EU Court of Human Rights goes right off the rails on Climate Change

 

Switzerland’s climate inaction violated

human rights, historic court ruling says

By Gloria Dickie, Kate Abnett and Christian Levaux  Reuters

Posted April 9, 2024 9:13 am

 Updated April 9, 2024 6:55 pm

 4 min read

Europe’s top human rights court ruled on Tuesday that the Swiss government had violated the human rights of its citizens by failing to do enough to combat climate change, in a decision that will set a precedent for future climate lawsuits.

The European Court of Human Rights’s ruling, in favor of the more than 2,000 Swiss women who brought the case, is expected to resonate in court decisions across Europe and beyond, and to embolden more communities to bring climate cases against governments.

But in a sign of the complexities of the growing wave of climate litigation, the court (ECtHR) rejected two other climate-related cases on procedural grounds. One of these was brought by a group of six Portuguese young people against 32 European governments and another by a former mayor of a low-lying French coastal town.

The Swiss women, known as KlimaSeniorinnen and aged over 64, said their government’s climate inaction put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. They argued their age and gender made them particularly vulnerable to such climate change impacts.

In her ruling, Court President Siofra O’Leary said the Swiss government had failed to comply with its own targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and had failed to set a national carbon budget.

“It is clear that future generations are likely to bear an increasingly severe burden of the consequences of present failures and omissions to combat climate change,” O’Leary said.

The daft judge doesn't know enough about climate change to realize that there is absolutely nothing that Switzerland can do to alter its own climate. Reducing Swiss anthropogenic carbon production to absolute zero would not make a measureable difference in the temperature in the country or the world. It's sheer madness and stupidity to think otherwise. And if they cannot do anything about climate change, how can they be held responsible for it?

One of KlimaSeniorinnen’s leaders, Rosmarie Wydler-Wälti said she was struggling to grasp the full extent of the decision.

“We keep asking our lawyers, ‘Is that right?’. And they tell us ‘it’s the most you could have had. The biggest victory possible’.”

The Swiss Federal Office of Justice, which represented the Swiss government at the court, took note of the ruling.

“Together with the authorities concerned, we will now analyze the extensive judgment and review what measures Switzerland will take in the future,” it said in a statement.

Climate litigation on the rise

The cases before the 17-judge panel in Strasbourg, France, are among the increasing number of climate lawsuits brought by citizens against governments that hinge on human rights law.

In Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled in December that a constitutional challenge brought by 15 youth can go ahead, reversing a lower court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit. Ontario’s Court of Appeal heard arguments in a similar youth-led challenge in January. Both lawsuits allege government inaction on climate change violate the plaintiffs’ constitutional right to a clean environment.

A Montana judge ruled last summer that the state violated constitutional rights by failing to consider climate change when permitting fossil fuel development, setting a legal precedent in the United States. A federal lawsuit is set to go ahead in Oregon.

The verdict in the Swiss case, which cannot be appealed, will have international ripple effects, most directly by establishing a binding legal precedent for all 46 countries that are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights.

It indicates Switzerland has a legal duty to take greater action on reducing emissions.

If Switzerland does not update its policies, further litigation could follow at the national level and courts could issue financial penalties, Lucy Maxwell, co-director of the non-profit Climate Litigation Network, said.

Switzerland has committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030, from 1990 levels. Bern had proposed stronger measures to deliver the goal, but voters rebuffed them in a 2021 referendum as too burdensome.

The verdict could also influence future rulings at the Strasbourg court, which had put six other climate cases on hold pending Tuesday’s decisions.

These include a lawsuit against the Norwegian government that alleges it violated human rights by issuing new licenses for oil and gas exploration in the Barents Sea beyond 2035.

“(It) sets a crucial legally binding precedent serving as a blueprint for how to successfully sue your own government over climate failures,” Ruth Delbaere, legal campaigns director at global civic movement Avaaz, said of the Swiss case’s outcome.

Courts in Australia, Brazil, Peru and South Korea are considering human rights-based climate cases. India’s supreme court held in a ruling last month that citizens have the right to be free from the adverse impacts of climate change.

In the case brought by the Portuguese youngsters, the court ruled that while a state’s greenhouse gas emissions may have an adverse impact on people living outside its borders, it did not justify prosecuting a case across multiple jurisdictions.

It also noted that the young people had not exhausted legal avenues within Portugal’s national courts before coming to the ECtHR.

