members found to bring together multiple strengths and be louder on key demands is the building of transborder networks. We believe that the active involvement of civil society in each border area, country and village can make a real difference on the public’s influence. Being loud on the rights of refugees and migrants is extremely important. It’s also important to connect a variety of struggles that are highly interconnected and take place across borders, such as struggles on climate change and women’s rights.

  Civic space in Croatia is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with the Centre for Peace Studies through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@CMSZagreb on Twitter.
  Get in touch with the Border Violence Monitoring Network through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@Border_Violence on Twitter. 

• MIGRATION: ‘The way our countries are treating refugees –this isn't the Europe we want’

  CIVICUS speaks to Giorgia Linardi, spokesperson for Sea-Watch in Italy, and Julian Pahlke, chairperson of Jugend Rettet (‘Youth Rescues’) and former crew member of the Iuventa ship. Sea-Watch and Jugend Rettet both conduct civil search and rescue (SAR) operations in the Central Mediterranean, a route by which migrants and refugees seek to enter Europe. In the face of an ongoing humanitarian crisis, they provide emergency relief, push for rescue operations by European institutions and stand up for legal escape routes and the removal of the root causes of migration and flight.

  Photo: Sea-Watch.org

  When did you decide to organise to help migrants and refugees, and why?
  

  Julian Pahlke (JP): Jugend Rettet was founded in early 2016 by a couple of young people in Berlin. As young Europeans, we couldn’t let Europe become a mass grave. Ours is such a rich continent. Why would we leave less fortunate people to drown at sea? We might be geographically disconnected from the Mediterranean, but as Europeans we cannot be disconnected from the issue, because if you look at the way our countries are treating migrants and refugees, this is not the Europe we want.

• NETHERLANDS: ‘A strong sense of solidarity endures with those who are left-behind’

  CIVICUS speaks about snap elections taking place in the Netherlands on 22 November with Niels Hoogerheijde, Policy Advisor at Partos, the Dutch membership body for civil society organisations (CSOs) working in international development.

• NETHERLANDS: ‘No government should allow transfers of weapons to a state committing war crimes’

  CIVICUS speaks with Frank Slijper, Arms Trade project lead at PAX, about a recent court victory in a case brought jointly with Oxfam Novib and the Rights Forum against the Dutch government for exporting arms to Israel that are being used in the assault on Gaza.

  PAX is the largest peace organisation in the Netherlands. It works to protect civilians against acts of war, end armed violence and build inclusive peace.

  Why did you bring a lawsuit against the Dutch government?

  We brought this lawsuit to stop our government exporting military equipment to Israel. PAX does research into the arms trade in countries that violate human rights and approaches those who finance it by appealing to their social responsibility. Oxfam and the Rights Forum share our values, so we decided to sue the government together. We had previously called on it to stop giving Israel free rein in Gaza but the government had not acted on our calls, choosing instead to continue supplying Israel with F-35 fighter jet parts despite the rapidly deteriorating situation.

  No government should allow transfers of weapons to a state committing war crimes. If there was ever a clear case of why this is so, this is it.

  Given the urgency of the situation we had to act quickly, and so we did, Merely four weeks after we learned about these exports to Israel, through a government leak posted by the NRC newspaper, we were in court making our case.

  What did the court decide?

  On 12 February, the Court of Appeal in The Hague ordered the Dutch government to stop all transfers of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel within seven days, given the clear risk of violations of international humanitarian law by Israel. The court ruled that after 7 October 2023 the minister of Foreign Affairs was obliged to reassess the licence for the export and transit of F-35 parts to Israel and that this assessment should conclude that further export and transit must no longer be permitted. In addition, the court stated that such an assessment cannot be ‘weighed’ against other interests such as potential damage to diplomatic relations or economic interests. It also made clear that any ‘general’ arms transfer licence for an indefinite period must include a reassessment trigger in case the situation changes drastically, because otherwise the very idea of arms export controls would be undermined.

  The court also made clear that violations of international humanitarian law don’t need to be proved and that a ‘clear risk’ of such violations suffices. It found it ‘sufficiently plausible’ that F-35 fighter jets were involved in violations of international humanitarian law while also pointing out that there’s no requirement to prove a direct link between a specific weapons transfer and the alleged violations of international humanitarian law.

  Importantly, the court rejected claims by the government that information provided by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and by United Nations (UN) special rapporteurs could not be credibly verified. Instead, it said that such sources must be taken ‘extremely seriously’.

  It also reaffirmed the very important role of civil society organisations in monitoring and ensuring the implementation of state obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

  The government had a week to comply with the court ruling and said it would do so. Sadly, however, it didn’t agree with the Appeals Court verdict and announced it would take the case to the Supreme Court for a final decision.

  Are you taking any further steps in relation with the Dutch government’s approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict?

  The Dutch government claims it is taking a balanced approach, speaking to both sides, when in fact it has refused to clearly condemn Israel, voted alongside the USA against UN resolutions that condemn Israel and demand an immediate ceasefire, and has refused to stop supplying weapons to Israel. Yes, it has enabled airdrops of medical supplies, but that is nothing more than a basic humanitarian obligation.

