Proposition 54K2421

Proposition de résolution relative aux violences potentielles envers les personnes LGBTQI en Tchétchénie.

General information ¶

Authors

Ecolo Benoît Hellings
Groen Wouter De Vriendt
MR Jean-Jacques Flahaux, Olivier Maingain
PS | SP Philippe Blanchart, Stéphane Crusnière, Gwenaëlle Grovonius, Daniel Senesael
PVDA | PTB Marco Van Hees
Vooruit Dirk Van der Maelen

Submission date

April 19, 2017

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

Russia anti-discriminatory measure discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation resolution of parliament sexual minority

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR PVDA | PTB PP VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

April 27, 2017 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, at its meeting on 25 April, the Committee on Foreign Relations discussed and voted on the proposal for a resolution on possible violence against LGBTQI in Chechnya.

The proposal indicates that the House would decide to condemn all possible violations of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and intersex in Chechnya and to use all leverages of parliamentary diplomacy to condemn such violations. It also proposes to request the federal government to condemn all possible violations of the rights of LGTBQIs in Chechnya and to bring the case to the European and international forums, as well as to request the Chechen and Russian authorities to conduct an independent investigation, to bring the culprits to justice and to end all forms of legislation and practices that constitute discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Mr Grovonius, who submitted the proposal, points out that the House has been paying special attention to this issue for several years, both in Belgium and in Europe and around the world. On 23 June 2016, the House adopted a draft resolution on the depenalization of homosexuality in the world, which was signed by numerous groups, asking the federal government to pay special attention to the rights of LGTBQIs in the political dialogue with the states with which Belgium ⁇ ins diplomatic relations on the subject of human rights.

Several members of the committee spoke.

Collega An Capoen thanked the applicants for the work done and asserted that her group will support the proposal.

Mr Jean-Jacques Flahaux also thanked the applicants. He emphasizes that the Chamber must take a principled stance on the protection of the rights of LGTBQIs. At incidents such as those in Chechnya, he says, there must always be a strong response.

In my speech, I joined the other speakers. My group will fully support this resolution.

Mrs Annemie Turtelboom also wishes to express the support of her group for the draft resolution. The text of the resolution satisfies the speaker already in broad lines. In order to remedy some imperfections, it endorses some amendments, which were explained during the article-by-article discussion.

Mr Wouter De Vriendt thanked the co-presentatives of the draft resolution for their prompt submission. To complete the text, the speaker endorsed some amendments that were explained during the article-by-article discussion.

Mr Benoit Hellings notes that the protection of human rights in Chechnya and throughout the Russian Federation has deteriorated. Already in 2014 the speaker’s group questioned the human rights situation in Russia. The speaker urged to remain vigilant in the future.

The representative of the Cabinet of Foreign Affairs also expressed its full support for the proposal.

Several amendments were discussed in the committee.

One amendment aims to clarify that the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta should be regarded as an independent newspaper and not as an opposition party, a second to mention that Belgium, by the consent of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, does indeed call for an independent investigation, and therefore also for possible convictions and compensation for the victims.

Another amendment aims to refer to the statements made by Ms. Mogherini at the European level on this subject, another to clarify that, although the violations of the rights of LGBTQI persons in Chechnya are ⁇ serious, this is unfortunately the case everywhere in the Russian Federation.

Another amendment aims to call on the federal government to address the Russian authorities – and not the Russian and Chechen authorities – who act in the interstate dialogue as interlocutors with Belgium and who are otherwise competent for the Chechen Republic, an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation.

The entire amended and corrected draft resolution was unanimously adopted.

On behalf of my own group, I would like to add the following elements.

The independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Human Rights Watch Russia ⁇ to us that Chechnya is conducting a brutal campaign against homosexual men, actively and systematically tracking, imprisoning, prosecuting and even murdering them.

More than a hundred men are said to have been arrested by the authorities in recent weeks because they are homosexual or because there is only suspicion that they are gay. Three men would have already died.

