According to the rules of ECtHR, non-governmental organisations can, with the Court’s permission, make formal submissions presenting their position on the legal, ethical, and social aspects of a case as a third party.

The case in question deals with three complaints against the Russian government filed with the Court (Bayev v. Russia, App. No. 67667/09, Kiselev v. Russia, App. No. 44092/12, and Alekseyev v. Russia, App. No. 56717/12). The complainants are three gay activists fined for breaking the relevant regional Russian laws prohibiting propaganda of homosexuality among children. For example, in 2009 one of them, Nikolay Bayev (by whose name the case is now referred to in the Court’s documents database) held a protest in front of a Ryazan school displaying banners reading ‘Homosexuality is normal’ and ‘I’m proud of my homosexuality’, for which he was fined 1500 roubles (around $50). However, online articles describing the actions imply they were aimed at attracting a civil penalty specifically to enable them to challenge the relevant laws in Russian courts and the European Court of Human Rights.

The case was officially communicated by ECtHR in October last year. The Russian laws protecting children from propaganda of homosexuality, the complainants argued, had had them discriminated against, and infringed on their right to freedom of expression guaranteed under Article 10 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. According to the Court’s statement of facts, the complainants also claimed the laws in question prohibited ‘mere mention of homosexuality’, irrespective of the content of the message.

These claims are contested by the Family and Demography Foundation:

‘We are of the opinion that the statutory ban on propaganda of homosexuality among children is fully compliant with all the fundamental norms of international law, including European Convention of Human RIghts,’ argues the Foundation’s Legal Affairs Director and World Congress of Families Advisor for International Human Rights Law Pavel Parfentiev. ‘It is well documented in medical research that homosexual lifestyle is associated with increased risks to one’s physical and mental health. Moreover, most Russian citizens regard homosexualism and its propaganda as immoral. Given all that, the Convention and the European Court’s own case-law recognise the protection of health and morals of the children, as well as the protection of the family in its traditional sense, as legitimate grounds for restricting an individual’s right to freedom of expression. As for claims that the law supposedly prohibits mere mentioning of homosexuality, they are altogether incorrect.’

The Foundation applied to the Court for permission to present, in accordance with ECtHR rules, its position on the case’s legal and ethical aspects.

‘Having had applied for the permission to state our position on the case, which the Court granted in mid-January, we have duly submitted our written observations,’ comments Mr Parfentiev. ‘We are confident that the disputed Russian law is not infringing anyone’s rights and is not discriminating against anyone. Unfortunately, given that, as we think, in the last years many of ECtHR’s rulings on these matters were sadly very ideological in nature and clearly served the interests of ‘sexual minorities’ rather than the rule of law itself, we cannot be sure the Court will agree with our arguments. But it would have been wrong to remain silent.’

The Family and Demography Foundation is a Russian non-profit organization primarily engaged in family and parental rights advocacy and the protection of human rights and human dignity relevant to it. Along with the For Family Rights NGO, the Foundation is a co-founder of the FamilyPolicy.RU Advocacy group providing lawmakers, the public, and the media with expert advice informing family- and parents-friendly policies. The Foundation also serves as World Congress of Families’ representative in Russia, actively engaged in preparations for WCF VIII, due to take place in Moscow, September 2014.

The full English text of the observations submitted by the Foundation to the European Court of Human Rights will later be available online at FamilyPolicy.RU

Voici le rapport rendu pendant le Troisième forum des Parents Ukrainiens à Kyiv le 29-30 mars 2013 par Monsieur Pavel Parfentiev, le Directeur General du Centre analytique de la politique familiale de la Fédération de Russie, président de l’Organisation 

Protéger la famille dans le monde: vers les justes origines du droit international

La famille, qui prend sa racine dans l’union conjugale entre l’homme et la femme, constitue la base de la société humaine, à chaque culture de toutes les civilisations connues de l’histoire. Cette notion est universelle, reconnue partout et par tout être humain. La nier c’est aussi nier la nature humaine et frauder dans l’existence même de l’espèce humaine.

La vie et la famille sont des éléments premiers de chaque peuple, chaque société. On ne peut accéder à la justice sociale sans fondations telles que le refus de l’esclavage, égalité en face de la loi, la présomption de l’innocence ; mais sans respect pour la famille et la vie l’existence même de la société est mise en question. Un peuple qui cesse de respecter le sanctuaire de la vie humaine se détruit et cette autodestruction est commencée par le manque du respect vers la famille.

Nul peuple en bonne santé et conscience ne voudrait sa destruction. Pourtant des nations entières sont de nous jours poussées vers cette éventualité, et, paradoxalement, cela se fait sous le nom des “droits de l’homme”. On nous persuade de voir le droit de l’homme dans l’assassinat du fœtus niché dans le sein maternel, dans la propagation publique des pratiques homosexuelles et autres formes de la moralité sexuelle déformée, en donnant des couples homosexuelles le statut des soi-disant familles ayant le droit d’adopter et éduquer des enfants. On nous dit aussi que les droits des enfants sont violés par leurs propres parents, qui veulent tout simplement leur donner une éducation morale et religieuse appropriée et soutiennent la bonne discipline au milieu familial; et en même temps on nous persuade que l’agression familiale en tant que telle est un problème majeur de la société, qui doit aux parents une surveillance constante et appliquée au niveau des autorités.

Tout cela est un mensonge. Aucune convention internationale des droits de l’homme ne nous accorde le droit à l’avortement. Nul traité international ne nous fournit le droit de propager la perversion et la destruction de la notion naturelle de la famille, ni son remplacement par des constructions artificielles où l’homosexualité a été introduite. Il n’y a pas de traité international qui défendrait aux parents d’instruire leurs enfants dans leur foi et leurs convictions. C’est le mensonge abondant tellement dans des discussions publiques sur le droit humanitaire qu’il a maintenant l’air d’être accepté comme vérité générale. Il nous est régulièrement délivré en tant que standard légal humanitaire, qui doit être appliqué à tous les Etats et peuples quoi qu’ils en pensent.

Le juriste belge Jakob Cornides, docteur de droit, commente en finesse, que “ce qui avait jadis été considéré comme crime est devenu droit, et ce qui avait été justice devient son transgression”[1].

Comment cela s’est passé et peut-on résister à cela? Comment le fait décrit par un autre expert belge, Marguerite Peeters, dans son étude des mécaniques globales de l’autorité comme une “usurpation de la démocratie”, est devenu réalité?

Quand l’Organisation des Nations Unies avait été créée en 1945, sa Charte la dirigeait vers les moyens de “préserver les générations postérieures des horreurs de la guerre totale … qui ont deux fois déjà ravagés l’humanité”. La Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme reconnue en 1948 avait pour but de protéger des droits essentiels de tous les êtres humains, afin de ne pas laisser un nouveau régime nazi à prendre prise.

Aujourd’hui, certains de ces horreurs sont bel et bien oubliés. C’est exemplaire que pendant le Procès du Nürnberg une dizaine des chefs nazis ont été condamnés pour “le support et l’imposition des avortements”, ce fait étant considéré comme “crime contre l’humanité”[2].

L’état nazi se permettait de distraire des enfants de leur parents et se charger le leur éducation. Ces parents qui ne désiraient pas la participation de leur descendants dans le programme de Hitlerjugend ont été persécutés pour la cause d’abuser de leurs droits parentaux. C’est justement afin de prévenir cette situation à se répéter que l’article 26 de la DUDH pourvoyant que “les parents ont, par priorité, le droit de choisir le genre d’éducation à donner à leurs enfants” avait y été ajouté. Puis le Pacte International des droits civils et politiques avait additionellement reconnu dans son article 18(4) que “Les Etats parties au présent Pacte s’engagent à respecter la liberté des parents …de faire assurer l’éducation religieuse et morale de leurs enfants conformément à leurs propres convictions.”