  In all the years our government has taken this supposedly balanced approach, not much has been achieved and a solution has not come any closer. More Palestinians have been forcibly displaced and illegal Israeli settlements have grown. We keep advocating for practical steps and measures to stop these violations and for an end to military cooperation between the Netherlands and Israel.

  For now, we are awaiting the last part of the legal process, and we have no choice other than keep defending our case, as we have successfully done so far.

  Do you expect this court ruling to have any international repercussions?

  The Appeals Court’s broad analysis of states’ obligations under the ATT and the European Union Common Position on Arms Exports makes this ruling an important source for any other organisation considering litigation. This case has been incredibly important for the future of arms export control, because it is the first time Dutch judges have set out so clearly and in such detail the government’s obligations to implement export controls. Governments that export arms must ensure that their exports comply with obligations under the ATT.

  ---

  Civic space in the Netherlands is rated ‘open’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with PAX through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow it onTwitter andInstagram.

• New Paper: Regulating Political Activity of Civil Society -- A look at 4 EU countries

  A comparative analysis of regulation of civil society organisations’ ‘political activity’ and international funding in Ireland, Netherlands, Germany and Finland. Written by CIVICUS, Irish Council for Civil Liberties, with support from The Community Foundation for Ireland

  This paper provides a comparative assessment of how the “political activities” of civil society organisations are regulated in Ireland and three other European Union member states. This paper focuses particularly on organisations, such as human rights organisations, which carry out public advocacy activities and rely on international sources for a substantial portion of their funding.

  All four countries are rated as “open” by the CIVICUS Monitor, a global platform which tracks respect for civic space in 196 countries. These four  european countries are also well known for their strong promotion of civil society, human rights and democratic freedoms through their foreign policy and international development cooperation on programmes. 

  Following a brief outline of key international and regional norms, the paper outlines relevant aspects of domestic regulatory systems in Netherlands, Germany and Finland. A final section sets out what Ireland could learn from these examples, with a view to reforming its laws and policies governing “political activities” and foreign funding of civil society organisations.

  Download Paper

• Open Letter to the President of the Republic of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenka

  Dear Mr. President

  We, 48 undersigned organizations from 24 countries, strongly condemn the continuing wave of detentions and harassment of peaceful protesters, journalists, human rights defenders, civil society activists, anarchists and opposition party members in Belarus.

• POLAND: ‘Abortion rights will inevitably be at the forefront of this year’s International Women’s Day’

  CIVICUS speaks about the upcoming International Women’s Day and Polish civil society’s role in advancing women’s rights with the team of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR).

  Founded in 1989 by the members of the Helsinki Committee in Poland, the HFHR is a civil society organisation (CSO) that seeks to promote the development of a culture based on respect for freedom and human rights in Poland and abroad. Since 2007 it has had consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

   

  What role has Polish civil society played in advocating for abortion rights, both before and during the pandemic?

  Polish civil society has advocated for abortion rights for almost 30 years. Jointly with other CSOs, HFHR has continuously monitored the implementation of the legal provisions of the Abortion Act and represented women who were denied access to abortions they were entitled to.

  One such case was P. and S. v. Poland, which led to a decision by the European Court of Human Rights that declared Poland responsible for improperly hindering access to abortion by a 14-year-old girl. Polish laws allow abortion if the pregnancy is the consequence of a crime, and in 2008 P. was given a public attestation that authorised her to get an abortion due to her age, as sexual intercourse with minors under 15 is codified as a crime. But doctors in two hospitals refused to provide the abortion, and they even forced her to speak to a priest and disclosed her case to the media, as a result of which she was harassed by anti-abortion activists. They got the police involved and removed her from her mother’s custody. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Poland had violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans ‘inhuman or degrading treatment’.

  That was a landmark case and should have been the gateway to a growing recognition of abortion rights. However, the situation only got increasingly worse. Despite civil society opposition, further restrictions were imposed on access to legal abortion. In October 2020, while we were in the middle of the pandemic, a Constitutional Tribunal judgement made access to abortion almost impossible in practice. 

  Civil society played a crucial role in mobilising in protest against the judgement. And thanks to the engagement of CSOs such as the Federation for Women and Family Planning and Abortion Dream Team, women who required access to abortion received information, legal assistance and other forms of help.

  But as a reaction to these protests and acts of resistance, the environment for women’s rights activism deteriorated. Shortly after the protests, at least seven women’s rights and human rights CSOs advocating for sexual and reproductive rights were harassed and threatened and their activists targeted with disinformation campaigns from the government and government-aligned media. Several activists who participated in protests were detained and some face politically motivated criminal charges, including for allegedly breaking pandemic rules.

  How has the pandemic impacted on your work?

  HFHR is the oldest and largest human rights CSO in Poland. We provide legal assistance to victims of human rights abuses, monitor legal changes affecting human rights and participate in public discussion about the protection of human rights. We focus on the situation in Poland, but also on some other countries in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

  The COVID-19 pandemic heavily impacted on our work. For obvious reasons, many of our in-person meetings were cancelled and we could not get people together. To substitute for this, we shifted online and enhanced our presence on social media. We used it to get in touch directly with our supporters. This allowed us to broaden our audience.