“I really hoped that we would win against all the countries,” Sofia Oliveira, one of the Portuguese teens, said in a statement.

“But the most important thing is that the Court has said in the Swiss women’s case that governments must cut their emissions more to protect human rights. So, their win is a win for us too and a win for everyone.”

—With files from Global News

A Pyrrhic victory?

Climate change ruling may be counter-productive, UK judge predicts

European Politics > Russophobia - Election Interference; Novichok; Novichok; Polonium-210

..

Russia claims hostile EU report listing ‘factually wrong’ grievances

& demanding more sanctions is attempt at election meddling

This report comes from RT (Russia Today) and may have some inherent bias.

19 Sep, 2021 13:05

© Getty Images / Oleksii Liskonih; (inset) Vladimir Chizhov © Sputnik / Vladimir Astapkovich

A fresh report on EU-Russia relations released by the European Parliament is a futile attempt to influence this weekend's parliamentary elections in the continent's largest country, Moscow’s top envoy to Brussels has alleged.

On Thursday, the bloc's lawmakers approved a document outlining the EU’s relationship with Russia. It was prepared by former Lithuanian PM Andrius Kubilius and passed by a 494 to 103 vote, with 72 MEPs abstaining. It's important to note that setting foreign policy is a function of member states and not parliamentarians in the Belgian capital. 

Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov blasted the report on Sunday, calling it biased, factually wrong and, in his view, aimed at swaying votes in the ongoing parliamentary elections in Russia. If that was the intention, nothing would come out of it, the diplomat predicted, saying that Russian people “are conscious and politically educated enough not to fall for such a move.”

“This entire resolution has this common thread that the government, the president, the parliament are all bad. And there are good democracy-thirsty Russian people, whom the MEPs want to direct toward the light,” he said.

I am certain that many in our country will find this hubris insulting to their intelligence and capacity for independent thinking.

Chizhov believes the adoption of the non-binding resolution was timed to coincide with legislative elections, which Russia is holding this weekend.

The EU report contains a laundry list of grievances it has toward the Russian government, some of which are simply factually untrue, according to the Russian envoy. For example, it states that “the collapse of arms control with Russia (e.g. withdrawals from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Treaty on Open Skies) and the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament…is of great concern for the security of European citizens.”

Russia indeed abandoned the INF Treaty and the Open Skies treaty, but in both cases the US was the party that initiated the situation. Russia and the US significantly reduced their respective nuclear arsenals under the bilateral New START treaty.

However, that agreement was almost scrapped by former American leader Donald Trump and renewed at the last moment by his successor, Joe Biden. The EU report omits those facts, implying that the collapse was Russia’s fault and part of a wider Russian military buildup threatening other European nations, Chizhov highlights.

This is NATO propaganda as they attempt to convince the west that they still have a purpose. 

The MEPs offered a long list of recommendations to the EU and member states on how they should treat Russia, proposing sanctions, the reduction of trade and other measures. Among them was a proposal “not to recognize the Parliament of Russia” after it is sworn in and suspend Moscow from international organizations with parliamentary assemblies, suggesting that the ballot could be “recognized as fraudulent” by the EU. The bloc should also pressure on the country to change its election procedures, the document directed.

The Russian ambassador said such recommendations were clearly directed at meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs. Ironically, the document accused Moscow of conducting hostile political interference in other countries.

For example, RT, together with the Sputnik broadcaster, were accused of promoting the concept of the ‘Russian World’ “in the native languages of the EU Member States” and trying to “rehabilitate Russia’s image in the eyes of the EU population, particularly via the promotion of the Sputnik V vaccine” against Covid-19.

Does this mean the RT and Sputnik should be condemned for not falling in line with the approved narrative of NATO?

Chizhov said he saw a silver lining in the fact that 175 lawmakers refused to support the resolution, indicating that “some MEPs still have reserves of common sense.”

British cops charge third Russian national over dramatic alleged

2018 Salisbury poisoning of spy Skripal & point finger at GRU

21 Sep, 2021 11:54

FILE PHOTO. House of former spy Sergei Skripal, in Salisbury, Britain January 9, 2019.

© Reuters / Peter Nicholls

The British police have named a third person they believe had a part to play in the 2018 poisoning of former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal. London has accused Moscow of being behind an “attempted murder.”

The man, who traveled to the UK on a passport with the name Sergey Fedotov, was charged on Tuesday with conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, causing grievous bodily harm, and the use and possession of a chemical weapon. According to Scotland Yard, the man’s real name is Denis Sergeev.

