06/06/2013 Monitoring
Strasbourg, 06.06.2013 – “We have closely followed the events taking place in Turkey in the last few days,” said Josette Durrieu (France, SOC), rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for post-monitoring dialogue with Turkey, appealing for calm and dialogue.
“The right to protest in a peaceful manner is the right of any citizen in a democracy, as our Assembly recently recalled in its Resolution 1925 (2013). Any resort to police action, if necessary, should remain proportionate,” she said.
“We take note of the authorities’ recent efforts to establish a dialogue with the protestors. These events demonstrate once again that freedom of expression is a basic right that must be preserved.”