  The pandemic also brought new and serious challenges to human rights, including but not only in the area of healthcare. HFHR has monitored pandemic-related legal developments, including restrictions on the right to peaceful assembly. We analysed the impact of the pandemic on human rights protections and made recommendations about this, and intervened in a number of cases in which pandemic-related restrictions on fundamental rights were imposed that were disproportionate and unconstitutional, such as in cases involving restrictions on the rights of defendants in criminal proceedings.

  How is civil society advocating for gender equality and how are the authorities responding?

  The Polish government has not adopted a comprehensive strategy for promoting gender equality. Further, the state’s institutional system to protect equal treatment has been severely weakened. Not only is the state doing nothing – it is also not very welcoming of civil society initiatives on the matter. 

  CSOs continue working for gender equality through training activities, programmes and initiatives involving key stakeholders – for instance, by providing school training sessions on equal treatment. But instead of supporting these efforts, parliament recently adopted changes to the Education System Act that will significantly limit the access of CSOs to schools and educational facilities. The law has not come into force yet and has just been vetoed by the president.

  The International Women’s Day theme for 2022 is #BreakTheBias. How are you organising around it in the communities you work with?

  We think the fact that it is now almost impossible to access abortion is one of the key issues hindering women’s rights in Poland. Sexual and reproductive rights will inevitably be at the forefront of IWD in Poland this year, and this will surely remain one of the priority topics for HFHR in upcoming years.

  Civic space in Poland is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@hfhrpl on Twitter.

• POLAND: ‘If lots of tiny actions are performed by many people, we can achieve big things’

  CIVICUS speaks with Magdalena Demczak, co-founder and director of Akcja Menstruacja (Menstrual Action), about the work her organisation is currently doing to help Ukrainian refugees.

  Menstrual Action is the first Polish civil society organisation (CSO) aimed at supporting people experiencing menstrual poverty. It is estimated that limited access to menstrual products, most often for economic reasons but also due to lack of adequate hygiene conditions or education affects around 500,000 people in Poland.

  What made you decide to start helping refugees?

  What made us decide to start helping refugees was the fact that we felt so helpless when watching the news, that we felt the need to help in any way we could.

  At the beginning it was very hard for us to plan our actions because we had no idea what would happen. We were all a bit in shock at such an extraordinary situation. But we took immediate action: we supported checkpoints, raised funds and collected products that were sent to Ukraine directly, and also to the Polish-Ukrainian border. We also supported local Polish families who are hosting Ukrainian families and sites across Poland where Ukrainian refugees can seek information and legal assistance. In these locations there are people who speak Ukrainian and provide translation services.

  What are the key needs you are seeing among refugees?

  People escaping war in Ukraine are arriving in Poland with their hands empty. Right now, refugees are mostly women and their children carrying small bags, since men aged 18 to 60 are banned from leaving: they must stay to defend their country. They are not bringing much – they are just trying to escape, so all they typically have is some clothes, documents and essential medicine.

  They obviously need all kinds of things. First of all, they need shelter and transportation to get there. They also need food, clothing and baby products, among other things. As women make up a large proportion of refugees, there is also a lot of need for all kinds of feminine-care products. Women’s biological cycles – from periods to pregnancies – don’t stop because of a war. There is a massive need for period products, especially menstrual pads, because it’s very easy to forget all about pads when a war erupts and you must flee your country.

  How is Polish civil society, and Menstrual Action more specifically, working to help refugees?

  Polish civil society, and individual Polish citizens, are doing amazing things. There are lines after lines of cars at the border to pick anyone in need of transportation, willing to take them to any Polish city, free of charge of course. Hundreds of thousands are giving out rooms in their homes to Ukrainian refugees, for free and for as long as needed. There are so many amazing people and organisations out there helping refugees.

  Unfortunately, we are aware that the war in Ukraine may last a long time and even after it ends, it will take time to rebuild cities so that people can come back. This means refugees may have to stay in Poland for quite a bit. So a more systemic approach is needed.

  Since the early days, Menstrual Action has been shipping sanitary products to refugees; a few days ago, for instance, our volunteers brought 180 kilograms of sanitary pads to the Polish-Ukrainian border. Quite a few of our volunteers are now working directly at the border, not because we sent them but because they chose to go.

  But we are now ready to undertake more long-term actions. We have talked to local manufacturers of period products to buy directly from them, and we will distribute these products in various locations and communities, as well as to CSOs working with refugees. While normally we would focus on period poverty, in such an extraordinary situation we are also supporting wider groups of refugees by providing adult diapers and other sanitary products such as toilet paper.

  As an organisation, we have the capacity to provide sanitary and menstrual products. Our contribution saves other charities money that they can better spend on other humanitarian needs. Sending goods to the border can be a logistics nightmare, so if by shipping them ourselves we can save others a significant amount of money they can invest elsewhere, we feel that our work is done.

  The actions of any specific organisation will always be too small to fulfil the needs of millions of people fleeing a war. But if lots of tiny actions are performed by many people, I believe we can achieve big things.

  Have your existing capacities and resources from your ongoing work proved useful?

  Our network has proved vital. We have intensively used our connections with menstrual product manufacturers, suppliers and other charities. We regularly support hundreds of Polish schools with menstrual products, but this year we were able to send out those packages earlier than usual to make room in our warehouses and gather menstrual products to be distributed among Ukrainian refuge centres around Poland.