These are the same accusations leveled at the two previously accused Russian nationals, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Britain believes their real names to be Alexander Mishkin and Anatoliy Chepiga.

According to London, the three men work for the Russian GRU, the country’s foreign military intelligence agency. In March 2018, they were alleged to have come to the UK to smear a military-grade nerve agent on the handle of former GRU officer Skripal’s front door. The poison – later named by London as ‘Novichok’ – caused Skripal and his daughter to fall ill, also affecting police officer Nick Bailey. Another woman, Dawn Sturgess, allegedly died after spraying it on herself, believing it to be a perfume.

While the British authorities initially blamed just two men, the police now say they have evidence that the three were working as a team and met multiple times over their short trip to the UK.

“All three of them have all previously worked with each other on behalf of the Russian state as part of ops carried on outside Russia,” said Dean Haydon, the Metropolitan police’s deputy assistant commissioner. “All three of them are dangerous individuals.”

The new development is also the first time that the police have explicitly blamed the GRU, three years after former British Prime Minister Theresa May pointed the finger at the organization.

Moscow has consistently denied its involvement in the alleged poisoning, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov insisting that the authorities had nothing to do with it. President Vladimir Putin has also claimed that the suspects fingered by London are simply innocent civilians.

Skripal was arrested in Russia in 2004 and was convicted of passing secrets to MI6, the British foreign intelligence service. The double-agent later confessed and cooperated, before being pardoned and sent to the UK as part of a spy swap for ten Russians convicted as part of the so-called illegals program, including the infamous Anna Chapman.

In 2018, Putin dubbed Skripal a “traitor to his country,” accusing some media outlets of talking about him as if he was a human rights defender.

“He is just scum,” the president said.

UK says it will take all possible steps to extradite Skripal suspects,

as Moscow claims London shifting blame for 'Novichok' case

21 Sep, 2021 15:15

A handout picture taken on Wilton Road in Salisbury, west of London on March 4, 2018, and released by the British Metropolitan Police Service in London on September 5, 2018, shows Alexander Petrov (R) and Ruslan Boshirov. © AFP / Metropolitan Police Service

Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, after prosecutors announced they had charged a third suspect over the 2018 incident, Home Secretary Priti Patel said that the government will be "relentless" in pursuing the trio. "Should any of these individuals ever travel outside Russia we will work with our international partners and take every possible step to detain them and extradite them to face justice," she said.

Earlier that day, police said they wanted to bring a case against a man who travelled to the UK under the name Sergey Fedotov for conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, causing grievous bodily harm, and the use and possession of a chemical weapon. Fedotov had been added to the wanted list in addition to two other Russian nationals, known as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, who investigators claim are military intelligence agents who were sent to kill Skripal.

In March 2018, the city of Salisbury, around 80 miles southeast of London, went into lockdown after reports that a deadly Soviet-era nerve agent, Novichok, had been smeared on the handle of Skripal's front door. A former member of Russian military intelligence, he served as a double agent for the UK's intelligence services during the 1990s and 2000s, before moving to Britain in 2010 under a spy swap deal. He and his daughter, Yulia, were found on a park bench having been taken ill, and were admitted to hospital.

Police officer Nick Bailey, who was sent to investigate the Skripals' house, was also hospitalized. Another woman, Dawn Sturgess, later died after reportedly finding a perfume bottle containing the supposed nerve agent and spraying it on herself.

Russia has consistently rejected allegations that there was a state-sponsored effort to kill the Skripals. Responding to the news later on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that "it has been a long time since we dealt with this subject, and I'm not sure why it is resurfacing now," suggesting the allegations are part of a wider geopolitical play.

"For more than two years now, the British authorities have been using the Salisbury incident to deliberately complicate our bilateral relations," she said. "We strongly condemn all attempts by London to blame Moscow for what happened in Salisbury and insist on a professional, objective and impartial investigation of the incident."

"Despite numerous requests from the Russian side and appeals for a responsible joint investigation, London continues to refuse proper discussions or a shared inquiry into this incident, as a result of which, I recall, Russian citizens have suffered," Zakharova added.

The UK's foreign policy chiefs summoned the Minister-Counselor of the Russian Embassy to a meeting on Tuesday in order to discuss the charges against the three Russian men. In comments after the meeting, Moscow's envoys said that it was entirely unfounded to assess that a Russian citizen was involved in the case because of when they entered the UK.

