EUROPE - CENTRAL ASIA

Issues of statehood, security and migration continued to be major preoccupations across the region.
Europe's newest state, Montenegro, emerged in June from the continuing break-up of the former Yugoslavia, but a decision on the final status of Kosovo, which formally remained part of Serbia, was postponed until early 2007. No significant progress was made in resolving the status of the region's internationally unrecognized entities, situated within the borders of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova, but remaining outside these states' de facto control. Cyprus continued to be a divided island. In Spain the armed Basque group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) declared a "permanent ceasefire" in March but dialogue with the government ended in December after an airport bomb killed two people. In Turkey, there was an overall increase in 2006 in fighting between security forces and the armed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and a rise in bomb attacks on civilians by other armed groups. Impunity as a result of conflicts across the region persisted.

Many countries remained a magnet for those attempting to escape poverty, violence or persecution. Changing migration patterns from Africa saw over 30,000 people arrive on the Canary Islands, with an unknown number of others feared lost on the journey in unsafe boats. However, European states continued to disregard the rights of refugees and migrants, adopting repressive approaches to irregular migration that included forcible detention and expulsion without access to fair and individualized asylum procedures. In the context of the "war on terror", governments also violated their international obligations by returning people to countries despite the risk that they faced serious human rights violations including torture.

Two further countries - Bulgaria and Romania - were set to join the European Union (EU) at the beginning of 2007. While enlargement continued to profile human rights as a prime symbol of candidates' readiness to join, the EU as a beacon "union of values" looked increasingly ambivalent. Further evidence emerged of the EU Council's reluctance to confront the USA in its conduct of the "war on terror" and its failure to "practice what you preach" in relation to migration. An institutional minimalist approach to human rights within the EU's borders, which saw the establishment of a Fundamental Human Rights Agency largely barred from addressing human rights abuses by member states, added to the erosion of credibility domestically and globally on human rights issues.

Racism and discrimination continued across the region. There was a failure of leadership in many countries to convincingly challenge racist and xenophobic ideas and ideologies, to implement comprehensive programmes to combat them, and to act with due diligence to prevent, investigate and prosecute racially motivated attacks. In some countries it was the authorities themselves that discriminated against minorities by failing to uphold their rights. Discrimination was frequently on grounds of identity and legal status - or lack of it - and led to barriers in access to a range of human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights.

Security and human rights

Further evidence emerged of complicity by Europe's governments in the US programme of renditions - an unlawful practice in which numerous men have been illegally detained and secretly flown to countries where they have suffered additional crimes, including torture and enforced disappearance. It became increasingly clear, including through inquiries actively pursued by the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, that many European governments had adopted a "see no evil, hear no evil" approach when it came to rendition flights using their territory.

Some were willing partners with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in facilitating abuses. Complicity by states such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Sweden and the UK ranged from acceptance and concealment of renditions, secret detentions and torture or other ill-treatment (and use of information gained from such treatment) to direct involvement in abductions and illegal transfers. There was evidence, furthermore, that security forces of Germany, Turkey and the UK had taken advantage of the situation by interrogating individuals who had been subjected to rendition.

In other areas too, security drove the agenda over fundamental human rights - to the detriment of both. There were grave concerns that the governments of Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine, in co-operating with Uzbekistan in the name of regional security and the "war on terror", were violating their obligations under human rights and refugee law by returning people to Uzbekistan despite the risk that they faced serious violations including torture.

The UK government continued to undermine the universal ban on torture by trying to deport people they deemed to be terror suspects to countries with a history of torture or other ill-treatment. The UK authorities sought to rely on inherently unreliable and ineffective "diplomatic assurances" featured in memorandums of understanding agreed with states that had a well-documented record of torture.
In Turkey, the new Law to Fight Terrorism contained sweeping and draconian provisions that could in practice contravene international human rights law and facilitate violations. People charged under existing anti-terrorism legislation in Turkey continued to face unending trials, with some people still detained for more than a decade pending a final verdict in their case.

However, there were other indications - aside from the inquiries into renditions - of a refusal to tolerate such abuses. In a landmark case in Spain, the Supreme Court in July quashed a six-year prison sentence and ordered the immediate release of a man previously held in US detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on the grounds that evidence obtained while he was there was inadmissible. The court ruled that Guantánamo Bay constituted a legal limbo without guarantees or control and therefore all evidence or procedures originating from it should be declared null and void.

