14/04/2008 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE Political Affairs Committee is to hold a public hearing tomorrow, 17 April, at the initiative of its Chairperson Göran Lindblad (Sweden, EPP/CD), on “the political situation in China on the eve of the Olympic Games”. Participants include a Chinese human rights defender and representatives of the Dalai Lama, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders. The Chinese authorities were also invited but have so far not confirmed their participation.
14/04/2008 | Political Affairs and Democracy
In an open letter published today in the official Belarus newspaper Narodnaya Gazeta, Rapporteur on the situation in Belarus Andrea Rigoni appealed to parliamentary leaders to lead the way towards a moratorium on the death penalty in the country.
13/03/2008 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE Political Affairs Committee is to hold a public hearing on the freedom of speech of Olympic athletes, following reports that some European countries are proposing restrictions on political statements by athletes ahead of the forthcoming Games. Committee Chair Göran Lindblad (Sweden, EPP/CD) said: “Freedom of speech is something we hold dear at the Council of Europe, and many athletes from our member states will be going to China. We need to know if there will be any restrictions on what they can say, and why.”
13/03/2008 | Political Affairs and Democracy
In the introduction to his report on European Muslim communities confronted with extremism, João Bosco Mota Amaral (Portugal, EPP/CD) explains that, erroneously or not, the question many people ask themselves is whether the Muslim faith is compatible with Western values and way of living. “I do not accept the concept of the clash of civilisations: Islam and the West have coexisted for centuries, are compatible and based on the same universal core values. But I see a serious danger in the clash between the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism and the ideology of democracy and human rights which is the cradle of European states,” he says.
25/02/2008 | Political Affairs and Democracy
"I am deeply saddened by the passing of Irina Kozulina, after a long and consuming illness against which she fought bravely," said Andrea Rigoni (Italy, ALDE), PACE Rapporteur on the Situation in Belarus, commenting the death of the wife of political prisoner Alexander Kozulin. He called on the Belarus authorities to release Mr Kozulin in time to attend his wife's funeral.
07/02/2008 | Political Affairs and Democracy
"The three capital executions which took place on Tuesday in Belarus sadly show that this country is still a long way away from European values and standards," commented Andrea Rigoni (Italy, ALDE), rapporteur of PACE's Political Affairs Committee, following the executions of Sergei Morozov, Valery Gorbaty and Igor Danchenko of the Morozov criminal gang. "It is particularly disconcerting that the same day on which a prominent political prisoner such as Artur Finkevich is released, three people are executed. The death penalty is to be condemned in all circumstances and should be completely abolished," he said.
10/01/2008 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Josette Durrieu (France, SOC) will be making a fact-finding visit to Morocco from 13 to 15 January 2008 in connection with preparation of her report for the next PACE session (21 to 25 January) on strengthening co-operation with the Maghreb countries. She will be meeting the country's senior authorities, in particular the Prime Minister, Abbas El Fassi, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mustapha Mansouri, to discuss the question of human rights and interfaith dialogue.
12/12/2007 | Political Affairs and Democracy
The potential for finding a compromise between Belgrade and Pristina over Kosovo’s future status has been exhausted, according to PACE's Political Affairs Committee. The UN Security Council should now overcome existing differences and impose a solution, the committee said in a draft resolution adopted yesterday, but if it was incapable of achieving a unanimous position, it was “not to be excluded” that Kosovo would make a unilateral declaration of independence. In this case, the EU should “endeavour to achieve a single position” towards such a declaration.
11/12/2007 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE's Political Affairs Committee, meeting in Paris today, condemned the twin bomb blasts in Algiers, including one at the headquarters of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. “While it is not yet clear who was behind these attacks, the deliberate targeting of aid workers and students is contemptible,” said the committee’s First Vice-Chair Konstantin Kosachev (Russian Federation, EDG). “A terrorist attack on innocents is no way to achieve political goals.”
13/11/2007 | Political Affairs and Democracy
“Truth commissions may be an effective mechanism for addressing past human rights violations, thus bringing reconciliation to a society emerging from a difficult past. In the case of the Chechen Republic, a Truth Commission could be one way of meeting the need to deal with the legacy of the conflict in this region, to reconstitute the history of abuses committed, and of violence and injustices suffered, by all sides involved,” according to a report by Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC), adopted today in Paris by PACE Political Affairs Committee.
06/11/2007 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE is well-placed as a platform for discussing different experiences of conflict-settlement, parliamentarians agreed at the end of a two-day hearing on "frozen conflicts" in Berlin (5-6 November). The hearing brought together experts and government representatives from the countries concerned by the conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria.
31/10/2007 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Jonas Cekuolis (Lithuania, ALDE) today hailed ever-more intensive co-operation “on the basis of common values” between the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) and the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS IPA). Delivering a speech on behalf of PACE President René van der Linden at the 29th plenary session of the CIS IPA in St Petersburg, he pointed out that the two parliamentary bodies had organised a series of joint conferences since 2002 and announced that the next one, on migration, will take place in April 2008.