La Convention même internationale des droits d’enfant, discutable sur certains points, reconnaît dans son article 9 le droit de l’enfant de ne pas être contraint de séparation de ses parents, hormis  des cas majeures, et dans son article 5 donne à l’enfant le droit d’être guidé et dirigé par ses parents dans le domaine de ses droits.

Tus ces principes essentiels sont aujourd’hui renversés dans des pays pourtant bien développées, y compris en Europe. Tous ces cas constituent des fraudes graves contre les justes droits de l’homme, et dont on peut certainement qualifier même de crimes contre la justesse naturelle, sont dans leur formalités accomplis au nom de la défense des droits de l’homme et de l’enfant. Au fait pratique, cela contredît des normes les plus justifiés, universelles et reconnues du droit international.

La propagation de l’avortement, tout en se couvrant dans la rhétorique juridique, entreprends, à travers le monde, à diminuer l’espèce humain. Doublé d’acception d’immoralité ouverte, cela conduits au suicide démographique des nations entières. Il est bien connu, que la croissance ou au moins la persistance de la population est essentielle pour le développement économique et social de l’état. Pour que cette persistance soit réelle il faut donc un coefficient des naissances non moindre de 2,1 enfants par femme. En Ukraine aujourd’hui, ce coefficient passe sous 1,5. Le seul moyen de subsistance dans des telles conditions pour un peuple est de retrouver la grande famille traditionnelle, des valeurs familiales et morales.

La DUDH et le PIDCP sont déclarant explicitement que la famille est “est l’élément naturel et fondamental de la société et a droit à la protection de la société et de l’Etat. »  Il est aussi clairement présenté, qu’un homme et une femme d’âge nuptial ont droit d’accéder au mariage et former une famille. Des normes juridiques internationales acceptent cette seule et unique forme de famille, qui est naturellement créée dans l’union nuptiale d’un homme et une femme qui sont dirigés vers la procréation et l’éducation de leur progéniture.

Ces mêmes traités internationaux démontrent que les droits individuels sont y étroitement liés aux obligations dues à la responsabilité envers la société; parmi eux la majorité peut être rétractée par la loi au cas où c’est nécessaire pour la protection de l’ordre social, la santé, la moralité ou le droit publique. Dans le contexte du droit international na notion de l’ordre social est comprise comme une somme des normes et valeurs qui sont indispensables pour qu’une société démocratique fonctionne dans sa stabilité et sécurité.

Une famille naturelle est une valeur universelle acceptée par le droit international comme un fondement de la société quelconque. Des agressions donc contre l’institution de famille ou des actions menant à la discréditer ou diminuer des droits naturels des parents, ou bien évaluer en tant que familles des autres genres de concubinage, y compris homosexuels, ainsi que la propagande quelconque dirigée contre la famille et ses valeurs essentielles – tout cela sont des actions déformant les principes mêmes de l’ordre social.

Au fond, elles sont similaires aux actions qui sont directement et juridiquement prohibées, telles que la propagande de la guerre ou des exhortions de l’intolérance raciale ou religieuse. Restreindre ou complètement défendre ces actions ne nuit pas à des droits de l’homme. Au contraire, de supporter la famille est indispensable pour protéger des vrais droits de l’homme reconnus par toute l’humanité. Cela se déduits directement des fondements du droit international, qui sont respectés par tous les peuples de la terre.

Malheureusement, les véritables fondements du droit international sont de nos jours directement attaqués par des actions sans justice d’une rangée des compagnies activistes, et aussi des institutions de portée mondiale et nationale dont ces communies en font leur instruments. Des institutions même très reconnues, telles que des organisations associées a l’ONU: le Comité des droits de l‘enfant, Le Comité pour l’élimination de la discrimination à l’égard des femmes, le Comité des droits de l’homme, certains structures du Conseil européen, y compris jusqu’à la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme – en sont souvent sujet.

En fait, on peut parler ici d’une réorganisation radicale, tout à fait délibérée, de portée globale, et initiée et conduite par un assez petit groupe de personnes. Cela est une ingénierie sociale bien percevable, qui, bien que sous forme si tôt pacifique et civilisée, est tout à fait agressive d’action. Réclamant de protéger des valeurs démocratiques cette tendance n’est pas démocratique en aucun aspect, puisque se développe ignorant le vouloir des peuples souverains et des états les dirigeant. Toute en rhétorique de la liberté, elle n’est pas compatible à la liberté réelle, car elle en force poursuit et fait taire des opinants. On peut concevoir comme but logique d’une telle initiative un régime dictateur, basée sur le déniement de tout ce que l’humanité avait accepté comme son essence – le respect de la famille, de la foi et de la morale.

Aujourd’hui, des organisations non gouvernementales supportant des idées radicalement opposées à la famille, s’activent come partie des structures internationales importantes, pour influencer délibérément et consciencieusement sur les décisions qui y sont prises. Cs organisations sont très appliquées à positionner ces membres parmi des délégations gouvernementales, à se balloter pour des positions de haute portée dans ces structures. En même temps, ceux qui se mettent du côté de la vie humaine, familiale et morale, sont pressés d’éviter leur participation dans le processus juridique international.

Des groupements organisés supportant des idées radicales de réorganisation sociale contre nature s’engagent aux institutions telles que l’ONU, le Conseil Européen, l’Union Européenne, tachent d’influencer le développement des plusieurs documents et la prise des multiples décisions. De même, disposant de ressources internationales, ils engagent dans le même courant des institutions locales et leurs représentants, qui supportent leurs idées dans le cadre national, tout en les finançant. En agissant en revers des justes intérêts des leurs peuples, des groupements comme tels exécutent une pression sur leurs états, réclamant de suivre des recommandations sans justice contre la famille, faussement présentées comme des “standards internationaux”.

Enfin, on peut reconnaître la mécanique financière et politique, qui tient du chantage en utilisant l’instrument de l’aide humanitaire et support social. Pas par pas, ignorant la souveraineté nationale, des idées sociales disparates et radicales se tournent à la loi nouvel mondial sans aucune raison juridique.

Voici juste quelques exemples d’une telle attitude.

Les organes de l’ONU surveillant l’exécution des traités internationaux, sont en fait des groupes des experts indépendants. Bien que ces experts sont nominés et élus par des états parties de la Convention, mais du moment de leur acceptation ils deviennent totalement démunis d’une responsabilité concrète et disposent d’une liberté totale d’action. Des groupes internationaux porteurs des idées antifamiliales, telles par exemple comme féminisme radical ou des droits exclusifs pour des homosexuels, entreprennent des efforts sérieux pour nominer leurs supporteurs pour ces experts. Cela n’est donc pas étonnant que l’action des tels comités est souvent carrément destructive.

Par exemple, bien que les traités internationaux ne chargent pas des organisations comme telles de commenter définitivement leur documents, ces comités en font de sorte régulièrement, parfois refaisant complétement le sens original des textes acceptés.

Ainsi, le Comité pour l’élimination de la discrimination à l’égard des femmes avait plusieurs fois engagé des états parties de modifier leurs constitutions. Il avait été demandé de supprimer telles fêtes que le Jour des Mères et le Jour des Pères. On avait vu des dizaines des réclamations de donner un droit juridique à l’avortement “facile et rapide”. La légalisation de la prostitution et le droit des filles mineures à utiliser des contraceptifs et autres “services médicaux de santé sexuelle” sans prévention des parents avait aussi été parmi leurs recommandations. Ne cherchez pourtant pas la législation de tous ces droits dans la Convention sur l’élimination de toutes les formes de discrimination à l’égard des femmes – elle n’y est pas présente. Tous ces “droits” fictifs et des obligations en issuant pour des états parties sont des fruits sans justice et raison des commentaires provenus du Comité lui-même.

