12/10/2023 | 19:42:10 Thank you, Mister President. On 29 October Türkiye will be celebrating the centenary of its foundation as a modern democracy with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. What better way could President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan mark this centenary than by releasing Mr Osman Kavala and thereby helping to reestablish Türkiye's commitment to the rule of law? As others have said, Ms Kavala spoke eloquently, and I thought with incredible restraint, at the meeting of our Committee about her husband's plight after the... 12/10/2023 | 17:41:59 Mister President, this is a really important debate. And displaced people always leads to a tragic situation and we are talking here about 100 000 being displaced in Nagorno-Karabakh and just in the last week 150 000 people or more have been displaced in Gaza. And we know that over the last two or three years perhaps 300 000 people have been forced to leave the Russian Federation and have gone to Armenia. And the fact that this is happening all over the world doesn't make it any more... 23/06/2023 | 11:00:19 Can I thank everybody for participating? Well, I think it has been an excellent debate. A number of issues have arisen, one being the definition of transnational repression. All I can say is that the report calls for more work to be done on this. I think for most people, when they are confronted with it, they know that it is transnational repression. I wouldn't be too hung up on the definitions. I'm grateful to my two colleagues from the UK Parliament who are members of the Socialist Group... 23/06/2023 | 10:04:35 ...to serve under your Chairmanship. I don't think there is any doubt about the fact that transnational repression is indeed a growing threat to the rule of law and human rights. This was brought home to us in the United Kingdom with Mr Alexander Litvinenko's case and the Salisbury poisonings. My report, the draft Resolution and the draft Recommendation were adopted unanimously by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights at its meeting in Cyprus. On Wednesday, Amendment 1 was accepted... 26/04/2023 | 18:45:16 Mister Chairman, This draft resolution and draft recommendation perfectly illustrate the impotence of this organisation. I was disappointed that the rapporteur did not refer in his opening remarks to the case of Mr Osman Kavala. There have only ever been two cases before the European Court of Human Rights which have been the subject of infringement proceedings, under Article 46, Paragraph 4 of the Convention. One of those cases remains unresolved. That is the case of Mr Osman Kavala. Mr Osman... 24/06/2022 | 10:49:06 Mister President, it is a pleasure to serve under your Chairmanship. Paragraph 13.1.3 of the draft resolution rightly calls on Council of Europe countries to ensure that they have, and I quote, "effective systems for monitoring potential adverse effects of vaccines and independent compensation programmes are in place". Sadly, in respect of Covid-19 vaccines that is not happening. There has been a tendency to cover up the potential adverse effects of those vaccines and few countries have... 23/06/2022 | 10:41:44 Mr President, Like most citizens of the United Kingdom, I've got immense respect and sympathy for Malta and the people of Malta. We in the United Kingdom don't forget that Malta won the George Cross because of the immensely important part it played in the Second World War in helping to defeat Hitler and the Nazis. Therefore it's sad to see the difficulties that Malta has faced, but it's very encouraging to follow two speakers from the Maltese Parliament and to know that there is, in a sense... 26/04/2022 | 10:17:43 Mr President, can I first of all congratulate the rapporteur on his report and can I say that I wish to address the issue of the European Union's treaty obligations under the Lisbon Treaty to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. I strongly support the sentence in paragraph 6 of the draft resolution which reads: "The Assembly reaffirms its confidence that accession will help guarantee coherence and consistency between EU law and the convention system and lead to a single legal... 15/03/2022 | 12:15:03 Madam President, Expelling Russia is long overdue. The Committee of Ministers must put this right on Thursday, and I'm very grateful to them for giving us this opportunity to express our views. I first became a member of PACE in 2005, and ever since have witnessed the process of continuous appeasement towards Putin. I say mea culpa to our Ukrainian friends for not having been able to prevent this process. This is not just a war against Ukraine. Ukraine is the mere proxy. This is Putin's war... 27/01/2021 | 10:25:41 Thank you. Can I start by saying that the socialist speaker attacked Big Pharma, but without Big Pharma we wouldn't have got the vaccines that we've got. So I think we should be congratulating Big Pharma and enterprise. But the reason why I really wanted to speak was because I'm worried about the most fundamental human right of liberty. And governments across the globe have justified draconian restrictions on liberty on the need to protect public health, and I think we all go along with that...