  Before the crisis, we started a project called Pad Sharing, which connects donors with people who need menstrual products. If you are poor and having your period, and you had to choose between food and pads, you would get food, right? So we partnered with Rossmann drugstore, put up a form for people in need to enter their name, an address to locate the closest Rossmann store, an email address and the required product and amount. We receive the form and forward it to a donor who gets the list of products needed and does the shopping. When they are done, the person in need gets a call that their order is ready for pick-up at the Rossmann drugstore of their choice. We are just intermediaries and the person who needs help remains anonymous during the whole process. We have so far supported 2,200 people this way.

  This project became vital in the current situation. We translated the Pad Sharing form into Ukrainian and shared it online. We emphasised that, due to the extraordinary situation, people can request anything from the pharmacy, not just menstrual products. We don’t provide medicine but can refer them to other organisations that do. We are aware of refugees’ needs, and so are our donors.

  Have you seen any evidence of non-white refugees being treated differently?

  I’ve seen many clips of Black people waiting at the border and read several allegations that some were refused entry into Poland. But I’m a white woman who currently isn’t even living in Poland but in the UK, so I’m extra-privileged. I didn’t cross the border, I wasn’t there and I don’t pretend to speak for non-white people or to know about their personal experiences.

  Some people have pointed out that the current attitude towards Ukrainian refugees differs from how other refugees have been treated, including Afghan refugees trying to cross to Poland from the Belarusian border. We are aware that the reaction may have been different, but Menstrual Action did help Afghan refugees at the time – we contacted and connected various organisations to help Afghan refugees.

  There is a Polish organisation called Black Is Polish, established by Black Polish women from various backgrounds, which is helping Black people and other people of colour escape Ukraine. There’s been a lot of disinformation on social media. For instance, it has been said that only people with Ukrainian passports could cross the border. This is not correct: anyone can seek refuge in Poland. This disinformation was very harmful to people of colour trying to escape Ukraine.

  I won’t deny we Eastern Europeans have many racism issues, but I wouldn’t want this to detract from the biggest issue we currently face: war in Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian regime. There is a disinformation war going on. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Relations has even said that Russia didn’t invade Ukraine. Russian-funded trolls are trying to instrumentalise racist incidents that have indeed happened on the border to put Ukraine on the ‘bad side’ and to justify the Putin regime and its war of aggression.

  What could people internationally be doing to help?

  The first thing they should do is follow the news through reputable sources. They must be aware of circulating disinformation and fake news. Before clicking ‘retweet’, ‘like’ or ‘subscribe’, you must think why you are getting this piece of news, where it is coming from, what the intentions are behind it and who would benefit if you spread it. Would it be beneficial for struggling people, or would it benefit the Putin regime? The international community must stay aware and cautious because it’s very easy to get lost in the news if you live far away from Ukraine.

  If you have money to donate, you should support legitimate organisations helping people inside Ukraine who cannot escape and those who chose to remain there to fight for their country. We still have an international donations systems to receive donations from anywhere around the world.

  People in other global regions are not taught a lot about the history of the Soviet Union, its beginnings and its end, and the establishment of countries such as Ukraine and Belarus. So if you can, try to learn this part of history and to understand why this part of the world looks the way it does. It’s very important to understand how the past influences the present and to make sure the worst of history does not repeat itself.

  Civic space in Poland is rated ‘obstructed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with Akcja Menstruacja through itswebsite andFacebook andInstagram pages. 

• POLAND: ‘In reaction to conservative backlash, public support for LGBTQI+ rights is on the rise’

  

  CIVICUS speaks about 2023 Pride and Polish LGBTQI+ rights organisations’ response to the conservative backlash against LGBTQI+ rights with Annamaria Linczowska, advocacy and litigation officer at Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH).

  Founded 2001, KPH is a Polish LGBTQI+ civil society organisation (CSO) working to counter violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity through political, social and legal advocacy.

   

• POLAND: ‘People are more understanding and supportive of LGBTQI+ issues than politicians’

   

  Following our 2019special report on anti-rights groups and civil society responses, we are interviewing civil society activists and leaders about their experiences in facing anti-rights backlash and their strategies to strengthen progressive narratives and civil society responses. CIVICUS speaks about recently established ‘LGBT-free zones’ in Poland with Bart Staszewski, a young LGBTQI+ activist. Bart works as a freelance videographer for various civil society organisations and is a co-founder and board member of the Lublin Equality March Association (LEMA), an organisation that he defines as ‘an LGBTI NGO inside the LGBT-free zone’. For the past eight years, Bart has also taken part in the struggle for marriage equality led by theLove does not Exclude Association.

  

  Photo by Przemyslaw Stefaniak

  What challenges do the LGBTQI+ community and its organisations face in Poland?

  I think the main problem is homophobia, which is growing due to the regressive government at all levels, from the national level to the very local. Governments at these different levels are using the same hate speech that we have already seen in Russia, in exactly the same wording, for example accusing LGBTQI+ organisations of disseminating ‘homo-propaganda’. We are also facing growing homophobia on public TV, which disseminates what are basically ‘fake news’ stories about us. They have even used our Facebook posts against us. For instance, during the campaign for parliamentary elections in 2019, some of us were not so positive about a candidate who happened to be the only gay candidate and wrote about it on Facebook. Quotes from our Facebook posts were then used in a campaign against this candidate, to show that even gay activists opposed him.