Le Comité pour l’élimination de la discrimination à l’égard des femmes ainsi qu’un autre Comité des droits de l’enfant, avaient plusieurs fois recommandé une éducation sexuelle complète pour des enfants, également filles et garçons. Le Comité des droits de l’enfant avait surtout stressé que cela doit être exécuté sans égard à la volonté des leurs parents.

Il faut ici préciser la nature de l’”éducation sexuelle” selon des organisations associées à l’ONU. Vous irez en vain chercher dans les programmes proposées une information sur des valeurs familiales et des dangers de la promiscuité, ni des idées concernant la pureté conjugale, ni rien de tel. Leur contenu est très diffèrent. On verra, par exemple, un document conçu par l’Organisation Mondiale de la Santé, nommé “des standards de l’éducation sexuelle en Europe“. Ce document prévoit le début de l’éducation sexuelle de la naissance. La page 38[3] propose de raconter aux enfants d’âge 1 à 4 (!) “Le plaisir de toucher à leur corps, expliquer le phénomène de masturbation juvénile”. La page 45 demande à munir des enfants d’âge 9 à 12 d’information sur leurs droits sexuels selon la définition… d’AMS (Association Mondiale de sexologie). Cette Association définit, par exemple, un des “droits sexuels” comme ça: ” le droit au plaisir sexuel. Le plaisir sexuel y compris l’autoérotisme, est une source du bien-être physique, psychologique, intellectuel et spirituel”. On voudrait ici noter qu’aucuns “droits sexuels” n’existent tout simplement pas dans nul traité international des droits de l’homme, pas dans des normatifs obligatoires internationaux.

Voici un autre exemple du cas où des normes juridiques internationales ont été sans raison aucune redéveloppées par des comités associés. En 2006, se basant sur des arguments mineurs, discutables et parfois tout à fait faussés, le Comité des droits de l’enfant avait indiscutablement proclamé (cela dans une “remarque générale N8″) que depuis lors tous les gouvernements devaient supprimer des punitions corporelles des enfants, y compris celles qui ont été pratiquées en famille. Une claque à l’enfant désobéissant doit être maintenant qualifié d’acte de violence insupportable et poursuivie par la loi. Et cette conclusion ne sortait point de la Convention internationale des droits de l’enfant. Le Comité même avait précisé que cette interdiction n’avait pas été considérée pendant le développement de la Convention. Mieux que ça – et cela avait passé sous jacinthe – la République de Singapore avait, pendant la ratification de la Convention, clairement envisagé le bon usage des punitions corporelles tant qu’elles se passent dans le désir de poursuivre des meilleurs intérêts de l’enfant, et cela n’avait pas été contredit par personne. Aussi, la proposition de l’URSS de complétement bannir des punitions corporelles des écoles avait été voté contre par la majorité.

Observation générale n^o 13 acceptée en 2011 avait conduit le Comité au-delà et oblige des états parties de ratifier une rangée entière des traités internationaux, si cela n’avait pas encore été fait auparavant, et retirer toutes les déclarations et remarques faites par eux sur la Convention originelle des droits de l’enfant. La directive du Comité avait été de déclencher la poursuite juridique de toute violence, quoique largement comprise, envers les enfants – y compris non seulement des clappes, mais aussi “l’effraiement” ou “la risée” de ceux-là. Enfin, le Comité avait prescrit aux états parties de financer sans relent l’exécution de ces obligations du budget national et créer l’organe indépendant de surveillance sur la protection des droits des enfants.

De telles recommandations ébrèchent gravement à la souveraineté nationale de tous les états. Il est  d’autant plus étonnant que les gouvernements ne s’y opposent par et se plient en majorité sous la pression des Comités de l’ONU. En 2007 une multitude des pays ont obéi la recommandation sans la vérifier et avaient interdit les punitions corporelles au sein des familles, les baffes y comprises. Cette action, comme on avait déjà dit, ne se basait pas sur aucun fondement législatif international.

Au lieu des standards législatifs des experts des Comités se servent en fait des constructions discutables et arbitraires, fabriquées et répandues par des radicalistes en cour d’une ingénierie sociale. C’est par en dessous et pas par pas, incontrôlées par des peuples souverains, des conceptions étranges se présentent telles par exemple comme une idée de reconstruction délibérée du sexe.

En 2006 un groupe des experts protecteurs des soi-disant “droits des minorités sexuelles” avait approuvé un document dénommé des Principes de Jogjakarta. Par voie de réédition des normes existantes de droit international in en était but de créer des droits nouveaux et injustifiés. Ce document, entre autres, proclame que “l’identité du genre est une conception profonde par un individu de ses traits internes et individuels génériques, qui peuvent coïncider tout autant que ne pas coïncider avec le sexe biologique”. Bien que des plusieurs états y ont fait objection, cette définition avait plusieurs fois été convoquée par des membres responsables de l’ONU, et ensuite ses analogues ont apparu dans des documents engendrés par les représentatifs du Conseil Européen.

Aujourd’hui des définitions basées sur de théories accordant auxquelles le sexe humain n’est pas un fait biologique, bien qu’étant très hypothétiques scientifiquement disant, deviennent peu à peu part des recommandations clémentes qui passent à l’état du fait évident et obligeant. La Convention du Conseil de l’Europe sur la prévention et la lutte contre la violence à l’égard des femmes et la violence domestique, signée par l’Ukraine  le 7 novembre 2011 mais toujours pas ratifiée, dans son article 3 définit définit explicitement le « genre » comme “les rôles, les comportements, les activités et les attributions socialement construits “, et dans son article 14 oblige d’informer des enfants de “les rôles non stéréotypés des genres”. Cela avait déjà déclenché l’opposition à la Convention de la part de la Conférence des prêtres catholiques à Pologne, qui avait déclaré que ce document se base sur des suppositions idéologiques totalement intolérables et faussées”.

Ce fait n’est pas simplement destructif. Cela est une fraude juridique couverte par des références fabriquées sur le droit international, qui menace la souveraineté et le bien-être des peuples, des familles et des êtres humains. On est aujourd’hui au carrefour, où soit des peuples voudront changer la situation en dirigeant leur politiques les plus appliquées envers leur bien-être national, la protection de famille, qui est indispensable pour la protection véritable de l’enfance, soit des activistes radicaux en force des structures internationales vont continuer de détruire la famille, les sociétés et les états. Dans ce dernier cas des structures internationales vont, tout en perdant progressivement leur légitimité, indiscutablement devenir agresseurs ouverts dans une sorte de guerre – celle dirigée contre la famille et l’humanité entière. De nos jours, la politique familiale internationale influence si gravement la vie du chaque état, qu’on ne peut pas la laisser passer.

L’état civil de chaque pays devrait aujourd’hui faire le tri en toute conscience et préserver ou bien détruire la société saine basée sur les valeurs familiales.

Avons-nous des chances de renverser cette situation, de protéger nos peuples, nos familles et nos enfants? Nous en sommes persuadés et voyons d’atteindre à cela notre obligation. Voici quelles voies on considère à cette fin:

1. Il sera trop de croire que des tendances décrites sont déjà bel et bien devenues standard ou bien une règle irrévocable. La réalité est une guerre pour la famille sur le plan mondial. Aujourd’hui il est indispensable de joindre nos efforts à travers le monde pour toutes les forces saines gouvernementales ou indépendantes de se mettre à la protection de la famille, de ses valeurs traditionnelles et morales, de la sacralité de la vie humaine. Le réseau des structures antifamiliales qui ont usurpé tous les droits de parler de la part de l’état civil, est déjà bien répandu. Pourtant on ne doit pas les laisser faire. Tendrement mais constamment, en bonne raison et avec savoir-faire, utilisant tous les ressources possibles, notre devoir est d’accroitre la présence des mouvements pro-familiaux sur le plan international, de même qu’en font les adversaires de la famille.