In November, a UN human rights body confirmed that the Swedish authorities had been responsible for multiple human rights violations in connection with a summary expulsion to Egypt. The Swedish government reacted by reiterating that any such finding was not legally binding, and continued to refuse to provide reparation, including compensation, to the victims. In December, Italian prosecutors asked a judge to indict 26 CIA agents accused of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric in the Italian city of Milan and participating in his rendition to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured.

Refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants

There remained a consistent pattern of human rights violations linked to the interception, detention and expulsion by states of foreign nationals, including those seeking international protection. One year on, there was still no outcome to investigations into the deaths in 2005 of 13 migrants killed while trying to enter the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla from Morocco. Three other people died in similar incidents in July 2006.

Men, women and children continued to face obstacles in accessing asylum procedures. Some in Greece, Italy, Malta and the UK were unlawfully detained and others were denied necessary guidance and legal support. Many were unlawfully expelled before their claims could be properly heard, including from Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain. Some were sent to countries where they were at risk of human rights violations.

In response to shifting migration patterns, joint sea patrol missions by various EU countries and co-ordinated by the EU external border control agency Frontex were set up, intended to intercept migrants' boats at sea and return the migrants to their country of origin. This raised serious concerns with respect to fundamental rights, such as the right to seek and enjoy asylum, the right to leave one's own country, and the principle of non-refoulement.

New legislation in some countries further restricted the rights of asylum-seekers and migrants. In Switzerland this included refusal of access to the asylum procedure for people without national identity documents. In France a new law tied residence permits for migrants to pre-existing work contracts, putting migrants at risk of exploitation in the workplace.

Racism and discrimination

Across the region identity-based discrimination was rife against Roma, who remained largely excluded from public life and unable to enjoy full access to rights such as housing, employment and health services. In some countries the authorities failed to fully integrate Romani children into the education system, tolerating or promoting the creation of special classes or schools, including those where a reduced curriculum was taught. Roma were also among those subjected to hate crimes by individuals, as were Jews and Muslims. In Russia, violent racism remained widespread.

Many people faced discrimination on account of their legal status. In Azerbaijan people internally displaced by the Nagorny Karabakh conflict had restricted opportunities to exercise their economic and social rights, including by a cumbersome internal registration process linking eligibility for employment and social services to a fixed place of residence. In Montenegro over 16,000 Roma and Serbs displaced from Kosovo continued to be denied civil, political, economic and social rights because they were refused civil registration. Similar problems faced thousands of people in Slovenia - all from other former Yugoslav republics - who had been unlawfully "erased" from the register of permanent residents. In Estonia, members of the Russian-speaking minority faced limited access to the labour market owing to restrictive linguistic and minority rights.

Authorities in Latvia, Poland and Russia continued to foster a climate of intolerance against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities, obstructing public events organized by LGBT groups amid openly homophobic language used by some highly placed politicians.

Impunity and accountability

Although some progress was made in tackling impunity for crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia during the wars of the 1990s, a lack of full co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia together with insufficient efforts by domestic courts meant that many perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity continued to evade justice.

Torture and other ill-treatment, often race-related and frequently used to extract confessions, continued to be reported across the region - routinely so in some countries. Victims described a catalogue of abuses, including mock executions; beatings with fists, plastic bottles full of water, books, truncheons and poles; suffocation; deprivation of food, water and sleep; threats of rape; and electro-shocks to different parts of the body. Obstacles to tackling impunity for such abuses included police circumvention of safeguards, lack of prompt access to a lawyer, victims' fear of reprisals, and lack of a properly resourced and independent system for monitoring and investigating complaints. In Russia, Turkey and Uzbekistan in particular, failures to conduct prompt, thorough and impartial investigations perpetuated an entrenched culture of impunity. Such failures at domestic level in some countries meant that people continued to seek redress at the European Court of Human Rights, adding to its overburdened case load.