Kremlin says ECHR's claim Russia behind Litvinenko poisoning

'unfounded,' arguing court has no evidence of Moscow's involvement

21 Sep, 2021 10:41 

The building of the European Court of Human Rights. © Reuters / VINCENT KESSLER;

(inset) press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov. © RIA / Sergey Guneev

Speaking to journalists after the court gave its verdict on Tuesday, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said that justices had no substantive evidence to back up the allegations that the Russian state was involved in Litvinenko’s death.

“It is unlikely that the ECHR has the powers or technological capabilities to have information on this matter,” he said. “There are still no results from this investigation,” Peskov added, “therefore it is at least unfounded to make such statements.” 

The judgement, passed down by justices earlier on Tuesday, argued that “Russia was responsible for the assassination of Litvinenko in the UK.”

The former security agent died in a London hospital in 2006 after what British investigators concluded was poisoning with a rare radioactive isotope, Polonium-210. They claim that the substance was slipped into his drink during a meeting at a nearby hotel, and insist that the Russian state had ordered the killing.

Litvinenko defected to the UK in 2000, having previously worked as a high-ranking officer in Russia’s FSB, running agents in war-torn Chechnya during its bloody conflict in the early 1990s. He was later recruited by Britain’s MI6 spy agency, officials said, to provide “useful information about senior Kremlin figures and their links with Russian organized crime.” A Moscow court found him guilty of corruption in absentia and sentenced him to three-and-a-half years in jail.

In the ruling, the ECHR alleges that two Russian citizens, Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, were behind his death, and acting on orders from above. “The Court found in particular that there was a strong prima facie case that, in poisoning Mr Litvinenko, Mr Lugovoy and Mr Kovtun had been acting as agents of the Russian state,” the statement from the court reads.

Russia has consistently denied any involvement, and Lugovoy told reporters in Moscow the year after the incident that “Britain is making me a scapegoat.”

Disturbing Trends Among Muslims in Denmark - How Long Before Sharia?

Nearly half of immigrants’ descendants in Denmark say

criticizing religion should be illegal

© Reuters / Andrew Kelly

Nearly 50 percent of descendants of non-Western immigrants in Denmark think it should be illegal to criticize religion — a sharp contrast with the numbers of ethnic Danes, a new survey shows.

The report from the Immigration and Integration Ministry found that descendants of immigrants are more interested in defending religion than recent immigrants who have been settled in the country.

While 48 percent of descendants said criticizing religion should be illegal, only 42 percent of first-generation immigrants who have been in Denmark for three years or more said the same.

This agrees with a report out of the UK that indicated that 2nd and 3rd generation Muslim immigrants tended to be more devout than their parents. Of course, their parents actually had to live in Islam and considered themselves fortunate to get out.

For ethnic Danes, the number who want to get rid of the freedom to criticize religion was dramatically lower at only 20 percent.

Despite the conflicting views on freedom of speech regarding religion between immigrants and ethnic Danes, the survey also found that immigrants have begun to feel more Danish than they did 10 years ago. Tolerance for homosexuality has also risen, the Copenhagen Post reported.

At the same time, the number of ‘new Danes’ who believe women should only be allowed to marry a man approved by their family has risen.

The results give cause for concern, according to Immigration Minister Mattias Tesfaye, who told the BT tabloid that while he understood that Middle Eastern immigrants want to “hold onto the values they were raised with,” it should be the case that “more and more accept the values of democracy from generation to generation.”

When half of the descendants [of immigrants] believe that

religion should be exempt from criticism, I interpret that

as people thinking that democracy must step out of the way

Democracy in Europe means that people are given the freedom to practice their religion, but “equally crucial,” Tesfaye said, is that religion has to be able to “withstand criticism.”

For instance, while the Koran says a woman may only marry another Muslim, one must accept that there will be people who want to challenge that and they must be allowed. “The Constitution states that we are all free people, and that rule is above everyone else’s rules,” he said.

On the subject of religious symbols in dress, 88 percent of immigrants’ descendants said it was important that people should be allowed to wear religious symbols freely, while 68 first-generation immigrants felt the same. A smaller majority of 63 percent of ethnic Danes agreed.

The idea of religion being protected from criticism is not unusual in Europe, where, in many countries, anti-blasphemy laws are still in place. 

An Austrian woman was convicted last year after she called the Prophet Mohammed a “paedophile” in seminars she delivered in Vienna, during which she said the prophet had married a six-year-old girl and consummated the marriage when she was nine years old — a subject of some historical debate. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upheld the conviction, saying it “served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace.”

So, preserving religious peace trumps free speech in the ECHR?

In other parts of Europe, things are moving in a different direction, however. 

Ireland deleted an outdated blasphemy law from its constitution in a 2018 referendum, which saw almost 65 percent voting yes to removing the ban — though it had been 150 years since anyone was actually prosecuted for blasphemy in Ireland. Denmark repealed its own blasphemy law in 2017.

Studies have shown that Europe will be 25% Muslim within 10 years. What kind of political influence will they have over European governments then and in the future as their influence continues to grow rapidly? Certainly areas where Sharia is adopted will soon begin to appear.

European Court of Human Rights Protects Terrorists Rather Than Europeans

Al Qaeda chief's wife, 49, wins human rights battle after claiming

UK airport police breached her privacy by stopping her for questioning

(and taxpayers will now foot her legal bills)

By DAVID CHURCHILL, BRUSSELS CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

The wife of an Al Qaeda chief had her human rights breached by UK airport police, European judges have ruled.

Sylvie Beghal, 49, was stopped at East Midlands Airport while returning to Leicester after a visit to her husband Djamel Beghal in a French jail.

The mother of three said she was detained without reasonable suspicion – violating her right to private and family life. 

Djamel Beghal was behind bars for plotting to blow up the American embassy in Paris +4

Sylvie Beghal (left), 49, was stopped for questioning after flying to France to visit Djamel Beghal (right), who was behind bars for plotting to blow up the American embassy in Paris

Her claims were rejected by the High Court and Supreme Court but the European Court of Human Rights eventually ruled in her favour.

The Home Office said it was disappointed by the ruling, which it has three months to challenge.

The airport incident in 2011 had led to Mrs Beghal being charged with failing to help officers – an offence under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Lord Carlile of Berriew, who was the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation from 2001 to 2011, said: 'Schedule 7 is absolutely key to the protection of the public in the UK and to national security.

'It has to be used carefully and proportionately, as recognised when the law was amended in 2014. But I'm very surprised that this case has resulted in such a ruling, particularly given the factual background.

'I fear we have to put this down to a questionable decision by the ECHR. In my view the British courts were right and correctly took their decisions in this case.'

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen, whose constituency covers the airport, said: 'It's sickening. These people are big on human rights but not so much on their responsibilities.

'We all have a duty to cooperate with the police with regards to terrorism and anyone who doesn't want to is breaking the bond of loyalty to our country.

The mother-of-three claimed she was stopped at East Midlands Airport (pictured) 'without reasonable suspicion'

and that her right to respect for private and family life was violated

'It's great she can use the law to protect her own right to family life, but she has strong links with a convicted terrorist and Al Qaeda have not shown any regard to human rights in the past with their victims.'

According to court documents lodged at the ECHR, Mrs Beghal was stopped at the airport after visiting her husband with their children. 

Officers said they wanted to talk to her to establish whether she might be 'a person concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism'.

She refused to answer questions until a lawyer was present and after 30 minutes was told she was free to go. But she was later charged under Schedule 7 and pleaded guilty at Leicester Magistrates' Court in December 2011. 

Beghal is said to have radicalised other terrorists while in jail, including Charlie Hebdo killer Cherif Kouachi (pictured)

She then launched a legal action, claiming the powers given to police under Schedule 7 did not have adequate safeguards to be 'in accordance with' the European Convention on Human Rights.

Her case reached the ECHR in January 2016, which last week ruled in her favour. Judges told the Government to foot her £21,531 legal bill.

Mrs Beghal has previously claimed her husband, one of Al Qaeda's top recruiters in Europe, was a victim of French injustice.

He is said to have radicalised other terrorists while in jail, including Charlie Hebdo killer Cherif Kouachi, one of two brothers who murdered 12 during the gun attack on the magazine's Paris offices in January 2015. 

He is also said to have mentored Amedy Coulibaly, who shot a policewoman and four shoppers dead at a kosher supermarket two days after the Hebdo attack.

Algerian-born Beghal settled in France in 1987 and married in 1990. He became a French citizen which allowed the couple to move to Leicester seven years later.

He regularly travelled to London and was allegedly radicalised at the Finsbury Park Mosque under the influence of Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada. He is also said to have flown to Afghanistan to receive orders from Osama Bin Laden.