Un rôle important y vont tenir les évènements tels que le Congrès Mondial des Familles, étant une initiative internationale majeure réunissant des supporteurs d’une perception de famille traditionnelle, conjugale, entre un homme et une femme, chargée des valeurs traditionnelles et morales, des adversaires de l’avortement, des liens homosexuels et des autres effets destructifs pour la société moderne. Le Congrès regroupe des organisations protectrices de la famille et de la vie même, les experts, activistes et les hommes politiques de plus de 80 pays du monde. Cela n’est pas une union dans un sens stricte du terme, pas une structure centralisée, mais plutôt un mouvement énorme, puissant dont les buts sont supportés par des milliers des individus partout.

L’idée majeure du CIF est de continuer avec des évènements de portée internationale en support de la famille naturelle, des droits des parents, du droit à la vie. Jusque-là six congrès ont déjà eu lieu. Chacun avait généralement compté plus de 3000 délégués provenant de tous les continents, parmi les participants des hommes politiques, des dirigeants des mouvements civils, des écrivains, des scientifiques et des personnes ordinaires. Le Septième Congrès Mondial des Familles va avoir lieu cette année en Sidney, Australie[4], et le Huitième est visé pour la Russie en 2014.

Congrès Mondial des Familles agit en bonne efficacité en protégeant la vie, la famille, des valeurs parentales et familiales. Les organisations associées au Congrès y jouent aussi un rôle important. Cela peuvent être des procès pro-familiaux gagnés auprès des Cours internationales et locales. Une influence voyante sur les décisions prises au niveau mondial, la soustraction des positions antifamiliales des projets des documents législatifs. On peut citer comme un exemple d’influence effectuée sur les politiques nationales le septembre de l’an dernier, quand en Australie la majorité des délégués parlementaires ont voté contre les mariages homosexuels, la décision qui avait été supportée par des partenaires du CIF.

2. Les représentants des organisations nationales devraient articuler leur position assez clairement, raisonnablement, bien argumenter et être préparé pour faire part des documents internationaux. On peut voir un bon exemple d’une telle position connue comme des Articles de San-José, où il est très clairement démontré qu’un soi-disant “droit à l’avortement” n’est pas existant parmi les normes juridiques internationales. La Résolution de Saint-Pétersbourg de 2011, soutenue par des centaines d’organisations provenant de Russie et de l’Ukraine, avait formulé une protestation lucide contre le mauvais usage des réseaux internationaux et des principes de juste perception des normes légales sur le champ de famille et de la société. On pourrait aussi citer parmi des telles initiatives le rapport préparé par notre Centre Analitique, en Anglais, traitant des actes illicites du Comité des droits de l’enfant.

Le corps des documents comme tels et ceux qui sont encore à venir pourra influencer assez sérieusement la cour des processus internationaux. On avait déjà eu expérience de bloquer avec des pas comme ça des certaines initiatives bien alarmantes concernant la famille à travers le monde.

3. Les efforts de diriger des peuples souverains de leur extérieur est une forme d’oppression idéologique et culturelle, une version d’intervention en douceur. Cette voie est dirigée envers l’abolition progressive due la souveraineté nationale des Etats, la démolition du droit des peuples à décider eux-mêmes de leur sort, d’établir des justes lois sur leur territoire, de poursuivre leurs traditions et valeurs nationales. Mis dans ces conditions-là tous qui supportent la famille et ses valeurs, la sacralité de la vie humaine, sont convoqués à soutenir fermement l’indépendance de leurs pays. On ne parle ici que de la souveraineté de forme, ainsi dite acception de l’état par la société internationale. C’est n’est que la formalité mais la liberté de fait d’un peuple de délibérément choisir son destin qui est aujourd’hui à protéger des influences externes.

Des questions très importants surgissent devant le peuple de l’Ukraine indépendante en vue de son accession à l’Union européenne, puisque ce pas est étroitement lié avec le renoncement à une partie distinguée due la souveraineté nationale. Est-il indispensable au peuple libre de l’Ukraine de se plier à une sorte d’une “nouvelle bureaucratie” très singulière de l’Union européenne, qui va être aussi chargée d’une idéologie délivrée des plus hauts niveaux, celle du féminisme radical et des “droits des minorités sexuelles”? Voudrait un peuple véritablement à se soumettre à la juridiction du Parlement européen, où une fraction occupée de promotion des “droits sexuels” est bien connue et en action ouverte, qui mentionne des homosexuels tant et si souvent dans ses résolutions qu’on est presque à croire l’homosexualité être la valeur primaire d’une nouvelle Europe? En tenant tout cela en vue, ne devrait-ce pas être l’Ukraine qui veuille débattre des conditions sous lesquelles il pourrait exister une union entre elle et l’Union européenne, et non pas cette dernière?

Je crois, que tout cela sont des questions cruciaux, et la décision en doit dépendre du peuple entier, mais pas des représentants des certaines groupes politiques élitaires.

Toutes les trois voies ici décrites s’achèvent en vérité dans un seul but: le retour vers le juste sens et la vraie mission du droit international. Comme toute législation, il tient à préserver et à créer une société, et non pas à le démolir et détruire.

Je voudrais citer ici la résolution internationale prise à Saint-Pétersbourg qui dit ce qui suit:

“Nous déclarons et proclamons notre profonde conviction que toutes les traités internationales de l’ONU sur les droits de l’homme devraient être comprises en faveur d’état naturel de la famille et des droits naturels des parents. Elles devraient aussi être disposées envers la protection des droits naturels des enfants pas encore nés à leur vie du moment de leur conception.

Toutes les dispositions contraires à cette approche devraient être refoulées comme contraires aux droits naturels des êtres humains, même si elles ont été issues d’une quelconque autorité. Tant qu’une position d’une traité ou d’un document quel qu’il soit ne peut être disposée dans le cadre de cette approche, celle doit être reconsidérée ou bien un tel document dénoncé comme celui contre l’humanité.

Tant qu’une organisation ou bien une agence de portée internationale insisterait sur un principe ou norme quelconque contraire à cette approche, l’Etat doit ouvertement dénoncer une telle position comme menant à la destruction de la société. Dans ce cas un tel Etat agissant pour le bien de son peuple et de l’humanité entière doit conduire une telle organisation ou agence à se soumettre aux droits naturels de l’homme, de la famille et des parents, ou bien de cesser à y prendre part”.

Dans les dernières lignes de ce rapport-là je voudrais fermement déclarer, que la famille, la conjugalité, la maternité ou bien la paternité ne sont pas des idées conçues par des hommes. Elles prennent racine dans la nature humaine, dans ce qui nous fait des hommes. La juridiction ne fait qu’accepter ce fait irréprochable et se soumet à lui. Ni des législateurs nationaux, ni les ingénieurs des normes sociales n’auront jamais droit à modifier la nature humaine à leur gré.

Et merci pour cela, et aussi pour votre attention!

Pavel Parfentiev

Protecting the Family at the International Level
Reclaiming the True Meaning of International Law

A 3^rd All-Ukrainian Parents’ Forum Address

The family based on a marital union of a man and a woman aimed at the begetting and raising of children, is the foundation of the human society, of every culture, and all the civilizations. This simple truth is universal. That is, it is universally acknowledged wherever there is still humanity left, for to deny it is to deny the very human nature and to threaten the very existence of humankind.

Life and family are the two primal elements of any people, any nation. Whereas in a society one cannot have social justice without abolishing slavery, establishing the rule of law and the presumption of innocence, without life and family there can be no society in the first place. A nation that ceases to acknowledge the sanctity of human life is undermining itself; a nation that threatens the family is rapidly approaching self-destruction.

No sensible people would destroy itself. However, nowadays whole nations are virtually pushed to self-destruction. Paradoxically, this is being done in the name of so-called “human rights”. We are told to believe that human rights require killing unborn children, tolerating propaganda of homosexualism and other immoral and deviant forms of sexual behaviour, recognizing cohabitating homosexuals as “families”, allowing them to adopt and raise children. We are told that the rights of the child are being violated by their own parents wanting to give them moral and religious education or trying to maintain a sensible discipline, and, at the same time, that probably the biggest threat to our society is the so-called “domestic violence”, tackling which demands intense constant supervision of the parents by the state.

