Free Republic

Eloïse Bouton, a freelance journalist working for the mainstream press who later left Femen in 2014, was the star of the event planned by the group to demand the protection of abortion 'rights.'(LifeSiteNews) — The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has awarded almost 10,000 euros ($9791 US) in damages and legal costs to a former “Femen” member, Eloïse Bouton, on the grounds that her right to “freedom of expression” was violated by the French courts that condemned her for her shocking “topless” intrusion into the Parisian church of La Madeleine shortly before 10 a.m. on December 20, 2013. The...

A legal challenge by a Northern Ireland gay rights activist who claimed he was discriminated against when a bakery refused to make a cake with a slogan supporting same-sex marriage has been dismissed by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The court declared the action inadmissible and said the applicant, Gareth Lee, had “failed to exhaust domestic remedies” available through the UK courts. In the ruling, published yesterday, a majority of seven judges said Mr Lee had not invoked his rights under the ECHR “expressly at any point in the domestic proceedings”.By relying solely on domestic law, they said,...

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that mandatory vaccinations are legal in a significant judgment that could have a big impact on the rollout of the COVID-19 jab.The ruling was in response to a complaint from a group of Czech families who had been fined and had their children denied nursery care over their refusal to let their kids take mandatory vaccinations against against nine diseases including diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and measles.The parents argued that the law was in violation of of Article 8 on the right to respect for private life, but the court...

A case involving a Belfast bakery, that refused to make a cake with a pro-same-sex marriage slogan for a customer, has been referred to the European Court of Human Rights. Ashers Baking was found guilty of discrimination in 2015 for refusing to make a cake for Gareth Lee. Mr. Lee requested a cake with the words “Support Gay Marriage” iced on top, but the owners of the bakery refused due to their Christian beliefs. The bakery has said its objection was to the message on the cake, not the customer. Mr. Lee’s legal bid in Europe’s highest court will argue...

The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday rejected the appeal of a German couple who have been fighting for years to home school their kids, saying the government was within its rights to temporarily remove their children. Home schooling is illegal in Germany and the Strasbourg, France-based court noted it had already upheld that law in previous decisions. But Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, who are in their early 50s, had argued their rights to privacy of home and family life were violated by Hesse state authorities when their four children were taken from them in 2013. They were returned...

Former ECHR Judge and CHP Izmir MP Riza Turmen stressed that Turkey is obliged to comply with the ECHR’s Demirtas ruling. Former ECHR Judge and CHP (Republican People's Party) Izmir MP Riza Turmen stressed that Turkey is obliged to comply with the ECHR’s Demirtas ruling. Riza Turmen called for compliance with the European Court of Human Rights ruling and stressed that Selahattin Demirtas should be released without delays. Turmen stated that noncompliance with the ruling, which references Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights and poses a precedent for other political prisoners, will be the confirmation that Demirtas’s...

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday said that Turkey is not bound by verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) following the court’s decision calling for the release of Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtaş from a lengthy pre-trial detention. “ECtHR decisions do not bind us. Up until now, most of the decisions about the organization [Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)] have been negative. There is a lot to be done in reaction [to the verdict]. We will take steps in response and finish the case. Terrorism continues,” Erdoğan said in parliament after the ruling. The ECtHR on Tuesday urged Turkey...

(CNSNews.com) – Europe’s top human rights court has ruled that comments about Mohammed having pedophilic tendencies are not covered by the right to freedom of expression, agreeing with the assessment of courts in Austria that the remarks constituted “an abusive attack on the Prophet of Islam which could stir up prejudice and threaten religious peace.” A seven-judge European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) panel in Strasbourg concluded that the Austrian courts had “carefully balanced the applicant’s right to freedom of expression with the rights of others to have their religious feelings protected, and to have religious peace preserved in Austrian...

Europe’s top rights court on Tuesday ordered Spain to compensate two ETA members convicted of the 2006 bombing of Madrid Airport for the “inhuman and degrading treatment” they suffered in police custody. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) did not, however, uphold the men’s claim that they had been tortured. Igor Portu and Martin Sarasola are serving life sentences over the bombing of the Terminal 4 car park at Madrid airport, which killed two people and injured around 50 others as part of ETA’s violent four-decade campaign for Basque independence. The pair claimed they were kicked and punched by...

A European court has ruled that the parents of a critically ill baby cannot privately pay for him to go to the United States for “experimental treatment”, and the child must stay in a British hospital to “die with dignity”. The parents of 10-month-old Charlie Gard are reported to be “utterly distraught” after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) denied them a final effort to save their dying son. After losing a battle in the UK’s Supreme Court, they had appealed to the court in France to fight the decision of British doctors at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital,...