  They also produced a documentary, ‘Invasion’, which stated that the Polish LGBTQI+ movement is sponsored by the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros, who according to them is paying people to attend Pride events; this is why, according to them, so many people are attending our events. They filmed this thing by having people pose as volunteers with LGBTQI+ civil society organisations (CSOs) and bring a spy camera into Pride marches. According to Polish law, CSO volunteers have to get paid a small fee, somewhere between €5 and €8, when travelling outside the city. They used this to create a story that LGBTQI+ organisations are bribing people into attending Pride marches. They do this because while homophobia is on the rise, the LGBTQI+ movement is also growing, and our events are in fact getting the biggest turnout ever, so they are looking into new ways to defame us, including by saying that people are in it for the money.

  But it is not just the government and the state media. The LGBTQI+ movement is not as afraid of the government as we are of anti-rights organisations like Ordo Iuris, a right-wing legal foundation that offers legal assistance to municipalities that are curtailing LGBTQI+ rights. They are a think tank for anti-LGBTQI+ rights and anti-women’s rights policies, supporting reinforcing marriage laws as pertaining to the union of a man and a woman, total abortion bans and divorce bans. This group is quite well connected to the government; for instance, one of its prominent members was Poland’s Secretary of State under the previous right-wing government. They are also connected to Agenda Europe, a pan-European, Christian fundamentalist network that seeks to restore ‘natural order’ and that offers an umbrella for many right-wing organisations across Europe. They say they receive no funding from the government, but they are very well funded.

  They have people who teach in schools and universities and who are running a series of campaigns against us. All of their advocacy and campaigns have turned us into easy targets. Many activists, including myself, have received death threats for denouncing homophobia. Last year the police raided the home of a woman who had created rainbow marriage stickers, like it was such a big deal. I am getting used to the idea and getting ready for something like this to happen to me too. The government has unleashed this with its homophobic rhetoric but now does not take responsibility for its consequences.

  What are the so-called LGBT-free zones, and how are they impacting on the LGBTQI+ community?

  A third of Polish municipalities have adopted resolutions ‘against LGBT propaganda’ which are essentially unwelcoming of LGBTQI+ people and practices – although the way they put it, it is as if being an LGBTQI+ person was some ‘foreign ideology’. As a result, these municipalities have become so-called ‘LGBT-free zones’. Local governments in these municipalities have issued non-binding resolutions in which they pledge to refrain from taking any action to encourage tolerance of LGBTQI+ people. While they do not have material implications in practice, their symbolic effect is huge, as they stigmatise LGBTQI+ people in a way that legitimises further attacks against us.

  In other words, ‘LGBT-free zones’ are the formalisation of homophobia, the institutionalisation of prejudice. They confirm homophobes in their beliefs and encourage them to turn them into action. The hooligans who throw stones at us during Pride marches every year will now feel empowered because the law now tells them that they are ‘protecting Christian values against homo-propaganda and ideology’. Families that don't accept their LGBTQI+ kids will now feel more confident about their hateful decisions. Teachers will feel uncomfortable when teaching content on LGBTQI+ issues in schools, now that they know that local politicians are against it – and they are the ones who make decisions on school funding. Some teachers have even asked us if they are allowed to teach anything at all related to LGBTQI+ issues after the new policies were put in place.

  An increasing number of citizens are more confident than ever that homophobia is good and something to be proud of. The idea that is being disseminated is that there is something wrong with LGBTQI+ people and you’d better be careful around them. Homophobic billboards have gone up in major cities across Poland, accusing homosexuals of molesting kids, associating them with paedophilia.

  Can you tell us about your campaign to challenge ‘LGBT-free zones’?

  Last year, as local governments were declaring ‘LGBT-free zones’ one after the other, I started thinking about how else to call attention to this given that the media was definitely not interested in homophobia as a problem. Our first campaign was in Lubin, where we created a billboard campaign called ‘Love is Love’. While it received some attention, in the end nothing changed and more ‘LGBT-free zones’ were introduced. I thought we needed to try something new. I wondered what I could do to highlight this problem. Along with my boyfriend we came up with the idea to order signs to place in ‘LGBT-free zones’, but then thought that the signs would not be enough: we needed human stories behind them, we needed to show the real people behind this struggle and inside these zones.

  So I came up with another, very simple idea. I asked LGBTQI+ individuals that I knew in municipalities that had been declared ‘LGBT-free zones’ to participate in the project. It was key that the participants were from those areas, either still living there or – if we could not find any LGBTQI+ resident – that they had at least grown up there. I asked them if I could take a few photos of them with the signs, and honestly, I initially thought that this would be just an art project, something for an exhibition. I took the first photos of LGBTQI+ people standing behind the ‘LGBT-free zone’ signposts in December 2019. I asked photographers and art people to participate in the project, but nobody seemed to be interested; they told me that it was repetitive and ‘nothing new’. In December the European Parliament voted in favour of a resolution to condemn Poland’s ‘LGBT-free zones’ and also the Polish Ombudsman made declarations about it. It was already January 2020 and I felt that nobody was interested in my project so I just uploaded some photos to Facebook page, and then created a webpage, in the hope of triggering some debate in Poland. I never imagined it would lead to a worldwide response.

