11/10/2022 | 18:42:52 President, In the short time available to me, I would like to focus, firstly, on the main word in the title of the report namely “Islamophobia,” where "phobia", according to the dictionary, stands for "fear unfounded". This debate requires two thoughts at the same time, something that seems to be challenging for some people. To claim that someone who criticises, for instance, a religion – Christianity, Islam for instance – is a phobe can easily be a ruler technique and a way of reducing a... 27/04/2022 | 16:20:21 Thank you Mr President. In this brief statement, I wish to focus specifically on a number of long-term, more mental impacts, first and foremost among the literally shell-shocked population of Ukraine. For example, thousands of babies have been born in underground shelters, lacking nourishment and kept awake by artillery shells exploding above them, with the ground shaking below them, and crying and horrified people crouching around them. Will they - and countless other Ukrainian citizens in... 30/09/2021 | 09:46:43 [start of speech cut off] applies more readily than in the present day Afghanistan an old-new dictatorial regime, that of the Taliban, is back in fearsome rule after a 20-year break. A government that is unprepared and given an impression of confusion and incompetence. Meanwhile, the previous government has been dissolved and its protectors, the Western Alliance led by the US, had to withdraw in haste. The food situation is desperate. Winter is approaching. A deadly enemy, the IS, is active... 28/01/2020 | 11:49:05 Madam President. Last week a spokesmen from the European Commission in Brussels said, and I quote, "the Commission is very concerned about the rule of law situation in Poland". End of quote. This was after Poland had lost several cases in the EU's Court of Justice brought by the Commission over alleged shortcomings in the country's administration of justice and threatening Poland with losing millions of Euros of EU funding unless it corrected these alleged shortcomings. In reaction to this... 01/10/2019 | 11:12:52 Yes, Madam President. I have studied Mr Waserman's report on whistle-blowers with great interest, and I find it very good and timely. Nevertheless, there is one aspect I believe might usefully be added, and that is a more explicit reference to the fundamental importance in this context of a free and independently acting press and media landscape in our member states. Basically, we can have a hundred EU directives, a hundred Council of Europe conventions, national boards, legal support funds... 28/06/2019 | 10:41:11 Thank you, Mr President. It has been argued that the main reason for the peace treaty of Westphalia, in the year 1648, following the Thirty Years' War, was that peace was necessary because in the war itself there was nothing left to destroy. The same thing may well be claimed for the standstill, from exhaustion, that we seem to have now in Syria. This is after eight years of massive loss of life and destruction in that country's tragic civil war. It is a situation which are our Rapporteur, Ms... 24/06/2019 | 19:37:57 Madam President, For two years now this Assembly has had to function without the voice and contribution of the biggest and most populous among the Member states: Russia. This happened as we were scrambling for a way to react to a major breach by that country against a cardinal principle in international relations. Namely, that a state cannot take territory from another state by force. In the end we chose to apply a restriction in certain membership rights of the country concerned, especially... 24/01/2019 | 10:46:21 This is my maiden speech in the Council of Europe. It is a great honour to be here. Our political party, the Sweden Democrats, strongly condemns the Russian invasion of Crimea. When central principles of international law are violated, our Assembly has a duty to react, as it is this morning, to its honour. The recent escalation of tensions between Ukraine and the Russian Federation around the Sea of Azov, and what went before it, constitutes such a case, and blame for it must be laid entirely...