Columbia Global Freedom of Expression seeks to contribute to the development of an integrated and progressive jurisprudence and understanding on freedom of expression and information around the world. It maintains an extensive database of international case law. This is its newsletter dealing with recent developments in the field.
“Create your own washing line, hang your rainbow laundry,” Pride organizers in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, invite the city to celebrate diversity this month. “Let our balconies, windows, and streets reflect what they have always been—places where we live together.” This year’s Pride will be Sarajevo’s seventh. It follows a historic court victory: the country’s first final judgment, analyzed by CGFoE this week, establishing discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.
Back in 2019, a small group of activists was only about to gather thousands on Sarajevo’s central streets for the first time. Samra Ćosović Hajdarević, then a member of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly, posted on Facebook. “We have the right to choose who we want to live with,” she wrote, calling for segregation and isolation of LGBTIQ+ people. Sarajevo Open Centre (SOC), a prominent civil society organization, filed a collective anti-discrimination action against Hajdarević. It won the case.
The Cantonal Court in Sarajevo held that Hajdarević’s statement constituted hate speech and fell under the definition of discrimination. “This ruling represents a turning point for the protection of human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” SOC said in a statement. Although the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics were introduced into the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination in 2009, it took nearly 17 years for the first final court ruling to be issued.
Legal insecurity persists for LGBTIQ+ persons in the Balkan region. SOC’s latest Pink Report finds that, despite a normative framework and some institutional progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina, discrimination, violence, and exclusion are widespread in the everyday lives of LGBTIQ+ people. The court victory makes one positive development. Another is a recent first-instance judgment against Milorad Dodik, former President of the Republika Srpska, for discriminatory speech targeting LGBTIQ+ people. (The ruling is under appeal.) Progress toward genuine equality, however, remains partial.
One of Sarajevo Pride’s first demands is the legal recognition of same-sex couples. Last year, the organizers led the march with a powerful slogan: “Ljubav je zakon,” meaning “Love is the law” or “Love rules.” It sent a clear message: the law must protect love. Yet the slogan also said way more than that: love itself is too strong to be outlawed.
Happy Pride Month!🏳️🌈
Celebrating diversity and inclusivity this month and always,
we at CGFoE reaffirm our commitment to advancing freedom of expression for all.
Photo: 2025 Pride march in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, under the slogan “Ljubav je zakon,” meaning “Love is the law” or “Love rules.” Credit: Sofija Milinkovic
United States
Patel v. Figliuzzi
Decision Date: April 21, 2026
The United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss, holding that the challenged statement was non-actionable rhetorical hyperbole and therefore not defamatory. The case arose after the plaintiff, Kashyap P. Patel, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, brought a defamation claim based on a televised remark suggesting he was “visible at nightclubs far more” than at his office, alleging that the statement falsely harmed his professional reputation. The Court applied defamation principles under state law and concluded that a reasonable viewer would not interpret the statement as a literal assertion of fact, but rather as exaggerated commentary, emphasizing that “statements that cannot reasonably be interpreted as stating actual facts about an individual” are protected and that rhetorical hyperbole constitutes “extravagant exaggeration… employed for rhetorical effect.” It held that the statement, viewed in context, was “delivered… in an exaggerated, provocative and amusing way” and thus could not sustain a defamation claim. The Court further addressed ancillary issues, declining to award attorney’s fees under anti-SLAPP law due to its inapplicability in federal court, and ultimately dismissed the lawsuit in full.
Chiles v. Salazar
Decision Date: March 31, 2026
The Supreme Court of the United States held that Colorado’s law banning conversion therapy for minors, as applied to a licensed counselor’s talk therapy, regulated speech based on viewpoint and that the lower courts erred by applying insufficiently rigorous First Amendment scrutiny. Kaley Chiles, a licensed mental-health counselor in Colorado, brought an as-applied pre-enforcement challenge to the law, arguing that it prevented her from engaging in voluntary counseling conversations with minor clients who sought to reduce unwanted same-sex attractions or align their gender identity with their sex. The District Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit denied preliminary relief, holding that the statute regulated professional conduct and only incidentally burdened speech. The Supreme Court reversed, reasoning that Chiles provided only talk therapy and that Colorado could not avoid First Amendment scrutiny by describing her speech as a treatment or therapeutic modality. The Court held that the statute permitted counselors to express acceptance, support, and assistance for identity exploration or gender transition, while prohibiting speech aimed at changing sexual orientation, gender identity, behavior, expression, or attraction. The Court remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Sarajevski otvoreni centar (SOC) v. SCH
Decision Date: December 3, 2025
The Cantonal Court in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, upheld a first-instance judgment finding that a Facebook post directed against LGBTIQ+ persons constituted discrimination under the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination. The case arose after the announcement of the first Pride March in Bosnia and Herzegovina, when the defendant, then a member of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly, published a statement on her public Facebook profile calling for LGBTIQ+ persons to be isolated and excluded from society. The appellate court agreed that the statement violated the right to equal treatment of persons protected on the grounds of sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics. It held that, although the anti-discrimination law does not expressly use the term “hate speech,” it covers such expression through the prohibited forms of harassment and incitement to discrimination. Referring to the European Court of Human Rights’ case law, the Court stressed that hate speech does not enjoy the protection of freedom of expression and that religious or moral disagreement has limits when it infringes the rights and freedoms of others. The Court dismissed the defendant’s appeal and confirmed the finding of discrimination, the prohibition on repeating the same or similar conduct, and the order requiring publication of the judgment.