This is a flagrant violation of human rights. The fact that representatives of the Russian subrepublic are trying to improve the situation and that Russia is reacting with evasion, our group finds it extremely regrettable.

Chechnya is known to be a very conservative country in terms of rights for LGBTQIs, but also Russia, of which Chechnya is a sub-republic, denies rights to LGBTQIs, with discriminatory legislation, and this despite the fact that the country has committed itself through various international treaties to protect the rights of this community.

My group strongly condemns this aggression and discrimination against the LGBTQI community.

Minister Reynders and EU High Representative Mogherini also condemned the practices and called for an international, independent investigation. Our country has strong lobbying within the Equal Rights Coalition and the Council of Europe to map this violation. This is an important first step. In this context, my group would like to ask that both Belgium and the EU use all their instruments to continue to systematically defend and promote LGBTQI rights. The rights of this community must be fully addressed in our foreign policy.

My group would like to thank the authors of the proposal for this quick discussion and will therefore support this important resolution.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that we are debating, in a plenary session, the discrimination and violence that lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender are victims of.

Homosexuality has remained a taboo in many countries around the world. We must not go far to see that this taboo remains entirely within the European Union itself and justifies, in different degrees, acts or legislations that are unacceptable in view of the universality of human rights.

The fight against all discrimination has long been a priority of the Belgian diplomacy but also of the House of Representatives. I am pleased that our assembly has, for several years, shown particular attention, in particular to issues of discrimination related to sexual orientation, whether in our country, in Europe (both through the European Union and the Council of Europe) or more broadly in the world. Thus, in June 2016, a resolution for the decriminalization of homosexuality in the world was adopted here.

So I know. Some will say that a resolution alone does not resolve anything. We cannot react every time a human rights violation occurs around the world. I will answer with a simple question. Could such an example even be discussed in the plenary session of the Douma? The answer is clearly “no”. I am therefore proud to live in a country where, in the House of Representatives, one takes hold of a topic of cruel actuality. I am proud that this text, of which I took the initiative, was able to receive the urgency on its treatment and that it was adopted unanimously in the Committee on Foreign Relations this Tuesday.

I would therefore like to thank all my colleagues for their support and co-signature, as well as my colleague, Gwenaëlle Grovonius, who defended this resolution in a committee while I sat in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. It addressed the situation in Chechnya and adopted a resolution denouncing the human rights situation in Chechnya and calling on Russia to react.

We know that in Chechnya, the Russian Caucasian Republic led with a iron hand by Ramzan Kadyrov, a loyal to Vladimir Putin, the authorities continue to maintain a climate of fear towards many components of society (women, NGOs, sexual minorities).

The Council of Europe resolution denounces a large-scale state-orchestrated persecution of a target group because of its sexual orientation, fearing that the prescription deadlines will eventually grant impunity to the perpetrators of human rights violations. This text requires, in particular, the implementation of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, including in cases in which Russia has been convicted for the lack of effective investigation.

The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe will, in my opinion, have to monitor this in the near future. Indeed, the facts of which the text presented to you today deals exceed what could be imagined since the end of the Second World War. If, unfortunately, we already know the violations of human rights, especially the rights of LGBT persons that exist in many states of the globe including Russia, the news shows us that there is no limit to the horror in this matter.

In early April, the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta ⁇ the kidnapping of hundreds of gay men in Chechnya. These kidnapped persons would be subjected to treatment and torture to make them reveal the identity of other persons – we are here witnessing delusion, dear colleagues – revelations all the more unacceptable in a country where it is known that the simple fact of showing their sexual orientation often means being put to death, in the greatest impunity.

According to the newspaper, the men were detained in former police locations near Argoun. The kidnappings followed requests from the Gay Russia group that wanted to organize rallies across the Russian Federation. Since then, some kidnapped men have been returned to their families because their sexual orientation had not been confirmed by the kidnappers and/or because a ransom had been paid for their release.

