Human Rights and Democracy - Official Documents

David Morris visited Albania in 2010, and the Embassy will again support the British
Council’s “Inclusion Week” in April 2011. Our support has helped the Inclusion
Week to achieve a markedly higher profile for disability issues in Albania, as
demonstrated by an unprecedented public rally of disabled people’s groups in Tirana
as well as action from the Tirana authorities to improve wheelchair access across the
city.
We continued to support Turkey’s EU accession process and strongly encouraged
them to make progress with their reform agenda. The September Constitutional
Reform referendum was a positive step and demonstrated wide support for judicial
and military reform. We will continue to emphasise to the Turkish government the
importance of swift and effective implementation of the reform package.
Turkey has made progress in certain areas of human rights, but there is more work
to be done before it meets EU standards, particularly on freedom of expression and
the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. We support Turkey’s efforts to address
these issues and in 2010 we agreed to fund the largest ever number of human rights
projects across the widest ever range of issues in Turkey, including on LGBT,
children, women and disability, and helping refugees and asylum seekers better
understand their rights and access legal remedies. The year 2011 promises to be an
important year for Turkey. Several key pieces of legislation have been drafted and
will pass through the Turkish parliament, including on anti-discrimination, data
protection and human rights. There is a parliamentary election in June, and should
the current government retain power it has announced it will draft a new constitution.
This would give renewed impetus to Turkey’s reform programme. We will continue
to encourage the government of Turkey to make progress towards EU standards.
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