These are all lies. There is no mention of the so-called “right to abortion” in any international human rights treaty. The alleged right to promote immorality, undermine the natural idea of the family and supplant it with artificial homosexual constructs follows from no human rights instrument. No international agreement bans loving parents from raising their children the way they want, in accordance with their faith and convictions. Unfortunately, today’s human rights discourse is saturated with lies that many take for undisputed truths, daily passed for “international human rights standards” and imposed upon nations and peoples of the world as something they must comply with, whatever they think of it.

As a Belgian lawyer Jakob Cornides, J.D., rightly points out, “What was once considered a crime is to be transformed into a right, and what was once considered justice into a human rights violation”[1].

How did it happen, and how can we oppose it? How did something that another Belgian expert Marguerite Peeters, making it a title of her study of global control mechanisms, neatly named “Hijacking Democracy: The Power Shift to the Unelected” come about?

According to its 1945 Charter, the United Nations was established “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind”. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights aimed at protecting the inalienable rights of all people to preclude the repeating of the horrors of Nazism.

Today many are beginning to forget what some of these horrors were. For example, ten of the Nazi leaders were denounced by the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal because under them “abortions were encouraged and even forced”, and it was called “a crime against humanity” [2].

The Nazi state was taking children away from their parents and appropriating the right to educate them. Parents who did not wish their children to join the Hitlerjugend were being persecuted and charged with “abuse of parental rights”. It is to preclude the repeating of these very horrors that Article 26 of UDHR declared that parents have “a prior right to choose the kind of education . . . given to their children”. Later Article 18(4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights expanded this right to cover “the liberty of parents . . . to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions”.

Even the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with its many controversial provisions, recognizes the right of the child not be separated from his or her parents against their will, save for exceptional circumstances (Article 9), and the right to appropriate direction and guidance by parents in the exercise of his or her rights (Article 5).

All these fundamental rights are currently being violated in numerous developed countries, including Europe. These grave violations of genuine human rights that can justifiably be classified as criminal are formally perpetrated in the name of protecting human rights and the rights of the child, while actually contravening the most fundamental, universal, and generally acknowledged norms of international law.

Using human rights rhetoric as a cover, abortions are being propagandized to limit birth rates throughout the world. Coupled with immorality falsely promoted as freedom, this encourages entire peoples to demographic suicide. It is common knowledge that increasing, or at least maintaining, population figures is vital to successful economic and social development of every nation. Merely maintaining its population size requires aggregate birth rates to stay above 2.1 child per woman. In Ukraine it is currently below 1.5. The only way out for a nation thus threatened is to revive the traditional large family, the family way of life, traditional family and moral values.

UHDR and ICCPR are both explicit in declaring that the family is the “natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”. They are equally clear in that “men and women of full age” have the right to marry and to found a family. Only this, the natural kind of family based on a marital union of a man and a woman and aimed at the begetting and raising of children, is recognized by norms of international law.

The same instruments indicate that individual rights are linked to obligations and responsibilities towards the society, and most of them can be limited by law when necessary for protecting the public order, health, morals, and the rights of others. Public order is recognized in international law as norms and values without which a democratic society cannot remain secure and stable.

The natural family is a universal value recognized by international law, and the basis of every society. It is impossible for any society, democratic ones included, to exist without it. That is why undermining the family, any attempt at discrediting it, limiting the natural rights of the parents, equalizing it with other forms of cohabitation, including homosexual ones, propaganda aimed against the family and basic family values are all actions undermining the very fundamentals of public order.

They are essentially similar to acts expressly prohibited by international law, like propaganda of war, or advocating racial or religious hatred. Limiting or prohibiting those does not constitute violation of human rights. On the contrary, protecting the family is an action necessary to protect genuine human rights universally recognized by all of mankind. This is the direct corollary of true fundamentals of international law genuinely recognized by the peoples of the world.

Unfortunately, the fundamentals of international law are being aggressively attacked through unlawful actions of a rout of activists and the organizations, both local and international, they managed to hijack. Regularly targeted by this destructive kind of activism are reputable international institutions, UN treaty monitoring bodies in particular, like the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Human Rights Committee, and some Council of Europe bodies, including the European Court of Human Rights itself.

This in fact amounts to a concerted effort by a relatively small group of people to radically change the society on a global scale – all in pursuit of their narrow interests. This is deliberate social engineering, which, though retaining an outwardly peaceful and civilized appearance, is highly aggressive in its manifestations. Pretending to be “asserting democratic values”, it has nothing democratic about it as it seeks to bypass the will of sovereign peoples and their elected governments. Employing freedom-loving rhetoric, it is incompatible with freedom as it consistently silences all dissent. Its logical end result would be a new dictatorship denying all that the humankind held to be its main values – true dignity, family, faith, and morals.

Nowadays NGOs advocating anti-family ideas are active in many of the most important international bodies, consistently and expertly influencing their decisions. They are zealously lobbying for their representatives to be included in official government delegations, put into high-ranking positions inside these organizations, while those who support life, family, and morals are facing tremendous pressure barring them from participating in international processes.

Advocating radical social ideas that would establish an unnatural new social order, these well-organized groups are actively engaging with intergovernmental bodies such as the UN, the Council of Europe, and the European Union, influencing international talks, various instruments and decisions, while at the same time using the international funding they manage to secure to support, usually through direct financing, their ideological allies at the local level. Acting against the true interests of their peoples, these local organizations are lobbying hard their respective governments, pushing them to comply with illegal anti-family recommendations they claim to be “international standards”.

Lastly, the success of this global operation is secured through serious financial and political leverage, in particular, blackmail involving humanitarian and financial aid. Thus, bypassing national sovereignty and without any real legal foundation, radical social ideas are becoming the new international legislation.

Here are but a couple of examples illustrating this reality.

UN treaty monitoring bodies are meant to be independent expert groups. Albeit nominated and appointed by states parties, once elected, they are totally independent and unaccountable. International anti-family pressure groups, like those advocating radical feminism or special rights for homosexuals, are exerting considerable efforts for these appointments to specifically include their own supporters. Thus staffed, is it any wonder that the activities of these treaty bodies often prove to be quite destructive?

In particular, although not authorized by their respective treaties to pass binding interpretations of their text, these Committees are regularly doing just so in their so-called “General comments”. These comments are often used to effectively rewrite norms of international law, giving them a wholly different meaning not intended by the parties by whom they were ratified.

For example, the CEDAW Committee have on more than one occasion demanded from sovereign states to rewrite their constitutions. It demanded that they abolish holidays such as “Mother’s Day” or “Father’s Day”. Dozens of times it demanded that their national legislation should be rewritten to provide a right to “swift and easy” abortions. It even argued for legalizing prostitution and the right of underage girl to access contraceptives and other “reproductive health” services without their parents’ consent. In vain may you browse the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women looking for any mention of these rights. There are none. These fictitious “rights” and the states parties’ “obligations” allegedly following from them are all unauthorized illegal constructs produced by the Committee itself in its interpretations.

Both CEDAW and CRC, another UN treaty monitoring body, in their recommendations have repeatedly insisted that all children, boys and girls alike, must have access to comprehensive sexual education. The latter was especially insistent that such access must be granted regardless of their parents’ consent.

