Filenews 12 October 2021
"An unacceptable delay is observed in the mapping of state, legislative and institutional actions in relation to the National Strategy for LGBTQ people," said yesterday the chair of the parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, AKEL MP, Irene Charalambidou, after the end of the committee's meeting on the need to prepare and implement a National Strategy of Cyprus for the equality of LGBTQ people.
The issue was discussed through the procedure of the ex officio by decision of all the members of the committee and the general director of the Ministry of Interior, Costas Constantinou, as well as representatives of the Ministry of Education, the Office of the Commissioner for Administration, the Pancyprian Family Planning Association, the Human Rights Committee of the Cyprus Bar Association and the Cyprus Youth Organization participated in the discussion.
Costas Gavrilidis, advisor to the President of the Republic on issues of Promoting Multiculturalism, Acceptance and Respect for Diversity, said that "the government has issued this year the National Strategy for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights which was approved in June by the Council of Ministers and now we are in the process of seeing the individual actions of this Strategy". He added that there is a need to set up an inter-ministerial committee that will solve some problems faced by LGBTQ people in various ministries and will study the issue of creating a special action plan for LGBTQ people."
The Vice-President of the Commission, AKEL MP George Koukoumas, emphatically stated that "LGBTQ people suffer a host of discrimination and prejudices embedded in legislation, institutional practices and social perceptions", while the MP of the Movement of Ecologists, Alexandra Attalidou, underlined that "the LGBTQ community is not asking for our 'tolerance' but for the recognition of its human rights, which are currently being trampled underfoot, while the safety of its members is threatened as they are receivers of hate speech and intimidation." From the Ministry of Justice, the senior official, Aristos Tsiartas, focused his intervention "on the need to change perceptions in order to proceed with the creation of an inclusive society", as he said.
A lot of the session was spent discussing the bill for the recognition of gender identity "which we regret to see is ignored", as Irene Charalambidou said. He added that "since 2019 the Legal Service together with the Ministry of Justice and after consultation with all stakeholders and stakeholders, has prepared this bill that has also been drafted by law and, instead of being forwarded to parliament, it has been on an ineffective course for two years." Costas Gavrilidis replied that "in the last two months a very important work has been done mainly by the Ministry of Interior with the cooperation of the Commissioner for Legislation in order to come up with a proper bill" and expressed the hope that it "will be submitted to Parliament in the coming months so that by the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022 it will be voted on". Marios Demetriou
