Human Rights and Democracy - Official Documents

the EU announced the launch of 10 new human rights and democracy projects
including one that aims to reduce gender-based domestic violence in Armenia.
In Azerbaijan, EU member states continued to express concern about the
restrictions to freedom of assembly, including in the run-up to the November
parliamentary elections. The High Representative shared the concern of the
OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights that the conduct of the
elections was insufficient to constitute “meaningful progress in the democratic
development of the country” and called on the Azerbaijani authorities to address
these shortcomings. In November the EU welcomed the release of the youth activist
bloggers Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada, but expressed concern over Azerbaijan’s
reluctance to implement the European Court for Human Rights’ judgment on Eynulla
Fatullayev’s conviction for alleged terrorism.
Association Agreement negotiations between the EU and Armenia and Azerbaijan
were launched in July. The first EU–Azerbaijan Sub-committee on Justice,
Freedom, Security and Human Rights and Democracy took place between 30
November and 1 December.
In Egypt, progress on human rights and democracy has been an important principle
of the EU–Egypt Action Plan. The plan, which was adopted in 2007, sets out
priorities in the areas of strengthening democracy, judicial reform, freedom of
association and expression and the rights of women. However, in 2010 only limited
progress was made in these areas. The state of emergency, instituted in 1981, was
renewed in 2010 and continued to present a major obstacle to the full
implementation of Egypt’s human rights obligations, with provisions for administrative
detention and curtailing the right to assembly a particular concern. No amendments
were made to the election law in advance of the 2010 elections and the EU’s offer of
technical assistance in this area was not taken up.
On 12 May 2010, the High Representative made a statement in response to Egypt’s
decision to extend the state of emergency and encouraged the Egyptian government
to take the steps needed to adopt an anti-terrorism law fully compliant with
international human rights standards. Following the flawed elections in November
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