■ Mike Hancock MP who tabled a question on Gibraltar's age of consent discrimination at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

GIBRALTAR, January 9, 2008  –  Equality Rights Group GGR has taken the issues of Gibraltar’s unequal age of consent and discriminatory sexual offences legislation to the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

This is the highest possible level of the European body responsible for overseeing Human Rights.

GGR chairman Felix Alvarez said today that the question which has been tabled directs itself to the United Kingdom’s responsibility regarding the Gibraltar Government’s failure to respect human rights standards not only in regard of unequal age of consent but across criminal offences such as ‘buggery’ and ‘gross indecency’ which exclusively criminalise gay men.

“The question has been tabled by Lib-Dem MP Mike Hancock, and places British Prime Minister Gordon Brown under additional pressure to ensure the Gibraltar government complies with international law requirements,” Mr. Alvarez said.

“It is now seven and a half years since the European Court ruled that age of consent inequality is in violation of the Convention.  Compliance is normally required within a maximum 3 to 4 years.”

He added: “This regrettable situation flies in the face of the Chief Minister’s new year claim that he will ensure ‘every’ citizen’s human rights.

“The facts tell a very different story and certainly the tabling of this issue at such a high level would not have been possible if the Chief Minister’s words had a grain of truth in them.

“There would simply be no basis for it.  This is evidently one more “New Year Message” that Gibraltar has once again been subjected to by Mr. [Peter] Caruana.  And it is regrettable because the Chief Minister’s asphyxiating personal crusade against diversity and tolerance across this whole community is harming Gibraltar in the UK, in Europe and within his own party, the GSD.

“The historically kind and tolerant traditions of Gibraltar and Gibraltarians must be safeguarded against Mr Caruana’s frustrated impositions of failed puritanical ideologies masquerading as “traditional family values”, Mr Alvarez added.

“We must all be wary of politicians who manipulate sentiment in this manner so as to bolster their failing electoral support.  Family is valued by all human beings, but cheap populism has historically exploited the ‘family values’ argument to justify repressive policies on issues as diverse as interracial marriage, slavery and women’s rights and have been at the root of much incitement to hatred in the past.”

Mr. Alvarez pledged that GGR will continue, independently, to resist all such pressures, and will continue to work to ensure that the real and legally recognised human rights of every citizen are truly respected and upheld despite every possible political and technical obstacle being placed by the Chief Minister.

“Under the rule of law, that work, as indeed that of justice in general, can only be trusted to independent democratic institutions and human rights organisations and not to the Chief Minister,” he said.

In his New Year Message, Chief Minister Caruana – a staunch Roman Catholic – said that one of the Gibraltar Social Democrats party’s core principles since being in power “has been adherence to the traditional family and its values, which of course includes one parent families.”

While not specifically mentioning homosexuality, he continued: “These values are the basis upon which our community is built and organised.  We must therefore be similarly on our guard against those who would import into Gibraltar “politically correct” but failed so called modern principles masquerading as human rights which undermine the traditional family, and which have been at the root of so much social failure elsewhere.

“We will continue to resist all such pressures, while ensuring that the real and legally recognised human rights of every citizen is respected and upheld.”

■ The question by Mike Hancock MP was tabled at the Council of Europe last month.  A reply is expected in the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly later this year.

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Posted: 10 January 2008 at 00:00 (UK time)