If confirmed, this information reminds us of the darkest hours of our history. These acts deserve the harshest possible condemnation and, above all, as the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs has justly stated, an independent investigation should be carried out in order to identify and prosecute the perpetrators.

On the other hand, the Chechen authorities and Russia deny the facts by claiming the inexistence of LGBT in their country. Meet with me!

The civil society has launched several initiatives in the face of this unsustainable actuality. Ainsi, Amnesty International has launched a petition, and many young people, including Belgium, are mobilizing on social networks. Like these initiatives, it returns well to our government of condemner these violations if they are confirmed. The Government must urge the Russian and Czech authorities to cease these atrocities and to prosecute the persons who are rendered guilty and, more broadly, to stop all discrimination based on sexual orientation in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights and international obligations in matters. (Applause of Applause)

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I really wanted to start this evening with a confession, namely that the N-VA group was actually caught in speed in the case of this resolution. That may be too much irony for today. We could have signed this resolution as well, because we fully agree with it. Due to the high urgency of last Thursday, the full resolution was accelerated, which prevented us from reaching that point.

Immediately after the first reports of the Russian newspaper, my colleague Piet De Bruyn, a Flemish parliamentary member, and I myself, as a representative of the N-VA Chamber Group, drafted a press release in which we asked Minister Reynders to condemn the practices in Chechnya. We urged to react as quickly as possible. The minister responded the same day.

The submitters of this resolution may also have been somewhat inspired by our press release, as they are very strongly identical in terms of content. Not only does the resolution express disgust for the events in Chechnya, it also fits into the framework of the resolution that we already adopted in June 2016 in connection with the depenalization of homosexuality worldwide.

The N-VA Group will therefore approve this resolution with the small adjustments we made in the committee on Tuesday. Although the N-VA and the PS often have few interfaces, when it comes to defending LGBTQI rights, everyone in this hemisphere in the N-VA will always find a partner.

We have already discussed this issue in the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday, since a series of questions on this issue were raised there. Mr. Minister, Mrs. Minister, for now, I have had the opportunity to ask you a question regarding the situation in Chechnya, the abuses of LGBTQI persons and the existence of raids of which a hundred people would be victims. Many international associations defending LGBTQI people around the world, as well as many NGOs, have ⁇ the abuses mentioned, as my colleague Blanchart said in the newspaper Novaya Gazeta. This newspaper reports of raids and crimes against members of this community.

I congratulate, on behalf of the Reform Movement, that the Minister of Foreign Affairs has already taken steps to verify the authenticity of this information. It remains the bet to assess the true extent of it, as well as to get acquainted with the details of the facts. But it is clear that a persecution against the male homosexual community, whether its members are proven or suspected to belong to it, is indeed taking place. I regret this fact with great sadness. I thank Mr Blanchart, and the PS Group at the outset, for preparing this proposal for a resolution, which I co-signed with great pleasure. This was also the first time, my dear Philippe, that you gave me the opportunity to co-sign a resolution proposal with the PTB. This ⁇ won’t happen very often, but I think that when it comes to human rights, one doesn’t mistake the associations that one can make.

Dear colleagues, I regret that the Chechen authorities appear to be complicit by the simple fact that they allow such abuses to occur. I would like to remind you that Ramzan Kadyrov’s remarks are unambiguous about his respect for people belonging to the LGBTQI community. He replies that there is no persecution against these people, because according to him, there are simply no homosexuals in Chechnya. It is completely hallucinating. A radical homophobic stance could not be clearer.

Mr. Speaker, Belgium takes a clear position on the universalism and indivisibility of human rights, which include the rights of homosexual persons.

It is imperative that investigations into the perpetrators, or even the planners of these torture acts, be conducted officially so that all victims are recognized in their most fundamental rights.

The Belgian Government has transmitted the information in its possession to the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg, as well as to our representation in Moscow so that they can help complete this file. We must be vigilant with the Russian authorities, in agreement with the Commissioner for Human Rights, to honor their international human rights commitments and to cooperate in all steps to stop these monstrous acts committed in Chechnya and beyond in Russia.