  Did you get any feedback from the people you photographed regarding the ways in which anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric and policies are affecting their lives?

  Initial reactions depended a lot on how much interest in politics people had. Some of them had not really thought about the amount of homophobia they had been coexisting with. One of my project’s participants, Kate, who was about 18 years old, first told me she did not feel anything had changed after her town had been declared an ‘LGBT-free zone’. But then I asked her how she felt in the small city that she lived in: could she hold hands with her girlfriend, go to a dance with her and dance together as a couple? And she said she could definitely not; she could not even imagine herself going out onto the street with her girlfriend. She was so deeply submerged in homophobia that she didn’t even notice it was happening.

  Homophobia can be invisible, but statistics do not lie. Many young people are committing suicide, and two-thirds of them are LGBTQI+ people. Many members of the LGBTQI+ community have suicidal thoughts and depression. Some people are being kicked out of their homes and families for being gay; their own parents view them as diseased. And all of this is happening in silence. The people behind the hate campaigns against us would never know about it. 

  Another person who joined my project later spoke to a foreign journalist that I put her in contact with, and just a week later she got death threats over Twitter and Facebook, because the name of the village she lives in appeared in the news report. Now people want to burn her house down. Such is the severity of hate.

  As the ‘LGBT-free zone’ campaign took off, several politicians from right-wing parties, as well as Ordo Iuris, appear to have notified the Prosecutor’s Office that by running it I have committed a criminal offence, but I have not yet received any official notification. For the time being, it seems that they are focused on preparing lawsuits against the Atlas of Hate, a map of anti-LGBTQI+ government resolutions in Poland put together by other LGBTQI+ activists.

  What kind of support from the international community and from civil society around the world do Polish LGBTQI+ activists need?

  Of course financial support is something that we always need, because right-wing CSOs are quite well funded, and we are not. But besides funding, we also need to put pressure on our government and the European Union (EU). European countries that have already enshrined LGBTQI+ rights and equality should support us loudly rather than quietly. This is the only thing that is working with this government. They are scared of the EU and of what other countries will say. So we need diplomacy where ambassadors tell the Polish government that they will lose funding if Poland carries on in this way. They need to constantly ask the Polish government about this and put pressure on them.

  We need a well-organised campaign. People can create petitions – I have seen quite a few, and it was a big surprise to me that many of them were launched by private individuals in France and Germany – but after one week, they are dead. In France, 10 CSOs sent a letter to President Macron to ask him to speak up loudly against ‘LGBT-free zones’ during his visit to Poland. But he didn’t say a word about ‘LGBT-free zones’ or the situation of LGBTQI+ people. Maybe he said something in private, but not in front of the media. We need big CSOs to do something about this.

  Fortunately, we are already growing in solidarity. Last year we had the biggest turnout at a Pride march in Poland. My association conducted a survey that showed that even when homophobia is at its highest in Poland, people are more supportive than ever and are marching for equality and in support of same-sex civil unions. Our biggest problem is with the politicians and not the citizens. People have the internet, they have HBO and Netflix, they are more understanding and supportive than politicians. Things are slowly changing for the best, and we need to make sure they keep going that way. But we need international support to do so, or we will end up like Hungary or like Russia in the hands of Vladimir Putin.

  Civic space in Poland is rated as ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Get in touch with the Lublin Equality March Association through itswebsite andFacebook page, or follow@marszlublin and@BartStaszewski on Twitter.

   

• POLAND: ‘right-wing backlash is just one side of the coin, the other being the active mobilisation of rights-oriented civil society’

  CIVICUS speaks with Krzysztof Śmiszek, a member of the Polish Parliament and chair of the Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBTI Rights, the first of its kind in Poland, about the situation of LGBTQI+ rights and activist responses to the anti-rights backlash.

  Before entering politics in 2019, Krzysztof had been an activist for almost 20 years. He is also a member of Justice and Human Rights Committee, the European Union Committee and the Polish delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of theCouncil of Europe.

  What is the situation of LGBTQI+ rights in Poland?

  The situation for the LGBTQI+ community is really hard and complicated. In the last six years there wasn’t any progress at the legislative level so there are plenty of issues that remain unsolved, such as same-sex marriage, special legal procedures for the recognition of trans people’s identities and the prosecution of homophobic speech and hate crimes. 

  In 2015 the reins of Poland were taken over by a right-wing government and, in my opinion, the government is now using racism, xenophobia and homophobia to divide society. Since 2015 we have witnessed a rise in homophobic and transphobic speech as well as intolerant actions aimed at the LGBTQI+ community. The current government is not going to pass any legislation to make the lives of LGBTQI+ people easier.

  I believe that the LGBTQI+ community has become a scapegoat: it is them that the government blames for any problem. A few years ago, it was refugees who played this part, and now they are also being targeted once again. The government also used to blame women’s rights organisations for everything, and now the LGBTQI+ community is being accused of the worse. 

  These are very hard times for the LGBTQI+ community in Poland, because whenever you tune in public TV, read the newspaper, or navigate government websites, you see it being used as a scapegoat. We are witnessing more and more hate crimes and incidents around Poland. Last year we had presidential election and the current president campaigned on an extremely ideological homophobic platform, and he won, which means that politicians and the government now believe that homophobic and transphobic discourse brings popularity. 