One must have a clear understanding what this “sexual education” advocated by UN-affiliated organizations is. In vain may you search their documents for information on family values and dangers of promiscuity, encouragement of premarital continence, and other sensible advice. Their content is quite opposite. WHO, for example, have issued a Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe. A framework for policy makers, educational and health authorities. It calls for sexual education for children from new-born and onwards. Document demands that children aged 0 to 4 (!) be shown the “enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body, early childhood masturbation” (p. 38). It then demands that children aged 9 to 12 be given information on their “sexual rights, as defined by . . . WAS” (World Association for Sexual Health) (p. 45). One of these “sexual rights” is defined by WAS as “[t]he right to sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure, including autoeroticism, is a source of physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual well being”. There is, incidentally, no mention in international human rights treaties of any “sexual rights” whatsoever – there simply is none among the legally binding international norms.

Here is another striking example of UN treaty monitoring bodies illegally redefining norms of international law. In 2006, relying on minor, questionable, and sometimes outright false arguments, the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its General comment no. 8 have ruled that from that moment on all states must prohibit corporal punishment of children, even by their own parents. A slap on a naughty child’s bottom must be regarded as intolerable abuse of children and be prosecuted accordingly. This surprising inference did not, however, follow from the text of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Committee itself noted in its commentary that such a ban was not even considered when the Convention was drafted. Moreover, ratifying it, the Republic of Singapore had expressly declared that it considered the Convention as not prohibiting judicious application of corporal punishment in the best interests of the child, something that no-one objected to – and something the Committee had, incidentally, failed to mention. In addition to that, USSR’s proposal to completely ban corporal punishment of children in schools was rejected by the majority of states parties.

In its 2011 General comment no. 13 the Committee went even further, demanding that state parties that had not yet done so must immediately ratify a whole number of international treaties and review and withdraw declarations and reservations contrary to the object and purpose of the Convention. It demanded that any kind of extremely widely interpretable “violence” against children, including not only spanking, but also “scaring or ridiculing” the child, must be prosecuted. Lastly, it demanded that the state parties must by all means allocate necessary funding for the implementation of its decisions, and also establish special national child protection agencies.

Such recommendations constitute clear and blatant intrusion into national sovereignty of each and every state. One can only wonder why these states are not resisting this intrusion, and often cave in to this illegal pressure by UN committees. In particular, in 2007 many nations have obediently followed this illegal recommendation and criminalized any corporal punishment by parents, including spanking. This was done in spite of there being virtually no legal ground for such a move in international norms.

Instead of it, the Committee’s experts are, in fact, relying on dubious arbitrary constructs created and propagated by social engineering radical “experts”. Using this procedural back door, and without any oversight by the sovereign peoples, international law is step by step being amended with new concepts – such as radical theories of gender construction.

For example, in 2006 a group of experts advocating so-called “sexual minority rights” adopted a document called The Yogyakarta Principles. By misinterpreting the relevant international legal norms, its authors attempted to create new rights with no real foundation for them. In particular, this document claims that “gender identity” amounts to “each person’s deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth”. In spite of explicit objections from a whole number of states, first, UN officials began citing these Principles, and then documents of similar nature began to be quoted in official Council of Europe documents.

Despite being extremely questionable scientifically, theories of sex-independent “gender identity” are increasingly informing the definitions being used first in “soft” international recommendations, and then, having become viewed as a given, in legally binding norms. For example, Article 3 of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence that Ukraine signed on November 7, 2011, but not yet ratified, explicitly defines gender as “socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities and attributes”, while Article 14 of the same document demands that children should be taught “non-stereotyped gender roles”. This has already caused the Catholic Polish Episcopal Conference to protest against this document, declaring that it is “based on utterly unacceptable and false ideological premises”.

All this is not merely destructive; it is a matter of manifestly unlawful activities using false references to international law to undermine the sovereignty of independent nations and the welfare of peoples, families, and individuals. We are currently at the critical turning point: either the peoples of the world manage to change this situation, pushing the highest echelons of international politics back towards working for their good, protecting the family, providing genuine necessary protection for the childhood, or radical activists continue using international bodies to irrevocably undermine families, peoples, and societies. The latter would mean that, increasingly losing all legitimacy, these international bodies will inevitably become the aggressor in a sort of new global war – the war against family and mankind. The impact of today’s international family policy on the life of every nation is too great to be ignored. The civil societies of the world must make a conscientious decision which international force to support – the one advocating a healthy family-based society, or the one pursuing its unmaking.

What chance do we have of turning the situation around, of protecting our peoples, our families, and our children? There is one, and it is one we ought to use. Here is what we must do to succeed:

1. It would be a mistake to believe that the anti-family trends outlined above have really become some sort of international standard or an unshakable norm. In reality, international politics is becoming a battle ground in the fight to protect the family. It is vital that all rational state and public forces ally on the international stage against those who seek to destroy the family, the traditional family and moral values, and the sanctity of human life. Anti-family organizations appropriating the right to speak for the civil society are currently enjoying comfortable representation in international organizations. This right must be denied. Pro-family civil society forces must step by step increase their presence on the international stage, just as the anti-family forces did – in a consistent, well thought-out, and competent manner, finding and using all the necessary resources available.

A special role in this effort is played by international initiatives such as the World Congress of Families – the largest international project of its kind uniting supporters of the natural family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, traditional family and moral values, people opposed to abortion, homosexualism, and other socially disruptive phenomena. Taking part in it are organizations, experts, social activists, and politicians from more than 80 countries around the world. WCF is not an organization in the usual sense, not a centralized body – rather, it is a massive network movement supported by millions of people across the globe. Its main task is holding large-scale international conferences dedicated to protecting the natural family, parental rights, and the right to life. So far it has organized six such World Congresses of Families. These international events usually witness more than 3000 delegates from all the five continents, including politicians, community leaders, writers, scholars, and lay individuals as well. The 7^th World Congress of Families is to take place in 2013 in Sidney, Australia [3], and the one after that is set to take place in 2014 in Russia.

World Congress of Families is very effective at protecting the family, family values, parental rights, and the right to life at the international level. Much is being done by its partner organizations. This includes winning major domestic and international pro-family court cases, successfully removing anti-family provisions from draft international legislation – and seriously influencing national politics. In particular, then last September the majority of Australian parliamentarians refused to approve same-sex marriages, this was achieved thanks in part to WCF partners’ efforts.

2. Local organization representatives must make their views clearly heard on the international stage by issuing well though-out and well-prepared civil society documents setting forth such views in an educated and competent manner. Examples of such documents include the San Jose Articles convincingly arguing that there is no “right to abortion” in international law; the 2011 St. Petersburg Resolution, supported by hundreds of organizations across Russia and Ukraine expressing their unequivocal protest at the abuse of international mechanisms and setting forth the principles by which the norms of international law can be lawfully interpreted in the interests of the family and the society; and the report on unlawful actions by the UN CRC Committee prepared by our FamilyPolicy.ru Group and available in English.

Growing incrementally, step by step, the body of such works can produce very tangible influence on international political processes. Thanks to these steps we have already successfully stopped some of the dangerous international anti-family initiatives.

3. Attempts at unlawfully exerting outside control on sovereign peoples amounts to ideological and cultural coercion, a kind of peaceful-looking invasion. Its aim is to gradually erode the sovereignty of independent nations, their peoples’ rights to self-determination, self-government by just laws, and domestic values and traditions. This calls for all supporters of the family, family and moral values, and the sanctity of human life to consistently stand up for their countries’ sovereignty. It is not a question of sovereignty narrowly defined as a formal international recognition of an independent state. It is the actual, not the formal right to shape one’s own destiny independently and without unlawful international pressure.

Against this backdrop, faced with the possibility of joining the European Union and therefore virtually abandoning much of its national sovereignty, the people of independent Ukraine have to ask themselves some very important questions. Do the sovereign people of Ukraine need a Union top-heavy with the new breed of apparatchiks complicit in advancing radical feminism and the so-called “sexual minority rights”? Do the sovereign people of Ukraine really want to come under the jurisdiction of the European Parliament with its self-declared intergroup on “LGBT rights” and its human rights resolutions invoking homosexual rights so often one might think homosexualism the new Europe’s most treasured value? And, in the light of all this, isn’t it, perhaps, the Ukraine that should be setting down terms on which it might be willing to join the European Union, and not the other way round? These, I think, are important questions that must be decided by the whole people of Ukraine, and not by members of narrow political elites.