Beghal was banned from the UK in 2009 after being jailed by the French for a plot to blow up the US embassy in Paris.

His wife is believed to have cost taxpayers more than a quarter of a million pounds in handouts since moving to the UK.

A Home Office spokesman said: 'We will now consider the implications of this judgment carefully.'

Gender-Neutral Passports Rejected as Court Rules Specifying Sex is Not Discrimination

Unexpected anti-politically correct ruling in UK

© Britta Pedersen/ Global Look Press

The UK High Court has rejected a bid to introduce gender-neutral passports. The litigant had suggested that asking passport holders to specify their gender is “inherently discriminatory.”

Christie Elan-Cane, who has been campaigning with the backing of Human Rights Watch for so-called “gender-X” passports since 1995, said: “I am bitterly disappointed that my case for the judicial review of the UK government’s discriminatory passport policy was not upheld – not just for myself but for everyone who is compromised by this policy.

“I was not seeking special treatment. I was seeking to be treated as a human being,” she said, the BBC reports.

Justice Baker rejected claims that the current policy, which requires putting ‘male’ or ‘female’ on passports, is in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).

“At present I am not satisfied, for the reasons which I have set out, that the current policy of HM Passport Office is unlawful,” the judge said.

Elan-Cane’s lawyer argued in the High Court last April that the policy breached two fundamental rights: the respect for a private life and the right to not be discriminated against on the basis of gender and sex.

LGBT charity Stonewall also expressed disappointment at the High Court’s dismissal, saying: “Many trans people are afraid to travel abroad for fear of intrusive questioning or difficulties at passport control.

“Non-binary people are also not recognized under law, and it's unclear whether they are protected by anti-discrimination legislation,” said Laura Russell, Stonewall's head of policy, the BBC reports.

Burqa Ban Legislation Gains Enough Support to Pass in Denmark

Danish burqa ban: Which EU states is Denmark set to join with face veil restrictions?

© Global Look Press

The Danish ruling coalition parties have expressed their support for the full-face veil ban. As Denmark is set to ban the Muslim conservative garb, which EU countries will it join?

The liberal Venstre Party, the senior member of the ruling coalition, has announced its support for the ban on wearing full-face veils in public places following a party meeting dedicated to the issue Friday.

“The forthcoming ban on face covering will receive backing from Venstre,” the liberal party’s spokesman, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, told the Danish broadcaster DR, adding that it will be “not a religiously defined ban but it will still obviously cover burqa and niqab.”

Earlier, some high-ranking members of the party, including its deputy leader, Kristian Jensen, and the Higher Education and Science Minister Soren Pind, opposed the measures but now Ellemann-Jensen said the party is “united” in its support for the move.

The stance of another coalition member, the libertarian Liberal Alliance (LA), has also drastically changed. The party that opposed the ban just last month, arguing that it might isolate Muslim women and prevent them from leaving their homes altogether, now also said it would back such an initiative.

“Everyone agrees that the burqa is an expression of extreme oppression of women,” the party leader, Anders Samuelsen, wrote Friday in a Facebook post. He went on to say that his party is “in favor” of the ban, if the Danish authorities could impose it “without harming ourselves and our values.”

By expressing their support for the ban, the Liberals and the LA join the Conservatives and the right-wing populist Danish People’s Party who already back it, thus securing a parliamentary majority and opening the way for Denmark to become the latest European country to introduce such a ban.

A recent poll commissioned by DR in late September showed that 62 percent of the Danish population are in favor of such a ban, while fewer than one in four oppose it.

In the meantime, half a dozen EU states have already introduced similar nationwide bans, while in some other countries restrictions on wearing face-covering veils exist at a regional level.

Which EU states have nationwide bans?

Austria has so far become the latest European country to ban wearing full-face veils in public places as the law called the ‘Anti-Face-Veiling Act’ came into force in the Alpine country on October 1. Those found in violation of the legislation could face a fine of €150 ($175).

The law defined by the authorities as “religiously neutral” and also banning people from wearing balaclavas, covering their faces with scarves or even wearing medical masks without sufficient reasons still provoked an angry reaction from the local Muslims.

The first country to introduce the ban, which is still often deemed to be controversial, was France that barred Muslim women from wearing full-face veils in public as early as in 2011. Belgium almost immediately followed suit and introduced a similar ban later the same year.