  Are there any reasons for optimism in such a bleak context?

  There surely are, because right-wing backlash is just one side of the coin, the other being the active mobilisation of rights-oriented civil society. After six years of witnessing hate speech, people who normally would not have been interested in LGBTQI+ issues have started to care. Civil society is much more progressive and open than the politicians in power. As an activist I see a huge energy that goes beyond the big cities in Poland: there are formal and informal initiatives springing up everywhere.

  Although we are going through hard times, the strong civil society reaction against the government’s intolerance and homophobic discourse and agenda makes me feel optimistic. This year we had around 20 Pride events throughout the country. There is positive mobilisation within society, compared to the situation 20 years ago, when I first became an activist.

  So the situation is more complex than you would think: while Poland does have its homophobic side, with organisations fuelled with a lot of money coming from the right wing, there is also a big movement supporting LGBTQI+ organisations and activists with money, time, energy and solidarity.

  LGBTQI+ activism is using a wide range of tactics, from perfectly designed social media awareness campaigns including short movies about the normal lives of rainbow families to building connections with potential allies, even unlikely ones. A while ago an organisation working against homophobia allied with progressive Catholics, which was really smart because Poland is still regarded as a majority Catholic country. It was very wise to involve someone considered as ‘the enemy’ in the movement. There are also ongoing collaborations with politicians. 

  All the while the government spreads hate, younger generations, people between 18 and 29 years old, are increasingly normalising LGBTQI+ rights and actively and fully supporting the LGBTQI+ agenda. Of course, this does not mean that all young people are gay-friendly: as everyone else, they are divided between openness to European values and the intolerance of the radical right wing.

  What is the Intergroup on LGBTI Rights, what are its goals and priorities, and what work does it do?

  The Intergroup on LGBTI Rights includes members of different parties represented in Parliament who meet and discuss about LGBTQI+ issues. When I organise the group meetings, I perceive the interest of civil society: they want to participate and have contact with politicians. As an activist and now a politician, I view this as the wisest way to ensure progress on our agenda because having activists put pressure on politicians is something that actually works.

  One of our priorities is making Parliament a safe place for the LGBTQI+ community. We believe that Parliament belongs to voters, and as LGBTQI+ people are voters, they have the full right to be present in Parliament and have contact with politicians.

  The main challenge the Intergroup faces is to listen to the worries of the LGBTQI+ community and translate them into legislative proposals. And whenever there is a practical problem with the administration or related to action by public authorities, we are informed by representatives of the LGBTQI+ community and try to shed light on the issue with the help of the media. Politicians and parliamentarians have the power to bring media attention to specific issues.

  As for our tactics, we organise press conferences and invite government representatives, we collaborate with the European Union and the European Parliament, where there’s also an LGBTQI+ group, we keep in touch with international partners and we try to make international audiences aware of what is going on in Poland. For example, when facing proposals to declare ‘LGBT-free zones’ throughout Poland, we brought it to the attention of the European Council and showed it proof that the Polish authorities were discriminating against the LGBTQI+ community. This is something that as politicians we are able to do.

  Is that why you decided to enter politics? Having had experience as both an activist and a legislator, do you think you have been able to tackle the same problem from different angles?

  As an activist I was the one knocking on politicians’ doors and it was their choice to be open to my arguments or not. After doing this for 20 years I thought ‘enough is enough’ and decided that I should now be the one opening doors for LGBTQI+ activists. That was my motivation to get into Parliament, along with the fact that I just did not agree with what was going on in Poland in terms of respect for fundamental human rights, under attack by right-wing politicians.

  I belong to The Left, a centre-left political coalition that was founded to compete in the 2019 parliamentary election. Many of my friends who were also elected to Parliament are now recruiting people from civil society. As a result, now there are feminists who used to work at feminist civil society organisations, people who were involved in ecological movements and people like me, coming from the LGBTQI+ movement, who are playing a role in political institutions. All of us are tired of being just activists, and are now translating our experiences into the language of Parliament.

  Civic space in Poland is rated ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.
  Follow@K_Smiszek onTwitter. 

• POLAND: ‘The crisis of democracy and human rights will deepen’

  CIVICUS speaks with Małgorzata Szuleka about Poland’s recent presidential elections, held under the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ruling party’s use of anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric to mobilise its electorate. Małgorzata is a lawyer at the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (HFHR) Poland, one of the largest and oldest human rights organisations in Poland and the region. HFHR Poland represents victims of human rights abuses in court proceedings, conducts research and monitors human rights violations. Since 2015 it has actively monitored the increasing rule of law violations in Poland. It works with partners in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the European Union (EU) and the USA.

  

  After rescheduling, the Polish elections were held in June and July 2020. What was civil society’s position on having an election during the COVID-19 pandemic?

  The elections were originally scheduled for May 2020 and organising them posed a huge legal problem because there was no legal mechanism to postpone them. The only way to reschedule them was to announce a state of emergency, as provided for by the constitution. No elections may be organised during a state of emergency or within the next 90 days of it ending. From a constitutional perspective, an official declaration that the country was experiencing an epidemic would give the government the prerogative to introduce the state of emergency. This would automatically extend the term of office of the president until after regular elections could be scheduled, once the epidemic was over. However, the government did not follow this process. The elections were rescheduled and the run-off vote between the two leading candidates was held on 12 July 2020 on very dubious legal grounds. However, this wasn’t questioned by neither the government majority, nor the opposition.

