Read the full report here : The Right to Freedom of Assembly in the Euro-Mediterranean region
On the occasion of International Human Rights Day, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) is launching today its Regional Study on the Right to Freedom of Assembly in the Euro-Mediterranean Region.
Through a regional perspective, this study gives an overview of the laws affecting the right to peaceful assembly in 11 Mediterranean States, 2 European countries and the EU as a whole from the wake of the Arab Spring until now (2011-2013). The study also documents the flaws in constitutional and legal provisions of the studied countries, in comparison with international Human Rights standards. Finally, the EMHRN provides recommendations to each national government and to the European Union in favor of reforms to promote the right to peaceful assembly.
‘At a time when several countries around the Mediterranean have entered a complex transitional period, this report calls on the European Union to face up to its responsibilities. The EU has to implement its own commitments and demand democratic reform from its partners on the South and East of the Mediterranean, as well as to lead by example on its own soil in order to require that others implement reforms,’ said EMHRN President Michel Tubiana.
This report examines an issue that has recently made numerous headlines across the entire region. Either in Europe or in countries South and East of the Mediterranean, from Morocco to Turkey through Spain or Egypt, citizens have taken to the streets in protest against policies they deemed unfair, to celebrate change or to topple dictatorships.
‘Be it during popular uprising episodes that have shaken some Arab countries and Turkey, or during citizen-based protest movements against the economic crisis that is tearing Europe apart, the EMHRN’s report gives a worrying account of the States’ repressive mechanisms meeting their citizens’ growing desire for expression and group action,’ added EMHRN President Tubiana.
The report details how governments use their respective laws to restrict freedom of assembly in the region. Evidence of such repressive tactics is given when peaceful demonstrators are exposed to judicial proceedings (for example in Algeria, Jordan, Spain or Turkey), administrations and police forces can act arbitrarily in all impunity (Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco or Palestine, emergency laws adopted over the past years in the context of the fight against terrorism are being abused (Syria, Tunisia or Turkey), when surveillance methods and files are being used (United Kingdom), or when the use of public spaces is increasingly being privatized (examples in the European Union).
This report is the first part of the EMHRN’s Regional Study on Freedom of Assembly in the Euro-Mediterranean Region. It will be followed by a second part focusing on how the right to freedom of assembly is actually being translated in practice, all over the Euro-Mediterranean region.