minister after review, in most but not all cases, by a quasi-judicial body composed of members appointed by the Prime Minister. In December, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled that the UK surveillance legislation violated the right to privacy. In addition to the UK, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Russia and Poland adopted new surveillance-related legislation during the year, all introducing, with minor variations, extensive powers to collect and store electronic data and conduct targeted surveillance activities on loosely defined target groups or suspected individuals with little to no judicial or other oversight. The Netherlands and Finland both had legislative proposals pending at the end of the year. DISCRIMINATION Across Europe, Muslims and migrants were vulnerable to racial profiling and discrimination by police, both in connection with anti-terrorism powers and during regular law enforcement operations, including identity checks. Initiatives to combat violent extremism, often including reporting obligations on public institutions, risked alienating Muslim communities and curbing freedom of expression. Draft legislation banning full-face veils was still pending before the Dutch Parliament by the end of the year, while a similar proposal was put forward in Germany. In France several coastal municipalities sought to ban the wearing of “burkinis” on the beach. The discriminatory provisions were struck down by the Council of State, but a number of municipalities persevered regardless. Several European countries saw an increase in hate crimes targeting asylumseekers, Muslims and foreign nationals. In Germany there was a sharp increase in attacks on shelters for asylum-seekers, and in the UK hate crimes surged by 14% in the three months after the referendum on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU (Brexit) in June compared to the same period the previous year. 44 Roma continued to face widespread discrimination across Europe in access to housing, education, health and employment. Roma remained vulnerable to forced evictions across Central Europe, but also in France and Italy. There was a growing trend of courts finding in favour of evicted communities, but their decisions rarely led to improvements for the affected residents. There were positive developments in the Czech Republic; under the impulse of EU infringement proceedings, a series of reforms to reduce the over-representation of Roma in special schools came into effect with the start of the school year in September. There was progress, albeit uneven, in the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. France adopted a new law scrapping medical requirements for legal gender recognition and Norway granted the right on the basis of selfidentification. Similar moves were under way in Greece and Denmark. A number of countries moved to respect the rights of same-sex couples and second-parent adoptions. Italy and Slovenia adopted legislation recognizing same-sex partnerships. An LGBTI Pride March on 12 June in Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, supported by the authorities and heavily protected by police, passed without incident. With about 2,000 participants, it became the biggestever event of its kind in Ukraine. At the opposite end of the spectrum, consensual same-sex acts remained criminal offences in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. In Kyrgyzstan, draft legislation to criminalize “fostering a positive attitude” towards “nontraditional sexual relations” was still under discussion in Parliament, and a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage was approved in a referendum in December. There was also push-back from increasingly organized, sometimes state-supported, conservative groups. Proposals for referendums to change constitutional definitions of marriage and family to explicitly exclude same-sex couples were blocked by the President in Georgia, but allowed to be put to Parliament by the Constitutional Court Amnesty International Report 2016/17