AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

created but was not operational at the end of
2016.
RIGHTS OF LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL,
TRANSGENDER AND INTERSEX PEOPLE
According to the Civil Code, same-sex
marriages and civil unions were prohibited
and those contracted abroad not recognized.
The case of a same-sex couple seeking
recognition of their marriage officiated in
Belgium remained under examination by the
Constitutional Court. In November, the
Constitutional Court sought preliminary ruling
from the European Court of Justice on the
harmonic interpretation of EU legislation on
freedom of movement and residence for
same-sex couples.
The Coalition for Family – a group of some
30 associations and foundations – ran a
campaign until May to put forward a
legislative proposal to restrict the
constitutional definition of “family” from
“marriage between spouses” to “marriage
between a man and a woman”. In July, the
Constitutional Court allowed the proposal to
be put to Parliament to decide on whether or
not to hold a national referendum. The
decision remained pending at the end of the
year.
In April, the ECtHR found that authorities
failed to carry out an effective investigation
into the attack – including its potentially
discriminatory motive – on Bucharest Pride
march participants in 2006.
COUNTER-TERROR AND SECURITY
In June, the ECtHR held a public hearing in
the case against Romania for complicity in
the US-led rendition and secret detention
programmes, which the CIA operated globally
in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001
attacks in the USA. 1 Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri,
a Saudi Arabian national currently held in the
US detention centre at Guantánamo Bay,
Cuba, had lodged an application against
Romania in 2012 alleging that he was forcibly
disappeared and tortured at a secret CIA
detention centre in Bucharest between 2004
and 2006, and that Romania had failed to
effectively investigate his secret detention.
The hearing came after the Council of Europe
Secretary General summarily closed in
February 2016 its Article 52 inquiry into
European states’ involvement in the CIA
operations – a severe blow to accountability.
The Romanian government denied the
allegations and argued an investigation was
ongoing. A judgment in the case remained
pending at the end of the year.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS
According to General Police Inspectorate
data, 8,926 cases of domestic violence were
registered in the first six months of 2016 –
79% of the victims were women and 92.3%
of the aggressors were men. National NGOs
reported that the actual number of cases was
much higher. In July, NGOs requested that
the government expedite the adoption of
measures to combat violence against women
and domestic violence. The Council of
Europe Convention on preventing and
combating violence against women and
domestic violence (Istanbul Convention)
entered into force in September.
1. CIA rendition victims challenge Romania and Lithuania at Europe’s
human rights court (News story, 29 June)
RUSSIAN
FEDERATION
Russian Federation
Head of state: Vladimir Putin
Head of government: Dmitry Medvedev
Restrictions on rights to freedom of
expression, association and peaceful
assembly increased. Prosecutions of those
who had taken part in anti-government
protests in Bolotnaya Square continued and
gave rise to further concerns regarding the
respect for fair trial standards. Human
rights defenders faced fines or criminal
prosecution because of their activities. The
first criminal prosecution for failure to
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