Report published following the visit of the Conference of INGOs to Armenia

As many will remember, the European Forum had to cancel its annual Eastern European and Central Asian Forum Conference for LGBTI+ Christians in Jerevan, Armenia, in November 2018, due to safety risks. The conference was to be held just before post-revolutionary parliamentary elections. The atmosphere was very LGBTI+-phobic, resulting in threats to our local conference organisers.

In November 2019 our advocacy volunteer, Wielie Elhorst, was able to join a fact-finding mission of the International NGO Conference of the Council of Europe to Armenia assessing the strength of civil society in this country.

We are very happy to see the report of this mission now published, with five pieces of advice, one of which is the following: ‘Implementation of the specific legal provisions and practices aiming to protect the LGBTI persons who currently do not have adequate protection from attacks, discrimination, hate speech and hate crime.’

We hope Armenia seriously works on the protection of LGBTI+ people and their equality, so that maybe we can return some day and come together peacefully in this beautiful country.

Read more following the link: https://www.coe.int/en/web/ingo/-/report-published-following-the-visit-of-the-conference-of-ingos-to-armenia