12/10/2023 | 18:12:46 Thank you, Madam President, Ladies and gentlemen, What we have just heard was a speech that forgot a few things, and therefore it is perhaps important to mention again that, for example, in 1216 the first Armenian monastery was founded in Nagorno-Karabakh, and Mr. Samad SEYIDOV was stating that Armenian life, Armenian culture, which existed for centuries in Nagorno-Karabakh, has been wiped out within four weeks. Nagorno-Karabakh is now deserted. Armenian life is extinguished there. Armenian... 11/10/2023 | 17:13:32 Thank you, Madam President, Ladies and gentlemen, Dear colleagues, Imagine that your worst enemies are following your every move, listening to your every word, reading your most intimate messages, and seeing your photos. When we think of persecution of human rights defenders, we rightly think first and foremost of political prisoners like Osman Kavala. There is also persecution of human rights defenders that is invisible, yet downright brutal. That states illegally monitor their citizens... 11/10/2023 | 16:58:41 Thank you, Mr President, Ladies and gentlemen, please let us not forget; half a week after the anti-Semitic and Islamist Hamas brought terror on Israel. Let's not forget who is the aggressor and who is the victim here. On the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, people were awakened with gunfire and rocket fire. The only safe haven for Jews in the world has been under attack ever since. Last Saturday, more Jews were murdered than at any time since the end of the Shoah, since 1945. The only safe... 10/10/2023 | 18:02:09 Thank you, Madam President, Ladies and gentlemen, The report deals with the greatest danger to our democracy in Europe - the danger of right-wing extremism. Right-wing extremism is a danger because it has consequences that are very concrete and that are very threatening, and I am also very grateful to the Rapporteur for taking up the case of Walter Lübcke - the district president of Kassel, a German region - who was murdered by a neo-Nazis in 2019 because he stood up for refugees. This shows... 19/06/2023 | 15:21:10 Thank you, Mister President. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Colleagues, Our Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has 306 members and 306 deputies; that is the number of people who died last Wednesday off the Greek coast. With every person who dies in the Mediterranean, a piece of the European civilisation that we are here to defend also dies. It is enough to imagine that we were in that boat to understand. This fundamental rupture of civilisation on the Mediterranean must finally end... 26/01/2023 | 17:14:15 Thank you very much, Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, On behalf of the Group of the Socialists, Democrats and Greens in this Parliamentary Assembly, I would like to express very clear solidarity with the previous speaker and his party, the opposition party HDP in Turkey. We, the Group of Socialists, Democrats and Greens in this Parliamentary Assembly, are shocked by this ban on the HDP and consider it incompatible with the spirit of this Council of Europe and with the spirit of the... 24/01/2023 | 18:09:07 Thank you, Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good evening, It was a load off my mind when I read this report, because it is excellent. It is also excellent because it underlines what role we have as the Parliamentary Assembly, as a role of parliamentarians representing the people from our member States. I would also like to comment here today that I think it is a shame that the breadth of society was not represented all the way to this summit. If we look at the High-level Reflection... 13/10/2022 | 15:34:20 Thank you very much, Mr President, Ladies and gentlemen, In 1992, the very first EuroPride took place in London. At a time when homosexual acts were still criminalized in 17 states of this present organisation. At that time, hundreds of thousands of courageous people marched through central London, in 1992. They paved the way. They paved the way for homosexual acts to be legal today in all 46 member states of this organisation. They also paved the way for this organisation to take up the... 12/10/2022 | 11:58:39 Thank you very much, Mister President, Ladies and Gentlemen, I must say that when I listen to the debate here, I have a different understanding of this organisation than many other colleagues have. My generation, of course, inherited this Council of Europe, and I believe that a fundamental insight of this organisation is that the nation state alone cannot simply defend human rights, democracy and freedom on its own, but that it needs an association of states as a guardian, an association of... 21/06/2022 | 10:40:13 Thank you very much, Mister President, Dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, The war in Ukraine has not just been going on for four months. It began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea in violation of international law, and it began in response to everything that this House stands for here. It began as a reaction to the courageous young people, in particular, who fought for their democracy and their freedom on the Euromaidan with the power of song and with the power of peaceful protest...