Human rights in Europe

Human rights in Europe are generally upheld. However, several human rights infringements exist, ranging from the treatment of asylum seekers to police brutality. The 2012 Amnesty International Annual Report points to problems in several European countries. One of the most accused is Belarus, the only country in Europe that, according to The Economist, has an authoritarian government. All other European countries are considered to have "some form of democratic government", having either the "full democracy", "flawed democracy", or a "hybrid regime".

Unlike its member states, the European Union itself has not yet joined the Convention on Human Rights as of 2011.

The history of human rights in Europe is marked by a contradictory combination of legislative and intellectual progress and violations of fundamental human rights in both Europe and its colonies.

The states of the EU, as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and the European microstates, generally have clean human rights records. The prospect of EU membership (which also entails subscription to the European Convention on Human Rights) has encouraged several European states, most notably Croatia and Turkey, to improve their human rights, especially on freedom of speech and banning the death penalty. However, certain laws passed in the wake of the War on Terrorism have been condemned for encroaching on human rights. There has been criticism of the French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools and the French legislation for protecting the public against certain cults. In the UK, a new British Bill of Rights has been advocated to: protect wider range of economic, political, judicial, communication, and personal rights and freedoms; extend normal rights and freedoms to presently unprivileged business-economic minority classes; strengthen and extend the liberal social order; and establish a new independent Supreme Court with the power to strike down government laws and policies that violate basic rights and freedoms.

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