24/01/2011 Session
Strasbourg, 24.01.2011 – In his opening speech today at the January session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the President of the Assembly Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu regretted that in some member states, confrontations between the government and the opposition were seriously hampering the functioning of democratic institutions.
“People must not die as a result of political struggles. This is clearly unacceptable,” the President said, referring to the situation in Albania, where existing tensions degenerated last week, resulting in the deaths of several persons. “We have to be more active in supporting democratic changes through peaceful evolution. Therefore, we need to be more present in Tunisia. The people in the streets are sending a clear message – assist us to build a democratic society based on more equality and social justice,” he said.
Having been re-elected for another one-year mandate at the opening of the session, the President made a positive assessment of his first year in office, but regretted that “we could not achieve satisfactory results in some of our undertakings. In this connection, I think mainly about frozen conflicts in Europe. Negotiations concerning the settlement of these conflicts are mostly in the hands of career diplomats, but parliamentary diplomacy plays an important role in creating a climate of trust and confidence, necessary for lasting solutions. Be it in Abkhazia, Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia or on the island of Cyprus, it is difficult to see any meaningful progress in confidence-building over the last year. But we must and will continue our efforts because there is simply no other alternative.”
The PACE President also reminded the Assembly of an important commemoration which traditionally takes place during the January session: the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. “This is not an ordinary event. It is a cruel reminder of what people can do to others if they deviate from universal human rights principles and start to categorise individuals, groups and whole nations as those who are or are not entitled to human rights. Human rights and freedoms must be the same for all – this is what we stand for, and it is against this criterion that we must measure the level of democracy in our societies today.”
With a view to the urgent debate on violence against Christians in the Middle East, the President stressed that religious violence had been a scourge of humanity since the beginning of time and had caused millions of victims over the centuries. “Religious extremists have always been there to stain the humanistic and value-based message of the world’s main religions. We must clearly say that those killing in the name of religion are not believers, they are just fanatics and terrorists,” he said.
With regard to Belarus and the urgent debate scheduled during the January session, the President stressed that he still believed in achieving progress through contact and dialogue. “However, this dialogue can hardly take place when people are imprisoned for obviously political reasons. Presidential candidates and human rights activists are still in prison today, and some are suffering from bad health. They must be released immediately – it is only on this basis that we can continue our relations,” he concluded.