The following information is based on the Amnesty International Report 2020/21. This report documents the human rights situation in 149 countries in 2020, as well as providing global and regional analysis. It presents Amnesty lnternational’s concerns and calls for action to governments and others. During 2020, the world was rocked by COVID-19. The pandemic and measures taken to tackle it impacted everyone, but also threw into stark relief, and sometimes aggravated, existing inequalities and patterns of abuse.
In 2020, Roma and LGBTI people continued to face discrimination. Statelessness remained high. There remained no comprehensive law on gender-based violence. Limitations on education in minority languages continued.
A state of emergency in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, effective from March to June 2020 and then from November 2020 onwards, allowed for restrictions on certain human rights. During the first period, Latvia derogated from several of its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.
The government implemented swift measures to address the impact of the pandemic and contain the spread of the virus, but COVID-19 related infections and deaths spiked at the end of the year.
The Latvian Centre for Human Rights noted in March 2020 an increase in cases of incitement to violence and discrimination targeting Latvian nationals repatriating from abroad due to COVID-19.
Discrimination against Roma persisted in many areas of life in 2020.
Concrete measures to include Roma children, in particular girls, in the mainstream education system remained insufficient. Data on dropout rates for Roma, disaggregated by factors such as sex and age, were not available.
Latvia’s legislative framework regarding LGBTI rights remained weak, and NGOs reported widespread discrimination against LGBTI people. The EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency reported that 47% of LGBTI people did not report physical or sexual attacks to the police out of fear of a homophobic and/or transphobic reaction.
On 12 November 2020, the Constitutional Court recognized the right of same-sex couples to parental leave.
In 2020, Statelessness remained high, with 212,814 people having the status of “non-citizen” – a special category for citizens of the former USSR who have neither Latvian nor another citizenship – and 163 people with “stateless” status. Domestic law provisions for “non-citizens” continued to fall short of international standards, including a lack of political rights and some restrictions on employment and land ownership. Gaps remained for stateless migrants, including a lack of protection during the statelessness determination procedure, absence of a facilitated route to naturalization and few safeguards against arbitrary detention, with alternatives to detention applied only in a small proportion of cases.
In Concluding Observations in March 2020, the CEDAW Committee reiterated many concerns from its previous review in 2004, including calling on Latvia to adopt a comprehensive law on gender-based violence.
Latvia again failed to ratify the Istanbul Convention, and 21 members of parliament lodged a case in the Constitutional Court challenging the Convention’s compliance with the Constitution.
The Council of Europe’s Venice Commission noted in June that certain 2018 amendments to the law on education in minority languages failed to strike a fair balance between protection of the rights of minorities and promotion of the official state language.
In response to today’s proposals from the European Commission which would allow Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to derogate from EU rules, including by holding asylum-seekers and migrants at the border for 16 weeks with minimal safeguards, Eve Geddie, Director of Amnesty International’s European Office said: “The arrival of people at the EU’s borders with Belarus is entirely manageable with the rules as they stand. Today’s proposals will further punish people for political gain, weaken asylum protections, and undermine the EU’s standing at home and abroad. If the EU can allow a minority of member states to throw out the rule book due to the presence of a few thousand people at its border, it throws out any authority it has on human rights and the rule of law.
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International protection of human rights is in danger of unravelling as short-term national self-interest and draconian security crackdowns have led to a wholesale assault on basic freedoms and rights, warned Amnesty International as it launched its annual assessment of human rights around the world. “Your rights are in jeopardy: they are being treated with utter contempt by many governments around the world,” said Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International.