Human Rights

EU Agency Calls for Embedding Rights Agenda in Border Guard

December 18, 2018

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights has issued an opinion calling for a revision in the regulation governing the new European Border and Coast Guard Agency to strengthen fundamental rights observance, including by performing impact assessments when working with external countries, to mainstream the European rights agenda at the agency.
EU Agency Releases Guide on Unlawful Profiling

December 17, 2018

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights has published a Europe-wide guide instructing law enforcement officials, including border guards, how to avoid “unlawful profiling” on the basis of ethnicity, religion, age, nationality, or gender, including how to observe data protection standards in “computer-based profiling.”
ECtHR: Liability for Posting Hyperlink Violated Speech Rights

December 14, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that Hungarian courts failed to respect the free expression rights of a media company they found liable for defamation over a hyperlink the company posted directing readers to a video containing defamatory content, finding that liability for the use of hyperlinks could have a chilling effect on online free speech.
Agency Calls for Policies Countering Racism Across EU

December 13, 2018

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights recently published a report warning that racism against people of African descent is “pervasive” and “entrenched” throughout the EU, pushing for “effective and targeted” policies in the EU member states to end discrimination, including racial profiling by government authorities.
ECtHR: Russia Engaged in Suppression of LGBT Assembly Rights

December 13, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently issued a decision concluding that the Russian government had engaged in the “systemic” suppression of freedom of assembly rights and anti-discrimination rights by refusing to approve requests of groups seeking to hold LGBT rallies in the country.
ECtHR Finds Russian Rights Violations Against Opposition Leader

December 07, 2018

In a ruling in November, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that the Russian government had violated the rights to liberty, fair trial, and assembly of political opposition leader Aleksey Navalnyy by repeatedly arresting him while he led peaceful public demonstrations.
ECtHR: Turkey Failed to Weigh Privacy in “Hate Speech” Case

December 07, 2018

In an October ruling, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that the Turkish courts had not sufficiently weighed the privacy rights of two professors when they found that insults and threats made against these academics in various media over a report on minority rights must be protected as freedom of the press.
Article: ECtHR Shows Sensitivity About National Sovereignty

December 07, 2018

Erik Voeten of The Washington Post argues that an October European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruling upholding an Austrian court’s conviction of a woman for “blasphemy” regarding the Islamic prophet Muhammed simply shows the “embattled” ECtHR is “extremely reluctant to interfere with state laws on sensitive domestic issues.”
ECtHR Upholds Judgments Against Countries on CIA Renditions

December 07, 2018

AFP reports that the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) recently rejected an appeal from Lithuania and Romania arguing they were not responsible for alleged rights violations related to US Central Intelligence Agency renditions and interrogations of suspected terrorists within their territories.
Timpf: EU Rulebook Trivializes Real Attempts to Counter Sexism

December 07, 2018

According to Katherine Timpf of National Review, EU efforts, through a new translator rulebook on “Gender Neutral Language in the European Parliament,” to suppress the use of words like “mankind” and “manpower” in favor of more gender-inclusive terms could trivialize attempts to counter actual issues of sexism in society.