  Civil society organisations (CSOs) first pushed the government to organise the elections in a proper way, urging it to announce a state of emergency. Once this didn’t happen, CSOs tried to raise the issue of international monitoring, mainly in terms of fairness and financing of the campaign. The problem was that the election was expected to be free but not fair. Public media was biased towards the candidate supported by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, President Andrzej Duda, and extremely critical and unprofessional towards any opposition candidate. Even though no state of emergency had been declared, many fundamental rights such as the freedoms of assembly and access to information were limited. These were major concerns.

  There was also the problem of the Supreme Court confirming the validity of the elections. On 12 July, President Duda was re-elected for a second term by a tight margin. He received 51 per cent of the vote while the opposition Civic Coalition contender received 49 per cent. Turnout was barely above 68 per cent, and more than 5,800 complaints were submitted regarding irregularities in the process. The Supreme Court ruled that 92 of those complaints were justified but had not influenced the final result, so it declared the results valid. Sadly, this decision completely ignored the problem of the constitutional and legal grounds for organising the elections in the first place.

  Were measures adopted to protect people during the campaign and voting process? Did the pandemic have any impact on turnout?

  The organisation of the campaign involved sanitary measures regarding social distancing and mask use. But these provisions were not fully respected on both sides. For campaigning purposes, the government loosened some restrictions; for example, even though face mask use was mandatory, pictures were published of the prime minister not wearing one in public. Also of concern was the fact that many public authorities engaged in political campaigning alongside President Duda. Public institutions were instrumentalised by ruling politicians. The government security centre, responsible for coordination and information in case of natural calamities or danger, sent out mass text messages on election day. Every voter received a message that said that people over 60 years old, pregnant women and people with disabilities could vote without waiting in line. This might have been used to mobilise the core electorate of the ruling party. This is just one example, but it could be an indication of the role played by official institutions to tilt the playing field in favour of the PiS party.

  Was media coverage during the election fair?

  Public media coverage was absolutely unfair. The rest of the coverage, mainly by private media, was relatively good; it definitely was not as bad as public media coverage, which was used for propaganda and enhanced President Duda’s campaign.

  One of elections complaints brought to the Supreme Court specifically referred to media coverage. It stated that public television supported the incumbent while systematically discrediting his rival, and that public institutions and officials repeatedly violated correct conduct by supporting only one of the candidates. But the problem with the entire institution of election complaints is that you need to prove not only that the alleged irregularity happened, but also that it had an impact on the election results. In presidential elections such as this one, this is very difficult to prove. Additionally, the electoral code doesn’t regulate the work of the media, so it’s hard to make the legal claim that the media should operate differently. And if you do, it is also difficult to prove that particular coverage of a particular candidate, or the lack of coverage, resulted in a particular election result. We can intuitively assume this, particularly in view of such tight results, but it is very difficult to create a solid legal case.

  What does President Duda’s re-election mean for democracy and human rights in Poland?

  It is a continuation of a very worrying trend. Out of all possible campaign issues, President Duda chose to focus on stoking homophobia. The campaign took place in a context of a years-long backsliding of the rule of law, in the middle of a crisis of relations between Poland and the EU, during a huge healthcare challenge and on the verge of an economic crisis that will affect everyone in Poland. But none of these issues were the focus of the political campaign and public discussion. President Duda mainly spoke about LGBTQI+ people posing a threat to our Christian traditional heritage, equating homosexuality with paedophilia. The issue was narrowed down to this divisive, outrageous and dehumanising narrative by the PiS party. It was a very pragmatic move from PiS spin doctors because it mobilised the very core of the electorate. All of a sudden LGBTQI+ groups and communities became the scapegoat for everything that is wrong in Poland. It is outrageous how much this issue was politicised and how it was used to dehumanise this minority group. It was painful and heartbreaking to watch.

  And the campaign was far from the end of it. President Duda is just a representative of the ruling PiS party, so he will say whatever he needs to keep them aligned. This is just a matter of calculation and internal power struggles. In June, the PiS party targeted LGBTQI+ people. In July, it targeted victims of domestic violence by starting discussion on withdrawing from the Istanbul Convention. In August, it proposed to register CSOs that are financed from abroad. Now I don’t know who is going to be their next enemy. It’s not only about being homophobic but rather about this governing majority always needing an enemy to confront or blame.

  We just entered a phase in which there will be no elections for the next three years so we can expect a huge consolidation of power and the government doing everything that it dreams of, such as creating pressure on CSOs, further polarising the media, targeting specific minority groups and escalating the conflict with the EU. We can expect all of this to happen over the next three years. The only thing that can stop them is pragmatic evaluation about whether this is needed at this time or whether there might be something more important to do. But I think the crisis of democracy and human rights in Poland will deepen.

  Civic space in Poland is rated as ‘narrowed’ by theCIVICUS Monitor.

  Get in touch with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights-Poland through itswebsite orFacebook page, and follow@hfhrpl and@m_szuleka on Twitter.