All the three components of protecting the family on the international stage outlined above have essentially one goal: to reclaim the true meaning and purpose of international law. Because, just like any other law, its true purpose is maintaining and building up the society, not undermining and destroying it.

In this connection allow me to quote the international St. Petersburg Resolution:

“We declare and proclaim our strong conviction that all UN human rights treaties must be interpreted in a way favorable to the natural family and natural parental rights. They also must be interpreted as defending the natural right of unborn children to life from the moment of conception.

All interpretations contradicting this approach must be rejected, as contrary to natural human rights, even if given by an authoritative body. If any provision under any international treaty or other international human rights instrument cannot be interpreted in compliance with this principle, such a provision must be amended or such an instrument must be denounced in tote as inhuman.

If any international organization or agency insists on any principle or norm contrary to this approach, this policy should be openly identified by the governments as socially destructive. In such a case, the governments, acting for the good of their peoples and mankind, should either compel such an organization to recognize natural human rights, natural family rights and natural parental rights or to leave such an organization or agency”.

Concluding my address, I would like to firmly state the following: natural family, matrimony, motherhood and fatherhood, and natural parental rights are all of them not the creation of man. They follow from the human nature itself without which we can no longer remain human. The law can only acknowledge this incontestable fact and respectfully accept it; and neither the national legislators nor the people drafting international legal norms have a right to arbitrarily redefine human nature.

Thank you for your attention!

About the Author: Pavel A. Parfentiev is the Managing Director of the FamilyPolicy.ru Advocacy Group and the Chairman of “For Family Rights” NGO (Russia). He’s also the World Congress of Families Ambassador to European Institutions and the WCF Adviser for International Human Rights Law.

The Memorandum is a strong and powerful civil society proclamation of the fundamental principles of any human society and of the foundations of the genuine human rights. We urge the governments, civil society representatives and all people of good will to act according to those immutable principles.

Here’s the complete text of Yalta Memorandum:

Memorandum on the Protection
of Family, Fatherhood, Motherhood and Morals
[Yalta Memorandum]

Adopted at the International Parents Forum
12 June 2013, Yalta, Ukraine

We, the participants of the International Parents Forum gathered in Yalta (Ukraine), representing the civil society of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Moldova, as well as family and parents organizations of our countries, declare that the Natural Family based on the marriage of a man and a woman and aimed at childbirth and child rearing is a unique and indispensable foundation of any human society. It is in the family where spouses find love and joy, children gain wisdom and experience they need for their adult life, and the society gets a secure basis for steadiness and prosperity. It is the family that joins generations and thus teaches people to serve each other, and in difficult times it lends protection and support for each of its members. All the countries agreed that “the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State” (Art. 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

Unfortunately, in these days family is facing serious threats and outright attacks. The family is endangered due to the active destruction of traditional family values and culture of child-rearing, matrimonial and parental roles, propaganda of lowering childbirth rates, contraception and abortion, divorce and sexual promiscuity, premarital and extramarital sexual relationships, prostitution and homosexuality,  systematic deprivation of children of their innocence and good morals by the so-called “sexual education” programs, artificial promotion of erroneous “gender theories” that imply groundless rejection of the natural differences between the sexes and of their complementarity.

The governments of some countries calling themselves “democracies” have even adopted legislation that, desecrating justice and human nature, ignoring the will and genuine interests of their peoples, families and children, provide legal grounds for perversion and destruction of the very notion of family, by recognizing homosexual cohabitations as “families” and “marriages” and granting such couples the right to adopt children. In addition to these unprecedented acts of tyranny of the law, detrimental for childhood and directed against human nature, family and society, many of these governments persecute and oppress those who courageously raise their voices to protect family and marriage. Recently, we have all witnessed such persecution in France against those who stand for justice and genuine human rights, as well as the rights of children and families.

We are also concerned to see that freedom of believers is infringed in some countries of Europe. It is the Christians of various denominations whose rights are being infringed, and who are increasingly finding themselves forced to act contrary to their conscience, by unjust laws in particular. Some of the aggressively antireligious governments are already calling for destruction or restriction of the natural right of parents to freely give their children religious upbringing and education.

We feel anger and indignation at the fact that the most fundamental and genuine human rights, the rights of family and parents, are being destroyed under the pretext of the protection of “human rights”, and the tool that has always been intended for the society’s welfare and edification is thus used to curse and destroy it. More and more often the international norms aimed at the protection of life, natural family and the rights of parents and their children, are construed in ominously wrong way, and their sense and purpose are distorted beyond recognition.

Under the pretext of protection of the so-called “sexual minorities” from discrimination, the supporters of healthy and traditional moral values are persecuted and discriminated against. On the grounds of women’s rights protection women are being deprived of their right to choose family and motherhood as their main mission. Under the veil of the rights of children, which are for no good reason interpreted too loosely, children everywhere in the world are deprived of the reliable parental moral guidance and upbringing, and sometimes they are simply taken away from their families. In many countries of the world, including the countries of the participants of the Forum, representatives of the state increasingly infringe upon fundamental human rights by interfering freely with the internal affairs of a family, and cruelly take children away from their parents under various arbitrary and far-fetched pretexts. We are convinced that this is one of the most serious mass crimes of our time.

In this context, public initiatives spring up in many countries to protect the Natural family, the marriage between a man and a woman, major rights of parents, traditional family and moral values. We are convinced that the international cooperation and people’s diplomacy in this sphere must develop and grow stronger, and the healthy public forces all over the world must support each other in the protection of family, society and morality.

Thereupon, on the basis of the principles that have served as a basis for all truly universal human right norms, we solemnly reaffirm the following provisions recognized by all the countries of the world in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948:

• that only “men and women of full age <…> have the right to marry and to found a family” (Art. 16.1);
• that “the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State” (Art. 16.2);
• that “parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children» (Art. 26.3).

We declare that these provisions originate from the very nature of human beings, family and society, and do not depend on the agreement of governments and legislators but have to be always recognized and observed by everyone.

We also declare:

• that, in spite of many false “gender theories”, a man and a woman are different from each other and complementary to each other, this difference in their nature and mission having a fundamental character, is related to the difference of the sexes and is not artificially constructed;
• that only a marriage between a man and a woman, which is aimed at childbirth and child rearing, really constitutes a marriage;
• that the Natural Family based on the marriage of a man and a woman and aimed at childbirth and child rearing is the only genuine model of a family, which has to be recognized and protected by the society and state, including legal protection;
• that homosexual cohabitation can never be regarded as a “marriage” or as a “family”;
• that to develop normally, children need a father and a mother, as well as a genuine model of family life, therefore, their “adoption” by homosexual live-in companions is inadmissible as a cruel infringement on the genuine rights of children, and contradicts their interests;
• that children have a right, wherever possible, to live with their biological father and mother who bring them up, give advice and provide with a role model;
• that parents have a natural right to bring their children up according to their moral, pedagogical and religious believes, without any interference from state;
• that parents have an indisputable right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children, including the right to opt for home education (family education);
• that the state cannot regulate the internal life of the family and children’s rearing by their parents, apart from those rare cases when this is absolutely necessary for the protection of health and life of citizens from obvious and serious threats;
• that the most effective way to protect children’s rights is the recognition, expanding and legal protection of their parents’ rights;
• that the main demographic problem of our peoples and peoples of the world today is not the mythical “overpopulation” but birthrate decline, and, therefore, it is necessary for more rather than fewer children to be born into a family, for a big  family once again to become a respectable social norm;
• that human life is sacred and any human life has to be legally protected from the moment of conception to the natural death, while abortion and euthanasia contradict this;
• that such kinds of reproductive technology as the so-called “surrogate motherhood” contradict human rights and genuine human dignity, including dignity of the “surrogate mother” and the child, and, therefore, shouldn’t be allowed;
• that legislative, administrative, political and economic decisions taken by the governments shall not be destructive for the natural family or diminish the rights of family and parents;
• that the main aim of family policy at any level must be the preservation and consolidation of a complete extended Natural Family, family lifestyle, fatherhood, motherhood, respect to parents and solidarity between generations, traditional family values and culture of family life.

