BRATISLAVA, Sept 4 (IPS) – A law banning the depiction of LGBT+ identities in Bulgarian educational institutions is just the latest piece of repressive legislation in a wider attack on minorities and marginalised communities in parts of Europe and Central Asia, rights groups have warned.
The law, passed last month under an emergency procedure, is similar to legislation passed or proposed in many countries in the region in recent years that restricts the rights of LGBTQ+ people.
Activists say the Bulgarian law is expected to have a damaging impact on children and young people in the country, but is also likely to be followed by legislation aimed at oppressing other groups in society, following the pattern of autocratic rulers in the region.
“Often, anti-LGBT laws go hand in hand with other legislation, one coming quickly after the other. The point here is that certain political parties are concentrating and gaining ultimate power for themselves. LGBT+ people and other marginalised groups are just scapegoats,” Belinda Dear, Senior Advocacy Officer at LGBT+ organisation ILGA Europe, told IPS.
An amendment to Bulgaria’s education law, passed by a large majority in parliament on August 7, 2024, prohibits “propagating, promoting or inciting in any way, directly or indirectly, in the education system ideas and beliefs related to a non-traditional sexual orientation and/or gender identity that is not the biological one”.
Kostadin Kostadinov, chairman of the far-right Vazrazhdane (Revival) party that submitted the legislation, said that “LGBT propaganda is anti-human and will not be accepted in Bulgaria.”
Critics say the law will have a dire impact on LGBT+ children in a country where LGBT+ people already struggle to gain their rights. In the most recent Rainbow cardwhich analyses the state of LGBTQ+ rights and freedoms on the continent, ranked Bulgaria 38th out of 48 countries.
“The teachers we spoke to are really afraid of what will happen next. We expect a sharp increase in attacks and abuse of schoolchildren based on gender and sexual orientation,” Denitsa Lyubenova, Legal Program & Projects Director at Deystvie, one of Bulgaria’s largest LGBT+ organizations, told IPS.
“The law has only just been passed, so we can’t say for sure what the specific impact will be. What we do know is that laws like this will have an impact on children and young people in schools. It will increase bullying and legitimize discrimination by other students and even teachers,” Dear said.
Like other human rights activists, Lyubenova pointed out the similarities between the Bulgarian law and similar legislation adopted in recent years in other countries in Europe and Central Asia.
So-called “anti-LGBT+ propaganda” laws were passed in Hungary in 2021 and in Kyrgyzstan last year. These were in turn inspired by Russian legislation passed almost a decade earlier, which has since been expanded to include the entire LGBT+ community and followed by laws that effectively ban any positive expression of LGBT+ people.
Reports from rights groups have the harmful effects of such legislation.
Although these laws have been strongly condemned by local and international human rights organisations, political parties in some countries continue to try to push them through.
On the same day the Bulgarian law was passed, the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS) announced that it planned to introduce a bill to restrict discussion and teaching of LGBT+ issues in schools during the next parliamentary session in September.
Meanwhile, in June, Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party proposed a bill that would ban all LGBT+ gatherings, same-sex marriage, gender reassignment and the adoption of children by same-sex couples, among other things.
LGBT+ propaganda in schools will also be banned, and broadcasters and advertisers will be required to remove all content featuring same-sex relationships before broadcasting, regardless of the age of the intended audience.
In both countries, the proposed legislation comes on the heels of the introduction of so-called “foreign agent laws,” which impose restrictions and onerous obligations on certain NGOs that receive foreign funding. Critics say such laws can have a devastating effect on civil society, pointing to a similar law introduced in Russia in 2012 as part of a Kremlin crackdown on civil society. The legislation, which forced targeted NGOs to declare themselves “foreign agents,” has effectively closed down many civil society organizations in areas ranging from human rights to health care.
Campaigners say it is no coincidence that anti-LGBT+ legislation and laws against “foreign agents” are being introduced close to each other.
“This is likely to be the first in a series of laws that will discriminate not only against LGBT+ people, but also against other marginalized groups, which are seen as a ‘problem’ by far-right organizations in Bulgaria,” Lyubenova said.
“This anti-LGBT+ law came from the Revival party, which previously submitted bills for a ‘foreign agents law’ in Bulgaria. We expect a bill for foreign agents legislation to be submitted to the Bulgarian parliament soon,” she added.
In Georgia, where legislation restricting LGBTQ+ rights is being debated in parliament for the final time this month, civil society activists say the government is using one law to drum up support for another.
“Both laws are part of the same, great evil,” Paata Sabelashvili, a board member of the NGO Equality Movement in Georgia, told IPS.
Dear said passing “foreign agent” laws is part of a model autocratic regimes use to stay in power “by dismantling civil society, which keeps politicians in check.”
The other elements of the template, she said, were also to “dismantle the independence of the judiciary and the media.” Russia, Hungary, Georgia and Slovakia regularly score poorly on international press freedom indexes, and concerns have been raised about threats to media independence in Kyrgyzstan. Meanwhile, Russia is widely seen as a country that no longer has an independent judiciary, and concerns have been raised about government influence over the justice systems in Slovakia, Georgia and Hungary.
Governments that have introduced these laws have said that they are essential to preserve their countries’ traditional values and to limit foreign regimes, usually specifically Western ones, from influencing domestic politics and destabilizing the country. These claims have been repeatedly rejected by civil society and minority groups that the laws are aimed at.
Some human rights activists see the introduction of these laws as part of a coordinated international effort not only to spread specific ideologies but also to entrench autocratic regimes.
While the introduction of such legislation is ostensibly the work of independent, sovereign regimes, campaigners say the politicians behind these laws are not necessarily acting entirely on their own initiative.
Activists in Slovakia and Georgia who spoke to IPS highlighted the strongly pro-Russian sentiments expressed by ruling parties in their countries, while Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has come under heavy criticism even among EU officials for his close ties to the Kremlin and criticism of aid to Ukraine since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the neighbouring country. Meanwhile, Russia, like many other Central Asian countries, and Kyrgyzstan have historic ties dating back to the Soviet Union.
“These parties have ties to Russia. It is strategically coordinated and very well planned,” Dear said.
“I believe this is all part of a broader trend related to far-right governments and/or parties,” Tamar Jakeli, LGBT+ activist and director of Tbilisi Pride in Tbilisi, Georgia, told IPS.
Forbidden Colours, a Brussels-based LGBT+ advocacy group, drew a direct link between the Bulgarian law and the Kremlin’s suppression of human rights in Russia.
“It is deeply disturbing to see Bulgaria adopting tactics from the Russian handbook for combating human rights,” the group said in a statement.
Meanwhile, international and Bulgarian rights groups have called on the EU to take action to force the Bulgarian government to repeal the anti-LGBT+ law, while Bulgarian civil society organizations are preparing to fight its implementation. There have been street protests in the capital Sofia, and Lyubenova said her organization was also preparing legal challenges to the law.
“What these far-right groups are doing with this law is testing our ability to stand up to hateful actions. We must challenge it,” Lyubenova said.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All rights reservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service