24/06/2021 | 16:18:28 Hello everybody in the Plenary. I am here from the Hague. I would like to congratulate Mr Momodou Malcolm JALLOW on behalf of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group for this very important and historic report. Let me take you to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Let's look at one of the most famous paintings from the seventeenth century. It is a painting of the civic guard by somebody called Bartholomeus van der Helst. This painting is now part of the "colonial past" tour in... 23/06/2021 | 12:01:34 Dear colleagues, on behalf of the ALDE group, I would like to ask to call a spade a spade. I see the metaphor "shadow pandemic" a lot, but violence against women is not a disease, it is not a pandemic. It is a serious human rights violation and the Istanbul Convention, if you want medicine, then I think we should have lots of drops of medicine from the Istanbul Convention. Dear colleagues, trying to undermine or leave a human rights convention on the basis of upholding family values is adding... 20/04/2021 | 14:50:54 Thank you Mr President. Dear Madam Secretary General, It makes me proud to be a member of an organisation that has a gold standard where we all together make efforts to protect women and girls from the violence that they face every day in our societies. This gold standard is the Istanbul Convention. And what a beautiful name it is indeed. That beautiful city where even Turkey signed the convention 10 years ago. But it's clear to all of us that some member states of the Council of Europe... 28/01/2021 | 11:50:09 Thank, Mr President. On behalf of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group, I would like to compliment the rapporteur Mr Boriss CILEVIČS for the excellent work he did in this report. And Mr Mr CILEVIČS makes it very clear in his conclusion of his report that "there is no need for more tools at international level to prevent and combat ethnic profiling, but the existing ones should be better known and implemented". We see that Mr CILEVIČS makes it really clear in his report why... 20/11/2020 | 16:43:23 Thank you dear colleagues. This was wonderful to listen to and there were so many new ideas and observations. I will pick two. One, Mr Ahmet YILDIZ, thank you very much for pointing out about the Turkish situation. When I was a young diplomat I did my internship in the embassy in Ankara and I actually had to write a report on the directorate general on women's affairs, in 1992. So I learned a bit of my feminism in Istanbul. Maybe this is why I'm such a big fan of the Istanbul Convention. Ms... 20/11/2020 | 16:09:05 Yes, thank you, Mr President. Good afternoon, dear colleagues. Let me start with a quote by Margareta Wahlström, the former Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, who led the way with Swedish feminist foreign policy. I quote: "Gender equality is not a separate women's issue, it benefits everyone. Research shows that gender-equal societies enjoy better health, stronger economic growth, and higher security. It also shows that gender equality contributes to peace and that peace negotiations in... 20/11/2020 | 15:18:57 Yes, thank you, Mister President. As the leader of the Netherlands delegation, I am very pleased with the work of Mr Frank SCHWABE and Ms Ingjerd SCHOU. This is giving us a road map for the next coming months. I hope it's not longer than the next coming months. In Arabic there's a beautiful saying that says "trust in God, but tie your camel". So, I think we are working with a very good base to be secure that we can continue our important work and many speakers before me have complimented the... 20/11/2020 | 10:41:03 Yes, good morning everybody. Dear Minister Minister, I am very pleased to hear your priorities for LGBT Roma rights and especially the focus on the Istanbul Convention and gender equality. I've been the rapporteur for the COVID report on human rights, equality and non-discrimination and I'm also the rapporteur for the Gender Dimensions of Foreign Policy. And, indeed, women's rights are human rights and no country can celebrate equality when the rights of minorities are not fully respected... 29/01/2020 | 10:24:12 Dear President, Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion as enshrined in article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights is one of the pillars of democratic pluralistic societies. At the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group, we believe that this freedom is an essential element of the identity of individuals, and can be important for believers, atheists, agnostics, or secular citizens alike. Or, in other words, this freedom is a freedom to hold religious beliefs, to... 03/10/2019 | 10:14:26 Madam President, Allow me to quote our Commissioner for Human Rights to the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatović: "Whilst states have the right to control their borders and ensure security, they also have the duty to effectively protect the rights enshrined in maritime, Human Rights and refugee laws”. This quote is from her statements on June 2019, when she issued her recommendation Lives saved. Rights protected. Bridging the protection gap for refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean. I...