Death penalty

Significant progress continued to be made towards abolition of the death penalty throughout the region. In June, Moldova abolished the death penalty in law, and in November Kyrgyzstan adopted a new Constitution which removed previous provisions on the use of the death penalty.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, all 15 newly independent states retained the death penalty. At the close of 2006, only two of them continued to apply the death penalty in law and practice. These were Belarus and Uzbekistan, both of which continued to cloak in secrecy the exact number of people sentenced to death and executed annually. Uzbekistan even insisted that no death sentence had been passed for two years, even though credible non-governmental organizations in the country reported that at least eight such sentences had been handed down.

While Europe in general followed the global trend towards abolition, the President of Poland sought to buck it by calling in July for the reintroduction of capital punishment in Poland and throughout Europe. Another less positive note were conditions on death row in the region, with some prisoners believed to have been kept in very harsh conditions for many years. In addition, death row inmates in countries (and unrecognized entities) with a moratorium on executions continued to suffer uncertainty about their ultimate fate.

Violence against women

Violence in the home against women and girls remained pervasive across the region for all ages and social groups. It was manifested through a range of verbal and psychological abuse, physical and sexual violence, economic control and killings. Commonly, only a small proportion of women reported this abuse, deterred among other things by fear of reprisals from abusive partners; fear of prosecution for other offences; self-blame; fear of bringing "shame" on their family; financial insecurity; lack of shelters or other effective measures such as restraining orders to ensure protection for them and their children; and the widespread impunity enjoyed by perpetrators. Women also frequently lacked confidence that the relevant authorities would regard the abuse as a crime, rather than a private matter, and deal with it effectively as such. Failure to bridge that confidence gap in reporting not only hampered justice in individual cases but also impeded efforts to tackle such abuses across society by hiding the full extent and nature of the problem.

While there were some positive moves on legislative protection in this area, other crucial gaps remained. These included the absence in some countries of laws specifically criminalizing domestic violence and a failure to collect comprehensive statistical data. While the new domestic violence law in Georgia was welcome, the failure to approve a national action plan on domestic violence - as stipulated by the
law - raised doubts about the authorities' commitment to eradicate domestic violence. In Switzerland, a new law permitted expulsion of an aggressor from the shared home if requested by the victim of domestic violence. However, migrant women living in Switzerland for less than five years remained vulnerable to expulsion if they stopped cohabiting with the partner named on their residence permit.

Trafficking of human beings, including of women and girls for forced prostitution, continued to thrive on poverty, corruption, lack of education and social breakdown. Trafficking of human beings in and to Europe was widespread. Many states failed to ensure that the focus of policy and action in this area was on respect for and protection of the rights of trafficked persons. However, a positive development towards that end included the ratification in 2006 by three countries of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, which will enter into force when 10 countries become parties.

Repression of dissent

In many areas across the region, there was shrinking space for independent voices and civil society as freedom of expression and association remained under attack. Turkey's restrictive law on "denigrating Turkishness" muzzled peaceful dissenting opinion, with a steady flow of prosecutions against individuals from across the political spectrum.

In Uzbekistan, in the wake of the 2005 Andizhan clashes in which hundreds of people died, fewer and fewer independent or dissenting voices were able to find an outlet to express their opinion without fear of reprisal. Reprisals came in the form of harassment, intimidation and imprisonment. In Azerbaijan, the authorities encouraged a climate of impunity for physical attacks on independent journalists, imprisoned others on questionable charges, and harassed independent media outlets through a range of administrative measures. The clampdown on civil society continued in Belarus, with an increase in the number of activists convicted as legal changes limiting freedom of association came into effect. The outright assault on any form of peaceful dissent intensified in Turkmenistan, where people were dismissed from their jobs and barred from travelling abroad simply because they were related to a dissident, and where the authorities targeted human rights defenders, portraying their activities as "treason" and "espionage".

Controversial new legislation in Russia undermined rather than enabled civil society by giving the authorities increased power of scrutiny of funding and activities of Russian and foreign non-governmental organizations. The legislation introduced a regulatory framework that could be arbitrarily applied, had key provisions which lacked a precise legal definition, and imposed sanctions that were disproportionate. In Chechnya and the wider North Caucasus region of Russia, people seeking justice faced intimidation and death threats, with the murder of leading activist and human rights journalist Anna Politkovskaya in October sending a chilling message about the dangers facing all those who dared to speak out as she had done.

In spite of threats, intimidation and detention, however, human rights defenders across the region remained resolute in continuing their work, inspiring others to join them in aiming for lasting change and respect for the human rights of all.