Europe

The German Embassy in Georgia has addressed the legal proceedings against the protesters, highlighting what it sees as intimidation tactics and unequal legal treatment of demonstrators and law enforcement representatives.

In a statement on February 12, the Embassy called attention to the legal provisions on possible release from pre-trial detention, emphasizing that they should be taken seriously in court practice. “It appears that people exercising their fundamental rights are [intentionally] being intimidated,” the statement said.

“The same standards should apply to both demonstrators and law enforcement officials in cases of potential criminal offenses,” the embassy said.

The statement stressed that “no serious investigation of the violations committed by state structures has yet been conducted.”

...

Meanwhile, the High Representative/Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, and Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos said that the Georgian Dream authorities take “further steps away from democratic standards” and called on GD to “release all journalists, activists and political detainees.”

“These developments mark a serious setback for Georgia’s democratic development and fall short of any expectations of an EU candidate country,” the statement adds.

Kallas and Kos urge the Georgian authorities to suspend these measures, to “refrain from further tensions” and to await the opinion of the OSCE/ODIHR, as requested by the Georgian Public Defender.

...

Objectives

We call on the European Commission to propose a binding legal ban on conversion practices targeting LGBTQ+ citizens in the European Union:

Conversion Practices are interventions aimed at changing, repressing or suppressing the sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression of LGBTQ+ persons.

Such practices, due to their discriminatory, degrading, harmful and fraudulent nature have been qualified as torture by the United Nations, and are currently being banned in a growing number of States.

The EU plays a key role in the protection of fundamental rights and should take actions to fight against all inhuman practices. The Commission should propose a directive adding conversion practices to the list of euro-crimes and/or amend the ongoing directive on equality (2008) to include a ban on these practices.

Furthermore, to fight against the legislative moratorium, the Commission should also enforce a non-binding resolution calling for a widespread ban of conversion practices in the EU.

Finally, we call on the Commission to amend the Victims’ Rights Directive to establishes minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of conversion practices.

All member states should introduce a ban on conversion practices or review their current ones.

Archived

The relations between Baku and Moscow are witnessing one of the most tense periods in the last 30 years due to the arrogance of the Kremlin.

Consumed by the belief of being a superpower and an extraordinary state in the world, Russia does not intend to admit its responsibility for shooting down the Azerbaijani plane en route from Baku to Grozny on December 25, 2024. On the contrary, it has started an old scenario that is well-known from the events in Georgia in 2008 and more recently in Ukraine.

Like in both events, some lesser-known Russian media outlets (not mainstream media outlets yet) and pundits started to threaten Azerbaijan following the news that Baku was going to bring the issue to international arbitration. Practice suggests that if Azerbaijan does not give up its righteous claims (which nobody expects it to), the Russian mainstream media will jump into the fray and start discussing whether Azerbaijan has a statehood history or not; how Bolsheviks granted a “state” to Azerbaijanis who are ungrateful to her majesty Matushka Rossiya; and all that. It is their old tactic to cow all the former Soviet republics. To tell the truth, we are fed up with such rhetoric from the Russian media.

Being well aware of Russian tactics, we, Azerbaijanis, expect more threats in the coming days. However, does it intimidate us? Of course, it does not. Neither Ukraine nor Georgia can be a warning for us. Because both Georgia and Ukraine follow in our footsteps, not the other way around. Thirty years ago, during its weakest and most difficult times, Azerbaijan expelled Russia from its territory without yielding to any threat. At that time, unlike Ukraine which inherited over 1800 nuclear warheads, intercontinental missiles, strategic bombardment aircraft, and other weapons from the USSR, Azerbaijan did not get anything but the Garabagh conflict. However, Azerbaijan did not walk back. As a result, Russia lost the biggest country in the region and eventually, it lost the South Caucasus.

[...]

European foreign ministers warned that Ukraine’s future must involve both Europe and Kyiv, as news broke that US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to “immediately” hold peace talks.

The ministers and their delegations arrived in Paris for a meeting on Ukraine ahead of the Munich Security Conference this weekend – saying any future peace deal would need to be negotiated with Ukraine and its European allies.

The meeting included the foreign ministers from Poland, Spain, Germany, France, UK and Ukraine.

Andriy Sybiha, Ukraine's Foreign Minister, said: "Europe plays the active role in ensuring a just and comprehensive and long lasting peace for Ukraine. Ukraine security and European security are indivisible".

...

Moldovan President Maia Sandu said on Thursday that Russian drones violated Moldova's airspace with two drones exploding on its soil.

"Shahed drones violated our airspace, two exploded on our soil, putting Moldovan lives at risk," Sandu wrote on social media.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/18347682

Hungary being the worst of all

Mirror: https://archive.is/34Jb5

Mirror: https://archive.is/2025.02.12-171040/https://www.ft.com/content/1b5dde3b-ab6b-4b93-8a1b-6c3a40bb690c

Mirror: https://archive.is/2025.02.12-144536/https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/02/12/ukraines-president-fears-donald-trump-is-keeping-him-out-of-the-loop

Check this too: The moment Latvia disconnected from the Russian energy grid. https://feddit.it/post/14721634

China is helping Russia's military drone production by becoming a hub for the smuggling of critical Western components for Moscow's armed forces, Estonia's foreign intelligence said in its annual national security report published on Wednesday.