Both countries, however, eventually landed in court over the controversial move. In both cases, Muslim women challenged the bans in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). However, the judicial body upheld France’s burqa ban in 2014, ruling that the preservation of an idea of social cohesion was a “legitimate aim" of the French authorities.

In 2017, the court also ruled in favor of Belgian authorities in a similar case by saying that the ban “doesn’t violate European human rights law.” In the meantime, opponents of the ban also found more ingenious ways to express their discontent with it. 

A French businessman of Algerian origin, Rachid Nekkaz, has long been calling on Muslim women to defy the face veil bans introduced in European countries. He also offered to pay their fines and even established a special fund to deal with the issue.

According to Nekkaz, he already pays fines for Muslim women wearing face veils in public places in defiance of the ban in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In his latest move, he also vowed to do the same for women in Austria.

Dutch lawmakers approved a ban on wearing face veils and other face-covering garments in certain public places such as schools, hospitals or government buildings in November 2016. The ban, however, does not cover such situations as wearing burqas on the street, but applies only to specific situations, in which face recognition and proper communication are “essential.”

Bulgaria outlawed “wearing in public clothing that partially or completely covers the face” in public places just months before the Netherlands, in September 2016, citing security concerns. Those found in defiance of the ban in Bulgaria could face fines of up to 1,500 leva (about $860) and be stripped of social benefits.

According to some reports, Latvia also failed to overcome temptation to ban the controversial peace of closing even though only three women reportedly wear the garment in the entire Baltic state. This fact, however, did not stop the Latvian lawmakers from claiming that burqa poses a “serious” security risk for Latvia and undermines its culture. 

Germany is likely to follow soon.

Justice Ministry to Appeal ECHR Ruling on Russian ‘Gay Propaganda Law’

The European Court of Human Rights - neo-liberal instrument

for the promotion of LGBTQI rights?

© Bogdan Cristel / Reuters

The Russian Justice Ministry has announced plans to appeal a ruling that found Russia’s ban on the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations to minors discriminatory and awarded damages to several activists previously convicted under the act.

According to the statement published on the ministry’s website on Tuesday, the ban does not contradict international practices and the sole purpose of the law was to protect children’s morals and health.

The statement was released soon after the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that the law, often described in the mass media as a ‘gay propaganda ban’, was discriminatory and encouraged homophobia. The court took the side of three Russian activists who were convicted in Russia for violating the ban between 2009 and 2012, and ordered the Russian state to pay compensation for damages.

One of the main sponsors of the original Russian bill, State Duma MP Vitaly Milonov (United Russia) called the ECHR ruling a “propaganda stunt” and a “bludgeon” used by neo-liberals to destroy their opponents.

“This court became an information propaganda dump quite some time ago and everyone should stop calling it a court. Because a court is something independent and important,” Milonov told RT.

“The ECHR [European Court of Human Rights] is nothing more than a branch of the propaganda machine servicing the European neoliberal circles. It has already stopped protecting the human rights and liberties, now they use it as a bludgeon for making threats,” he added.

The lawmaker also said that the ruling can be easily ignored in Russia.

The head of the Upper House committee for constitutional law, Senator Andrey Klishas, said on Tuesday that in his view, the Justice Ministry should have sent an enquiry to the Constitutional Court to check whether the potential execution of the ECHR ruling is in line with the Russian Constitution.

According to the senator’s press service, he believes that following the ECHR orders could violate the constitution, which states that the exercising of one’s rights must not infringe upon the rights and freedoms of others, as well as banning public promotion of social, racial, ethnic, or religious hatred.

“The current legislation matches public morals as they are traditionally understood in Russian society. As any legislative solution to a public request lies within the powers of the national legislative bodies, the senator’s opinion is that European entities should abstain from interfering in the internal affairs of our state,” the press service’s statement reads, as quoted by Interfax.

In 2013, Russia introduced the law banning any promotion of non-traditional sexual relations to persons under 18. Before being approved nationwide, the law had been passed at a municipal level in the city of St. Petersburg.

The law ordered fines for breaches of the ban, including in the media, on the internet and via viral advertisements. Holding LGBT rallies was also prohibited as well as distribution of information aimed at forming non-traditional sexual concepts in children, describing such relations as attractive, promoting a distorted understanding of a social equality between traditional and non-traditional relations, and also unwanted solicitation of information that could provoke interest in such relations.

In late 2015, two Communist Party lawmakers proposed an additional ban on any public demonstration of “non-traditional” sexual orientation, however this bill has not been passed by the parliament.