It is imperative, in the eyes of the Reform Movement, that all victims are heard and that all of their fundamental rights, such as access to adequate legal assistance, are granted. Remember that our country considers this matter as urgent and fundamental.

Ladies and gentlemen, let us remember that last year we voted for a resolution aiming at decriminalizing homosexuality, so that it becomes a priority of our foreign policy. In this sense, on May 17th, we will host, under the auspices of the Secretary of State for Equal Opportunities, but also of federal entities, the IDAHO 2017 forum that will gather ⁇ two hundred political figures around the theme of the rights of homosexual persons.

I would like to remind you that eighty states still continue to persecute LGBTQI people by sentencing them to prison sentences ranging from ten years to life, or even the death penalty. It is in Africa that the freedom of homosexuals is most violated: thirty-nine countries out of fifty-three still criminalize homosexual relationships. Four of them still apply the death penalty: Mauritania, Sudan, Nigeria and Somalia. Saudi Arabia, Iran and Yemen also apply it. Therefore, unfortunately, it is not only Chechnya that behaves monstrously towards homosexual persons. Belgium must absolutely continue to be exemplary in the struggle against all discrimination to which it is subjected.

Mr. Speaker, in Chechnya, LGBTQIs, people with a non-classical sexual orientation, are often the victims of family settlements and of general social, but above all also of political hostility. Homosexuals are bird-free in the Caucasian country. It is shocking that there would even be concentration camps. During the plenary session, we talked about the non-existent rights of women in Saudi Arabia. We do not need to draw on how the rights of homosexuals in that country are.

Such developments should make us think. Human rights are a matter of course in our country. Unfortunately, this is not always and everywhere the case. In many parts of the world, we see how false populists and authoritarian figures feed hatred and intolerance, pushing people with different opinions or so-called different orientations into the pit, and thus thinking of increasing their own power and authority, which is then sold as an instigation to singularity and national pride. We also need to be vigilant in our own country.

Colleagues, this resolution, which came at the initiative of the PS, comes exactly in time to awaken us once again and to communicate a few concrete recommendations to the government. Our group fully supports this text. Human rights cannot be marketed. We must defend and strengthen human rights across party boundaries, and we must not be ashamed to spread these values around the world. With this text, we make it quite clear again towards Chechnya, that holebi’s clearly do not carry a warm heart.

In fact, this is what potentates rely on: that the international community keeps silent and relativizes – we have already talked about it this afternoon – so that there is always a step forward in the violation of human rights. The Chechen regime is hiding behind the nonsense statement that there would be no homosexuals in the region and that therefore they cannot be persecuted.

Such statements would be almost to laugh if they did not have such a devastating effect on the lives of many Chechen gay and lesbian, on their friends and on their families.

That the government does not want to openly admit that people are being persecuted, but that it does, is shocking.

Thanks to the, hopefully unanimously supported resolution with amendments of majority and opposition, Belgium is building a little more on the credibility of our commitment to human rights around the world.

Therefore, an independent investigation of the crimes in Chechnya is absolutely necessary, to know who is involved at what levels and who wants to put something into the deadlock.

I am therefore grateful to the colleagues for the strong signal we are giving here today together. I expect the government to continue to make strong efforts at European level and through the United Nations for justice for the victims of such injustice.

In recent days, the reputation of our country with the pro-vote for Saudi Arabia in the women’s committee of the UN Human Rights Council has received a serious knock. We can already begin to correct this, by making a loud move for the rights of the holebi in Chechnya.

The word is to the friend.

My friend, you don’t want to talk? You were registered, but that is no problem.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate the main author of this resolution, my colleague Philippe Blanchart, not only for taking this initiative with other colleagues, in particular colleague Van der Maelen and other colleagues, but also for taking it promptly. I congratulate him for having obtained from his group leader the urgency of the House for an immediate review of this text. Indeed, the information we have received from Chechnya exceeds any understanding in the nature and extent of the horrors that are perpetrated against the LGBT community.