We proclaim that the marriage between a man and a woman, Natural Family, right to life from the moment of conception to the natural death, rights of parents, freedom of religion and worship, necessity to protect public morals, originate from the nature of human being and family, and constitute an indispensable foundation of any society.

All the good governments and healthy social forces must protect these values. Propaganda in favour of their derogation or destruction is similar to the propaganda of war or racial hatred and must not be tolerated. The governments that reject these values and persecute people defending them cannot be considered democratic and must be declared illegitimate, as they act against genuine interest of both their nations and humanity as a whole.

All the international human rights treaties and other international instruments must be interpreted in favor of these values and the aforesaid principles. Any norms and interpretations contradicting them must be rejected and declared void, as they are inhuman.

We declare that the attempts of some governments and NGOs, accompanied by severe pressure, to impose upon other countries and international community approaches, norms and solutions that contradict the aforesaid values and principles, as well as the traditional family and cultural values of our nations, constitute a form of cultural imperialism, and we regard such attempts as aggressive intervention in the affairs of sovereign nations.

We declare, in particular, that universally recognized norms of international law have to protect people against truly unfair discrimination on the basis of inherited qualities like ethnic background, or their devotion to great values, e.g. religious beliefs,  and not to lead to unreasonable expansion of the privileges for some groups of people. As the so-called “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” are not innate qualities, neither are they related to any sublime value, there is no reason to list these characteristics among the prohibited grounds for discrimination. Instead of protecting anyone against unfair discrimination, such inclusion results in the unfair discrimination of Christians and other supporters of traditional family and moral values, rejecting the behavior that is morally unacceptable for them. Such artificial expansion of the notion of discrimination is inadmissible and destructive.

Our countries, with their centuries-old traditions and cultures, including family values and culture of family life and child rearing, are worthy heirs of the high moral principles and standards of our glorious ancestors. Nobody has a right to force us to reject our traditions and moral values or modify them in accordance with false standards that someone has invented. The legal and diplomatic framework of the global community, including that of the modern Europe, shall take into consideration the rights of our nations and provide secure protection for our cultural and moral legacy and our families.

We own genuine family values based on Christian traditions and are convinced that the global community, including the European community, needs the cultural and moral legacy that we keep and pass on. Therefore, if any intergovernmental structure, even the one that believes itself entitled to speak on behalf of the international structures, for instance, on behalf of the whole Europe, rejects our family, moral and cultural values, imposing instead sinister things that are against nature, we will reject such structure. We do not need structures that bring destruction instead of creation.

We also recognize that our countries are connected with strong historical and cultural links, and our people share common destiny. We will not allow anyone to disseminate alienation, hostility and misunderstanding between us, to separate us and bring us far apart.

We unite our efforts to protect our common values, first of all, family and morality, and demand that our governments do the same.

Based on the above, we:

• declare our intention to develop international cooperation and people’s diplomacy in the interests of Natural Family and parents with children, for protection of traditional family and moral values;
• express our support to the social forces of France and other countries aimed at the protection of the Natural Family, marriage between a man and a woman, rights of parents, traditional family and moral values;
• support the activity of those healthy international forces that consistently defend the Natural Family, rights of parents, traditional family and moral values, in particular, the efforts of the World Congress of Families;
• condemn those governments that act tyrannically in imposing upon their nations the laws that recognize the so-called “same-sex families” or “same-sex marriages”, and especially those that allow such couples to adopt children;
• consider infamous and incompatible with the principles of democracy the actions of the government of France that persecutes those protesting against such decisions or protecting traditional family and moral values, and restricts their liberty of speech;
• consider as unacceptable, contradicting the principles of democracy and infringing human rights, legal or de facto prohibition of choosing home education (family education) by the parents for their children, which is effective in Germany, Sweden and some other countries;
• express our support for the legislative decisions aimed at the protection of family and moral values, in particular, for laws and bills prohibiting the propaganda of homosexuality among children in Russia, Ukraine and other countries;
• call upon and demand to reject any regulations or legislative initiatives that imply including such characteristics as “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” into the lists of the prohibited grounds for discrimination;
• urge the governments of our countries and other countries of the world to provide active support at the international level for the Natural Family, right to life, traditional family and moral values, and to use international and national instruments as countermeasures to the imposition of immoral approaches and norms, destructive for family both in our countries and elsewhere;
• urge the governments of our countries to use international mechanisms at different levels for stopping the illegal persecution of the supporters of the Natural Family and traditional family and moral values in France and other countries;
• urge the governments of our countries to use international mechanisms at different levels for stopping the persecution of parents choosing home education (family education) for their children in Germany, Sweden and other countries;
• urge the governments of our countries to reject the so-called “juvenile technologies” (“child protection technologies”), implying extensive intervention of the representatives of the state or non-governmental structures into the family affairs and into the relations between children and their parents under the pretext of protecting children’s rights, and to base the legislation on the presumption that the parents are acting in the interests of their children in good faith and on good grounds;
• urge the governments of our countries to consistently build the national legislation and state politics at all levels on the aforesaid principles, and to reject those national and international legal regulations and approaches that contradict these principles;
• urge the governments of our countries to develop friendship and comprehensive cooperation in all the spheres, first of all, in the sphere of protection of family and moral values;
• urge the governments and civil society of our countries to protect national sovereignty and to take decisions corresponding to the will of our peoples and their genuine interests, resisting sinister influence or pressure from elsewhere;
• urge all the civil society forces of our countries and other countries of the world to unite their efforts for protecting Natural Family, rights of parents, life and morals, contributing to the strengthening of the family, the growth of respect to fatherhood, motherhood, rights of parents, their unique role and authority in bringing up their children, as well as to consistently counteract anything that is detrimental for the family, rights of parents and public morals.

We appeal to other organizations from different countries, including those of the former USSR countries, as well as from other Slavic states, calling them to join the present Memorandum and invite them to promote cooperation and common efforts to protect family, fatherhood, motherhood and morals.

Presented and adopted in Yalta (Ukraine) at the International Parents Forum 12.06.2013.

Signed by more than 50 NGOs.

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Summary

This Communication deals primarily with the issue of the compatibility of laws on prohibiting propaganda of homosexuality to minors adopted in different regions of the Russian Federation with the ECtHR judgement on Alekseyev v. Russia (application no. 4916/07), as raised by the Committee of the Ministers of the Council of Europe supervising the execution of the Court’s judgements. It demonstrates that the laws under consideration are fully compatible with both the judgement and the norms of international human rights law.

The Communication shows that these laws pursue legitimate aims (protecting the physical and psychological well-being of children, protecting the family “in the traditional sense”, as part of maintaining the public order (ordre public) and protecting the public morals), are free from legal uncertainty, and are proportionate to said aims. This analysis takes into account interpretations given to the laws in question by superior courts of the Russian Federation (the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court) in their judgements.

The Communication also expresses concern as regards judgements made by ECtHR in a number of cases, including Alekseyev v. Russia. Its authors argue that in some of its judgements ECtHR has disregarded the need to protect the social morals, as well as the rights and interests of children. Moreover, the Court unreasonably regarded recent European trends and its own case-law as constituting a binding “European consensus”, thus undermining the sovereignty of ECHR signatories, with some of its judgements being explicitly ideological in their nature. This may lead ECtHR to passing untenable and ultra vires decisions, which poses a grave threat to the authority, effectiveness, and sustainability or the European human rights framework.

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