"This is an unprecedented and deeply disturbing step backwards for women's rights and human rights in Europe," the EPPA president emphasizes in a statement.
"Latvia has given a dangerous signal that women's safety and dignity can be questioned or that it is a debatable issue," Russopoulos points out, adding that the Saeima's decision was made"hastily and under the influence of disinformation."
"Latvia is now following Turkey, which withdrew [from the convention] in 2021. Since then, the number of femicide and violence against women has increased rapidly," claims the EPPA president.
Meanwhile, Tamara Dekanosidze, a representative of the international women's rights organization Equality Now, has warned that"this decision not only endangers women and girls in Latvia, but also encourages anti-human rights movements throughout Europe and Central Asia and supports authoritarian tendencies in governments that are moving away from the rule of law, international justice, and democratic values."
In her view, this law attempts to present gender equality initiatives as the implementation of the"LGBTQ agenda", using a Kremlin-style narrative that allows politicians to present themselves as defenders of"national values" before elections."This would mean that in terms of values, legal system and governance, Latvia is closer to Russia than to the European Union and Western countries," Dekanosidze argues. She added that this"directly serves Russia's interests in the country".
In turn, Jūrate Juškaitė, director of the Lithuanian Human Rights Center, has expressed concern that Latvia's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention could indicate that the region is leaning towards Hungary."This raises questions about human rights standards in our region, as well as about the decline of democracy and whether the region is becoming Hungary," Juškaitė said.
She pointed out that the issue of the Istanbul Convention has been stuck in Lithuania for years, and Latvia could set a negative example.
"The main argument of the opponents is that the Istanbul Convention did not change anything in Latvia, but at the same time it is frightening 'genderism'. The arguments are contradictory and have no content, it is just a political message that parties use to remind themselves of themselves before the elections," Juškaitė points out.
It has already been reported that on Thursday, with the votes of the opposition and the coalition Green and Farmers' Union (ZZS), a law was passed in the Saeima on Latvia's withdrawal from the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, or the so-called Istanbul Convention.
If Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs signs the law adopted by the Saeima, Latvia will become the first European Union (EU) member state to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention.
The withdrawal law was adopted as a matter of urgency, however, it was not determined by a 2/3 majority, which opens up the possibility for the President not to announce it and return it for a second reading in parliament.
Opponents of the decision have also voiced other possible solutions to suspend or delay the law's entry into force - appealing to the Constitutional Court or calling on the president to suspend the law's promulgation, giving time to collect signatures to initiate a referendum.