A German couple temporarily lost custody of their children because they were homeschooling them. Now the family is taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights to defend what they say is their parental right. The parents of four children are appearing before the Strasbourg European Court of Human Rights on Thursday to fight Germany’s near ban on homeschooling. In August 2013, the Wunderlich family had just begun their first homeschooling lesson of the year near Darmstadt, Hesse, when around two dozen police officers and social workers “stormed the home” using a battering ram, according to the parents...

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled the KGB murders of Lithuanian partisans was not an act of genocide. The ruling may become an important legal precedent in the evaluation of Soviet atrocities The ECHR ruled that former KGB officer, Vytautas Vasiliauskas, had been sentenced in Lithuania in June 2011 "on legal provisions that had not been in force in 1953.”

For years, the Mail has campaigned against the insidious and remorseless undermining of the sovereignty of Parliament and our judicial system by the remote, unaccountable European Court of Human Rights. From demanding that prisoners should get the vote to halting the deportation of terrorists who hate this country’s values, it is synonymous with judgments that fly in the face of common sense and the interests of the British people. Indeed, judicial activism in Strasbourg—and, remember, some ECHR members represent countries with populations smaller than the London borough of Islington—has warped the original noble intentions of the British authors of the...

The European Court of Human Rights condemned Britain once again on Tuesday for banning prisoners from voting, while ruling that inmates who challenged the ban were not entitled to any compensation. The Strasbourg court recognized moves to change the law in Britain, but said the blanket ban remained and was still in breach of the right to free elections enshrined in the European Convention of Human Rights. The case was brought by 10 prisoners who were automatically banned from voting in elections to the European Parliament in 2009 because of their incarceration. …

Greece’s biggest Jewish community said Monday it has taken Germany to Europe’s top human rights court, The Associated Press (AP) reported. The community is seeking the return of a huge ransom paid to Nazis more than 70 years ago to free thousands of slave laborers who were still sent subsequently to German death camps, the report said. The Jewish Community of Thessaloniki said it also wants “moral vindication” in a lawsuit tabled last week at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. …

David Cameron was yesterday accused of planning to “kow-tow” to European human rights judges and scrap the country’s toughest jail sentences. So-called “whole-life” terms, which condemn the most dangerous serial killers to die behind bars, could be replaced by “US-style 100-year terms”. But crucially, unlike many states in the US, the new sentences in Britain will come with an automatic review—potentially allowing murderers who would otherwise have stayed in jail to be released back on to the streets. […] Downing Street is set to change the law to comply with a European Court of Human Rights judgment, which found life...

Britain is set to pull out of the discredited European Convention on Human Rights that has allowed dangerous criminals and hate preachers to remain in the UK. It marks a triumph for The Mail on Sunday’s campaign against the ludicrous abuses of justice carried out in the name of human rights. The historic move, to be announced soon by Home Secretary Theresa May, would mean foreign courts could no longer meddle in British justice. The European Convention has led to such hugely controversial decisions as banning the deportation of radical cleric Abu Qatada and giving British prisoners the right to...

Khaled El-Masri, the Lebanese-born German national who claims the CIA abducted him in Macedonia in 2003 before subjecting him to unlawful imprisonment and torture, has become accustomed to his case being thrown out of court. But on Thursday, he was finally able to claim a victory. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in El-Masri’s favor and ordered that the government of Macedonia to pay him €60,000 ($78,456) in damages. Based in Strasbourg, the court found that his account of having been flown secretly to Afghanistan, brutally interrogated there at a prison run by the US intelligence agency and then...

Yesterday, the Prime Minister was crystal clear. “No one should be in any doubt: prisoners are not getting the vote under this Government.” Human rights lawyers and prison reform campaigners whinge that such defiance puts Britain on a collision course with the European Court of Human Rights, which set us a deadline of November 22 to overturn the current ban. In reality, it is the Strasbourg court that is threatening the rule of our national law with its arbitrary edicts. This is a fight over a principle which Britain must pick. …

As The Telegraph’s Tom Whitehead reports, prisoners in the UK must be given the right to vote following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). If the British government complies with this ruling, it will do so in the face of huge parliamentary and public opposition, with MPs voting against such a measure by 243 to 22 last February. This is an appalling ruling from a supranational court in Strasbourg that does not possess an ounce of democratic credibility. Americans would never accept the judgment of a foreign court over their own domestic affairs, and nor should...