09/12/2011 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
The Committee on Equal Opportunities today called for renewed impetus to be given to the promotion, protection and effective implementation of women's rights worldwide, and for periodic evaluation of those rights. A report by Lydie Err (Luxembourg, SOC), approved by the Committee, points out that, all over the world, violence disproportionately affects women: one women in three has, at some point in her life, been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in some other way.
09/12/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
"As a result of the inherent lack of transparency, no-one really knows how much public money is siphoned out via tax havens; by various estimates the amounts add up to trillions", according to Dirk Van der Maelen (Belgium, SOC), rapporteur on policy on tax havens, speaking today when he opened a Paris hearing on the subject organised by the PACE Committee on Economic Affairs.
08/12/2011 | Monitoring
“The right to peacefully demonstrate is one of the basic rights of people in any democratic state, and is part of freedom of expression and assembly. There is no justification for the arrest and detention of hundreds of people just because they have gathered to protest calmly. On the contrary, they have the same right to police protection as those who express their support for the winning party,” said PACE's co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Russia, Andi Gross (Switzerland, SOC) and György Frunda (Romania, EPP/CD).
08/12/2011 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
The PACE Committee on Culture, Science and Education today pointed out that the right of everyone to take part in cultural life presupposes equal and free access for all to a variety of cultural resources. Adopting a report by Muriel Marland-Militello (France, EPP/CD), the committee said that states not only had a responsibility to ensure a wide supply of cultural services but should also act as “an initiator, promoter and regulator of interaction”.
08/12/2011 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
To protect freedom of expression and information on the internet and online media, the Committee on Culture, Science and Education encourages all intermediaries of ICT-based media to set up self-regulatory codes of conduct for respect of their users’ right to freedom of expression and information.
08/12/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“Five years ago we put forward substantial elements of proof of a secret CIA prison in Romania," former PACE rapporteur Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE) said today, reacting to news reports. "There have been years of official denials since then. But the dynamic of truth has run its course and we are at last beginning to learn what really happened in Bucharest. I am pleased that the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly made its contribution by jump-starting this dynamic. Those responsible for the crimes committed – and their cover-up – should now be held to account in a court of law."
08/12/2011 | President
At the end of a three-day official visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina, PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu today suggested a set of concrete measures to overcome the political stalemate and speed up reforms, on the eve of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s 10th anniversary of membership in the Council of Europe in April 2012, and before the Assembly’s debate to be held in January 2012 during PACE’s plenary session.
07/12/2011 | Monitoring
PACE co-rapporteurs for Georgia, Kastriot Islami (Albania, SOC) and Michael Aastrup Jensen (Denmark, ALDE), today expressed their concern at the presence of Russian polling stations in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
06/12/2011 | President
PACE President, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, today started an official visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina (6-8 December). During his visit, he is due to meet members of the Presidency, members of the Collegiums of the House of Representatives and of the House of Peoples, the leaders of the major political parties, as well as representatives of the international and diplomatic community.
06/12/2011 | Monitoring
Returning from their fact-finding visit to Moldova (28 November-1st December 2011), PACE co-rapporteurs Lise Christoffersen (Norway, SOC) and Piotr Wach (Poland, EPP/CD) welcomed the decision of the Moldovan parliament to set the date of the election of the President on 16 December 2011.
06/12/2011 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
"In a world of sport that has become global, the financial stakes are now enormous, and even the economic crisis has not curbed the general tendency towards excess." With these words, François Rochebloine (France, EPP/CD) this morning opened the hearing in Paris on good governance and ethics in sport, organised in the context of his writing of a report on the subject.
06/12/2011 | Prizes
The Council of Europe Museum Prize for 2012 has been awarded to the Rautenstrauch‐Joest‐Museum in Cologne (Germany) by PACE Committee on Culture, Science and Education. The Rautenstrauh‐Joest‐Museum is an anthropological museum of more than a century old, now in a high quality new building in Cologne, Germany.