Republic of Turkey joined Council of Europe on 9 August 1949 and is one of the oldest members. The Council of Europe has a well-established large-scale country-specific co-operation in Turkey mainly in the field of rule of law and fundamental freedoms. However, the country has been facing some major challenges in the past years, especially in the field of human rights and freedoms, including the overall protection of the rights of LGBTI persons.

The EU accession process has been, and continues to be, a driving force for change in the recognition of the human rights of LGBTI people throughout the region not only through the criteria that countries have to meet, but through the annual Enlargement Reports.

Public opinion polls have shown that LGBTI persons, along with Roma persons, are the least accepted minority group in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The vast majority of the citizens of BiH continue to see homosexuality as a disease and support criminal prosecution and punishment of LGBTI persons. The vast majority of families would not accept an LGBTI family member and would reject and exclude them solely by reason of their different identity and personal characteristics.

ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for Western Balkans and Turkey in close partnership with its members: Aleanca LGBT, PINK Embassy Albania, Pro LGBT and Streha; and with technical support from ILGA World submitted this Written Contribution to the 3rd Cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Republic of Albania, which focuses on the position of LGBTI persons in the country.

The results of the survey on the experiences of LGBTI people in Southeastern Europe reveal a collective experience of discrimination, harassment, exclusion and violence. The report “Life on the Margins: Survey Results of the Experience of LGBTI people in South Eastern Europe” was published by the World Bank in partnership with IPSOS Strategic Marketing, ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for the Western Balkans and Turkey, and the Williams Institute at UCLA.

In this report, the SOGI Independent Expert of the United Nations provides an overview of violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Such acts are committed in all corners of the world, and victims are presumed to be in the millions, every year.

This report has been developed as part of the project “Being LGBTI in Eastern Europe: Reducing In­equalities & Exclusion, and Combating Homophobia & Transphobia Experienced by LGBTI people in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Serbia” (BLEE). The project considered LGBTI issues in each of the countries from a human rights and development perspective, contextualizing these against the backdrop of civil society capacity development, com­munity mobilization and government competence.

Serbian (for English see below):

Da se zna! predstavlja izveštaj o zločinu iz mržnje: "Podaci, a ne zvona i praporci - diskriminatorni incidenti i zločini motivisani homofobijom i transfobijom u Republici Srbiji u periodu od januara do novembra 2017“.