Azerbaijan fails to implement LGBTQI+ recommendations

Azerbaijan has partially implemented the Council of Europe Commission’s recommendation on the institution of the Ombudsman. It has not implemented the second recommendation on racist and LGBTQI+phobic hate speech, the Council of Europe’s independent expert body, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), said on 29 October.

The Commission has published its findings on the implementation of the recommendations issued to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in 2023, which require priority follow-up.

In its report on Azerbaijan (sixth monitoring cycle), ECRI recommended that the authorities set up a comprehensive data collection system offering an integrated and consistent view of cases of racist and LGBTI-phobic hate speech and hate crime, with fully disaggregated data by category of offence, type of hate motivation, target group, as well as judicial follow-up and outcome, and that this data be made available to the public.

The information ECRI received from the authorities does not include any indication that the recommended comprehensive data collection system offering an integrated and consistent view of cases of racist and LGBTI-phobic hate speech and hate crime has been set up or that this data was made available to the public, as recommended by ECRI.

The authorities pointed out that an awareness-raising campaign was organised in 2024 within the framework of the “Human Rights Month”, which also covered hate speech. While this is a positive step, it is not directly related to the priority recommendation made by ECRI in its 2023 report.

“ECRI therefore regrets to note that no steps have been taken in order to set up a system to produce fully disaggregated data on hate speech and hate crime, by category of offence, type of hate motivation, target group, as well as judicial follow-up and outcome, or to make such data publicly available.”

ECRI concludes that this recommendation has not been implemented.

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