Some 80% of such components reaching Russia now come from China, it said. Previous Ukrainian reports have suggested that roughly 60% of foreign parts found in Russian weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine have come via China.

China is Russia's "primary hub" for importing high-tech and dual-use goods, evading Western sanctions, according to the report.

"Chinese interests here lie in preventing Russia from losing the war in Ukraine as such an outcome would represent a victory for the United States, which is the main rival for China," Kaupo Rosin, director general of the service, told reporters in a video call.

...

NATO member Estonia closely tracks Russian military capabilities as it regards Moscow as the major threat to its security, especially since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022.

...

Russia is "in principle willing" to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine but only "to catch breath" because President Vladimir Putin has not abandoned his "imperial ambitions", Rosin said.

...

Archived

This is an opinionated article by Engjellushe Morina, Senior Policy Fellow, and Angelica Vascotto, pan-European Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

This winter has seen Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic skating on dangerously thin ice. Mass student-led anticorruption protests have led to the resignation of the prime minister, Milos Vucevic, as well as several other members of his government. Last week, the president hinted that the turmoil could lead to a snap parliamentary election come spring.

But public anger and Vucic’s collapsing government are far from his only problems. Even before the protests, the president’s longstanding “à la carte” approach to foreign policy of hedging Serbia between the West and Russia (with a side order of China) seemed to be in trouble. Both the European Union and Russia have been pressing Belgrade to choose a side. Now, Vucic has found himself with very little international sympathy for his domestic woes—and very little room for manoeuvre.

This gives Europeans a key opportunity to help steer events towards stability and democratic progress while minimising the risk of regional spillover. To prevent prolonged instability and bring Serbia back on track, the EU should support civil society, address regional tensions, and reinforce Serbia’s European trajectory.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/29380375

Archived

On Wednesday, 12 February, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi, will meet British Foreign Secretary David Lammy in London when the two co-chair the China-UK Strategic Dialogue, the first such strategy dialogue between the two countries since 2018. The London meeting follows British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves’ January mission to China to resume the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue, stalled since 2019. The concluding policy paper made only two weak references to human rights. The resumption of such strategic dialogues between the UK and China sends a concerning message, in particular at a time of deteriorating human rights in China and mounting transnational repression in the UK. ARTICLE 19 reiterates calls for the UK to prioritise human rights in its engagement with China.

[...]

Demand an immediate end to the arbitrary detention of British citizens

First detained under Hong Kong’s draconian National Security Law in August 2020, media magnate and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, 77, who is a British citizen, has remained in solitary confinement for over 1,400 days. He faces trial for serious charges under the NSL, which carry a potential maximum life sentence, yet Hong Kong has denied him consular support.

In 2015 British citizen Lee Bo vanished along with several Hong Kong bookseller colleagues in a coordinated attack for selling titles critical of Chinese Communist Party elites. He was ‘involuntarily removed to the mainland without any due process’ in December of that year in a ‘serious breach’ of the Sino-British Joint Declaration, as stated by the UK government at the time. In late February 2016, he on Chinese state-owned Phoenix Television claiming to have returned to China of his own accord and renouncing his British citizenship. It has all the hallmarks of a forced confession. Throughout the ordeal, Lee Bo was also denied consular access. reappeared on Chinese state-owned Phoenix Television claiming to have returned to China of his own accord and renouncing his British citizenship. The appearance had all the hallmarks of a forced confession. Throughout the ordeal, Lee Bo was also denied consular access.

In meeting with Wang Yi, the UK should call for the immediate and unconditional release of Jimmy Lai and other British citizens and dual nationals arbitrarily detained in China and Hong Kong. Recognising the right under international law, David Lammy should furthermore demand full consular access for Jimmy Lai and other detained British citizens.

Transnational repression in the UK must end

David Lammy has an obligation to speak for the estimated 150,000 Hong Kongers and other minority and Chinese groups living in the UK, many of whom increasingly live in fear of transnational repression.

For example, on 16 October 2022 when a group of Hong Kongers gathered in front of the Chinese Consulate in Manchester to protest China’s human rights abuses, the demonstration quickly turned violent as consulate officials attacked the protesters. Bob Chan, one of the protesters and a British National Overseas (BNO) passport holder, was violently dragged by masked men into the consulate grounds and beaten up. He was pulled out to safety by British police. Chan was later treated at a hospital for his injuries.

China’s Consul General in Manchester, Zheng Xiyuan, the second highest diplomat in the UK, later admitted to participating in the attack, telling Sky News that Chan ‘was abusing my country, my leader, I think it’s my duty’. There is no record of Wang Yi having expressed disapproval of these actions.

Bob Chan is one of several hundred thousand British National Overseas passport holders. The BNO was created as part of the 1997 British handover of Hong Kong, but applications surged following the imposition of the National Security Law in 2020. In January 2021 China and Hong Kong announced they were refusing to recognise BNO passports, which prevents BNO passport holders residing in the UK from accessing their retirement savings in Hong Kong.

Perhaps starkest of China’s transnational repression against Hong Kongers residing in the UK has been the Hong Kong National Security Police issuing international arrest warrants and $1 million HKD ($128,361 USD) bounties on nine Hong Kongers in the UK in July and December 2023 and December 2024.

This transnational repression of dissidents abroad has been compounded by the harassment and targeting of their family members still in China, such as London-based member of Hong Kong Democracy Council Carmen Lau.

[...]