I also welcome your support for this resolution. I would have liked to be one of the signatories, but it was extremely successful. Technically, this was not possible, but we are obviously very happy with this resolution.

What I think is important in this approach is that once again it was done very quickly and that it may eventually have an impact. It is known that it is above all this that is important: to stop this massacre, these harassments and to be able to make sure that the perpetrators of these crimes, which are crimes of hatred as described in our own codes and laws, when they take on the scale that is known in Chechnya, must, in my opinion, be considered as crimes against humanity and that their perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions and be prosecuted.

I am delighted to have heard that the Belgian government had transmitted a series of information to our representation in Moscow. I believe that the move towards Moscow must be firm and immediate. This question will actually have to be followed at the level of the courts that are competent in relation to this question. Others here, such as Jean-Jacques Flahaux, recalled that in other countries too, it was a crime to be LGBT and that states had inscribed this in their texts and in their codes.

Unfortunately, there is a decline in the fundamental rights and freedoms of LGBT people. It is our responsibility to be attentive to the defense of these rights and freedoms wherever they are threatened. My group will obviously support this resolution and will ensure that the proposals and recommendations made there can quickly be translated into concrete acts.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, for several weeks, terrifying news has come from Chechnya regarding the persecution of homosexual persons. NGOs report that hundreds of men are imprisoned in secret prisons and are tortured for giving the names of other homosexuals. These facts are ⁇ by men who have been released. At least three people were killed in Chechnya.

The Chechen government reacted by explaining that homosexuality does not exist in their country. They urge their fellow citizens to denounce their relatives.

We need a signal. There are unacceptable facts. That is why we are joining this initiative. We co-signed a text calling for an independent investigation by the Russian authorities. If the facts are proven, they should be condemned.

We obviously know that it is not through such resolutions that we will advance human rights effectively. It is primarily thanks to a dynamic in Russia that this will happen. It is through the struggle within societies that rights are conquered. It is in this sense that the PTB supports the Russian LGBT network, Russian LGBT Network, which fights on the ground for the rights of LGBT. International solidarity actions, conducted by organizations such as ILGA, are also important.

The brutality that homosexuals face is shocking and also shows the vulnerability of LGBT. Unfortunately, Chechnya is no exception. The resolution mentions Uganda and Russia, where their rights are not respected. But in no less than 75 countries, homosexuality is punishable by imprisonment and, in 13 states, by the death penalty. My figures may differ a little from those of Mr. Flahaux.

Among these countries is Saudi Arabia, one of Belgium’s favourite trading partners. We have also had the opportunity to talk about the hypocritical attitude of our government towards it.

As much as the abuses that are spoken of in Chechnya are intolerable, so much their instrumentalization for reasons of anti-Russian geopolitical agenda would also be unacceptable. But I suppose no one has had this backthink. So I am reassured.

I use this intervention to add one or the other element. If your life is in danger in your home country because of your sexual orientation, it is not surprising that you are fleeing that country. But the Europe Fortress is designed to make it difficult for you and for the thousands of others fleeing poverty. As a result of the deal with Turkey, refugees remain trapped in a country where LGBT discrimination is common.

If you are one of the lucky ones that reach Europe, you will be subject to a batch of tests and interrogations during which you will have to prove you are a true gay. Some Eastern European countries also have a rather challenging reputation for how these tests are practiced. With regard to Belgium, we can ask ourselves the question of the procedure, because often the Western view of homosexuality does not correspond to that of the country from which these persecuted persons originate. For example, asylum seekers must answer intrusive questions about places of encounter that they do not necessarily know, that they do not dare to attend, that they do not have the means to attend or that they do not desire.

In the refugee centers, the situation of LGBT people is quite delicate. In Belgium, we need a truly human asylum policy that really helps people in emergency situations. We need to be consistent both at the international level and at the national level. Obviously, we support this resolution, but we must also be able to sweep at its door, even if the situations are not comparable.