Catherine Aston urges ensuring full range of human rights without discrimination

Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, reaffirmed her own commitment and the commitment of the European Union to the entitlement of all people, wherever they are, to enjoy the full range of human rights - and to do so without discrimination. “Around the world, the issues of gender identity and sexual orientation continue to be used as the pretext for serious human rights violations. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) people are still subject to persecution, discrimination and ill-treatment – and that ill-treatment often involves extreme forms of violence,” Catherine Ashton said in a statement to the European Parliament. Catherine Aston informed that 15 of the EU Member States were part of the group which prepared the statement on ‘ending acts of violence and other human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity’, which was agreed by 85 countries at the UN Human Rights Council in March of this year. That statement reaffirmed the principle of non-discrimination, and condemned all executions and arrests made on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The European official also said that the EU uses its regular human rights dialogues with individual countries to promote tolerance and non-discrimination to LGBT people. In countries like Moldova, those dialogues have resulted in expert level follow-up, and in countries like Russia, Croatia, Turkey, Montenegro and Brazil, the Union has used its Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights to support local and international NGOs in their own campaigns against discrimination. According to Catherine Aston, despite these efforts there are 80 countries which still criminalize same-sex relations between consenting adults, and seven which apply the death penalty. But this is incompatible with international human rights law.