This Handbook has been designed for people and organisations who are thinking of monitoring human rights abuses occurring during Pride marches. The human rights monitoring technique described here is the observation of marches by independent observers. The Handbook looks at different aspects of observing Pride marches. It explains briefly the principles of human rights monitoring. It lists relevant human rights instruments which can be invoked when a Pride march is banned or violent.
Then it gives some practical advice and tools on human rights monitoring through observation of Pride marches. Once the factual information is collected it is important to gather the information in a report and to send it to the relevant human rights organisation.
Information is given on organisations that monitor the implementation of human rights standards and how to approach them. Finally it looks into the possibility of taking cases before courts at national and international level and the challenges attached to this approach. This Handbook can be used in conjunction with the toolkit on how to organise pride marches in a difficult environment which is available on the ILGA-Europe website.
Amnesty International is concerned about the failure of Latvia to include sexual orientation as a ground for discrimination in its Labour Law. Latvia is required by European Union EU law to do so and by not amending its laws it is in clear breach of its obligations to the EU. Amnesty International calls on the Latvian parliament to include sexual orientation as a ground for discrimination on the labour market as soon as possible.
Amnesty International reminds the Latvian authorities that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a human rights violation. The amendment would have explicitly banned discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Transposing this Directive into its domestic law was an integral part of what Latvia signed up to when joining the EU, yet it has failed to live up to this obligation.
