Watchdog

Azerbaijan has been ranked the worst place to live in Europe for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) citizens, after meeting only 5 percent of a leading rights organization’s criteria for legal equality.

The ILGA-Europe Rainbow Index, released on May 10, ranks 49 European countries according to the laws, policies, and practices that affect LGBTI communities.

The countries with the three lowest scores are all post-Soviet: Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan. The countries leading the index -- Malta, Belgium, and the United Kingdom -- all scored above 80 percent.

Although homosexuality is legal in Azerbaijan, the 2016 index draws attention to the country’s failure to protect its LGBTI community from hate crime and discrimination.

The index attributes Azerbaijan's low score to the high number of homophobic and transphobic violent attacks, as well as discriminatory remarks made by political figures.

With reporting by The Guardian

A Dutch journalist who was briefly detained in Turkey and then banned from leaving the country during an investigation into tweets deemed insulting to the president has been allowed to return to the Netherlands.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said in a statement late on May 10 that the newspaper columnist, Ebru Umar, had left Turkey.

Koenders said the return of the dual Dutch-Turkish national was "great news."

Umar said she was hauled out of bed and arrested at her holiday home in Kusadasi, a resort town in western Turkey, last month.

She was questioned for 16 hours then released but not allowed to leave country. She had to report to police twice a week.

Human rights and media groups have repeatedly criticized press freedom in Turkey, where nearly 2,000 legal cases have been opened against individuals accused of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he came to office in 2014.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP