“Parliamentarians in the Slovak Republic should reject a bill that would effectively prevent trans people from having their gender identity legally recognised. This legislation would put the Slovak Republic in conflict with its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights,” said the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, in a letter to the Slovak Parliament, published today.
“The attack on the Tepláreň bar in Bratislava, more than six months ago, should have triggered a process of addressing long-standing concerns about intolerance towards LGBTI people”, says the Commissioner. But since then, she notes, the human rights of LGBTI people in the Slovak Republic appear to be more, rather than less, at risk.
The Commissioner expresses concern that recent steps to end the practice of requiring sterilisation for legal gender recognition, which violates human rights, might be rolled back. She also highlights the lack of a legal framework allowing same-sex couples to be granted adequate recognition and protection of their relationship, and calls for the strengthening of hate crime legislation, support to civil society, and for comprehensively combating intolerance and discrimination.
She calls on parliamentarians to refrain from promoting narratives that mischaracterise the struggle for the equality of LGBTI people as ‘gender ideology’ or ‘LGBTI ideology.’ She also adds: “It should go without saying that there can be no space for hate speech in national parliaments, and that parliamentarians must clearly speak out whenever their peers engage in hate speech.”