● EU: LGBTIQ+ Enlargement Review 2026. ILGA-Europe and over a dozen groups defending LGBTIQ+ rights in the EU enlargement region published an annual report documenting key developments affecting LGBTIQ+ people in ten countries seeking EU membership. The chapters cover Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye, and Ukraine. “Laws that criminalise, erase, and discriminate against LGBTI persons are multiplying,” the report warns. In more recent news by ILGA-Europe, the latest episode of The Frontline podcast discusses organizing and rights defense in a hostile political climate.
● US: Freedom of Speech and Standards of Care, by Dov Fox. In Chiles v. Salazar, featured above, the US Supreme Court held that restrictions on conversion therapy require strict scrutiny under the First Amendment. In this San Diego Legal Studies Paper, Dov Fox argues the Court erred in treating conversion therapy as “speech” rather than as a clinical intervention delivered through communication, stressing well-documented evidence that such therapy could be damaging. “The Supreme Court’s First Amendment absolutism would abandon the very children whom it frees therapists to harm,” Fox writes.
● LGBTIQ+ Q&A: EFF Welcomes Online Speech and Privacy Questions. This Pride Month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) returns with Season 2 of its Q&A on LGBTIQ+ digital rights. Last year, the questions that the EFF answered included what pictures are safe to use on dating apps, how to remove one’s name from online searches, and why homophobic content doesn’t get deleted after being reported. The EFF invites new questions through this secure link for anonymous submissions or under posts on EFF’s social media—find all the links here.
This Week in Protests
In Tirana, Albania, thousands have joined a second week of “Flamingo Revolution” protests against a Trump-linked resort, citing biodiversity destruction and demanding that Prime Minister Edi Rama resign. On Wednesday, June 3, in Santiago, Chile, thousands of students, teachers, and union members protested austerity measures, with clashes leaving 25 injured and a dozen arrested. That day across Argentina, where one femicide occurs every 31 hours, hundreds of thousands joined the 11th Ni Una Menos (“Not One Less”) march against gender-based violence; two recent murders of teenage girls fueled the outrage. On Saturday in Seoul, South Korea, around 10,000 demanded a rerun of local elections after ballot shortages; riot police broke up a 35-hour blockade of a polling station. On Sunday in Bolivia, as mass anti-government protests continued into their second month, with at least ten people killed, lawmakers authorized military force under a “presumption of legality.” On Sunday in Nairobi, Kenya, former Chief Justice David Maraga was among those arrested defending the Nairobi National Park.
Pakistan-Administered Kashmir: June 2026
Last Friday, June 5, the regional government of Pakistan-administered Kashmir banned the Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), the territory’s most prominent civil-society alliance. Mass arrests preceded a strike and protest march of JAAC supporters planned for June 9. Clashes between protesters and the police turned deadly.
Background & Demands: An alliance of civil activists, traders, lawyers, students, and transporters, the JAAC grew to be the territory’s strongest grassroots political force, voicing broad societal grievances and leading negotiations and sustained protests, which had turned deadly earlier. Two events triggered the recent unrest: on June 5, the JAAC was designated as a proscribed organization under an anti-terrorism law; on June 7, the territory’s Supreme Court ruled that 12 legislative seats reserved for Kashmiri refugees living in Pakistan are constitutionally protected—the JAAC had long demanded the seats be abolished, arguing that Pakistan’s mainstream political parties use them to influence the territory’s politics and undermine local representation.
Significance: The ban on the alliance took place ahead of a planned protest and elections. On June 9, markets were empty, with public transport halted across the region. Thousands gathered in the eastern city of Mirpur to travel to Rawalakot to join JAAC leaders in a “long march” toward the territory’s capital, Muzaffarabad.
State Response: Ahead of the protest, Islamabad sent federal paramilitary forces to the region; NetBlocks recorded a major disruption to internet connectivity on June 5; residents reported no mobile internet access over the weekend. Violence erupted on June 7. Police and paramilitary forces sought to scatter protesters, maintaining that the protesters opened fire first and that the state’s action “was meant to restore law and order.” 30 were arrested. The JAAC accused the state of beginning a “massacre.”
Toll: 11 people—four officers and seven civilians—were killed. Over 70 were injured.
FoE Violations: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) condemned the loss of lives, use of force, and communication restrictions and criticized the JAAC ban, warning that outlawing a popular movement threatened democratic space. The HRCP called for an impartial investigation into all deaths and injuries, stressing that, ahead of the July elections, it was “essential to safeguard fundamental freedoms including the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.”
World Cup 2026 Kicks Off Amid Calls to Respect Human Rights. Amnesty International urges host states to “stop immigration enforcement, protect peaceful protest, and guarantee safety and equality for all.” Reporters Without Borders calls for the release of sports reporter Christophe Gleizes, wrongfully detained in Algeria. Human rights groups warn that the competition could become “a backdrop for serious rights violations on American soil.” And in Mexico, a stadium in Guadalajara sits in an area of mass graves and desperate searches for thousands of the disappeared.
This newsletter is reproduced with the permission of Global Freedom of Expression. For an archive of previous newsletters, see here.