Failure to respond adequately to homophobic attacks of a newspaper against LGBT activists
Spendenbutton / Faire un don
Gender Law Newsletter FRI 2025#1, 01.03.2025 - Newsletter abonnieren
EUROPE: HUMAN RIGHTS
Judgment of the European Court of Human Rights of 7 January 2025, Minasyan and Others v. Armenia (Application no. 59180/15)
The European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter ‘the Court’) has found that by downplaying incitation to intolerance and hostility against LGBT activits in a newspaper, and by regarding them as legitimate expression of criticism, the Armenian courts have violated Art. 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Moreover, the Court has found that the Armenian courts have violated Art. 14 ECHR because they have not examined if the impugned texts had discriminatory overtones and because they have not adressed the discriminatory motives of their author.
In this case, the “[fourteen] applicants were, at the time of lodging their application, activists, members of NGOs, journalists and researchers active in the sphere of human rights, including LGBT and women’s rights” (§ 5). They were targeted by an Armenian newspaper as “Enemies of the Nation and the State” who were “serving the Interests of the International Homosexual [...] Lobby”. The newspaper dressed a blacklist of them and invited, inter alia, the authorities and the employers to not hire for jobs the members of this list (§ 8). The newspaper continued to target some applicants in further articles after they asked a retractation and after they introduced civil proceedings against the newspaper and its redactor-in-chief. The civil claim of the applicants was rejected on the grounds, inter alia, that the defendent was only a journalist who had expressed an opinion. The civil courts also considered that the applicants had failed to prove that they had been victim of a discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
In its judgement, the Court examines the complaint that Armenia has “failed to fulfil its positive obligations under Article 8 [of the ECHR], taken alone and in conjunction with Article 14 [of the ECHR]” (§ 52), which it declares admissible in this extent (§ 57).
Regarding Art. 8 of the ECHR taken alone, the Court first expresses its doubts about the applicability of Art. 10 of the ECHR (which protects the freedom of expression) to the incitation, in the newspaper, “to show intolerance and to commit specific harmful discriminatory acts against the applicants, including in the spheres of their personal and professional lives” (§ 66). The Courts further finds that the Armenian authorities, in any case, have “failed to balance the competing interests in accordance with the principles embodied in Articles 8 and 10 [of the ECHR ...]”, because the Armenian courts “[...] gave full weight to the author’s right to freedom of expression and little to no importance to the effect of his statements on the applicants and their private life” (§ 67). The Court stresses in particular that “the protection afforded by Article 10 [of the ECHR] to journalists is subject to the proviso that they act in good faith in order to provide accurate and reliable information in accordance with the tenets of responsible journalism” (§ 67). It “cannot accept as an example of responsible journalism an article propagating hatred, hostility and discrimination against a minority, in this case the LGBT community, which, at the material time, appeared to be one of the main targets of widespread hostility, hate speech and hate-motivated violence in the country [...] and against those, like the applicants, who were active in promoting and defending the rights of that minority” (§ 69). The Court states that by downplaying the incitation to intolerance and hostility against the applicant by the author of the articles, and by regarding them as legitimate expression of criticism, the Armenian courts have “[...] failed to protect the applicants from speech advocating intolerance and harmful acts in breach of Article 8 [of the ECHR]” (§ 69).
Regarding Art. 14 of the ECHR in conjunction with Art. 8 of the ECHR, the Court finds that the Armenian courts “[...] failed to address the question as to whether the impugned speech itself was bias-motivated and had discriminatory overtones, as well as the discriminatory motives of the author” and therefore, that these courts “failed to comply with their positive obligation to respond adequately to the applicants’ alleged discrimination on account of their perceived sexual orientation and association with the LGBT community, as required under Article 14 [of the ECHR]” (§ 70).
The Court concludes that Art. 8 of the ECHR taken alone and in conjunction with Art. 14 of the ECHR has been violated (§ 76).
Direct to the judgement (https://hudoc.echr.coe.int)