08/03/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
At a hearing on the declaration of Principles on Equality and activities of the Council of Europe, organised by the Legal Affairs Committee in Paris today, participants stressed that the right to equality before the law and the protection of all persons against discrimination are fundamental provisions of international human rights law.
07/03/2011 | President
Addressing today the National Assembly in Belgrade, PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu welcomed Serbia’s contribution to the process of reconciliation in the region. However, “declarations have to be supported by concrete actions aiming, among others, at resolving the issue of missing persons, promoting effective refugee return and, where appropriate, their local integration,” he stressed.
07/03/2011 | President
José Mendes Bota (Portugal, EPP/CD), Chairperson of the PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, calls for more parliamentary mobilisation in the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment. "I cannot think of any other so blatant, widespread and persistent injustice as inequality between women and men," he said on the celebration of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day.
07/03/2011 | President
"In March 1911, for the first time, more than a million women attended rallies to celebrate the first International Women’s Day and ask for womens' right to receive an education, to work, to vote and to hold public office," said PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, on the anniversary of International Women’s Day 2011.
07/03/2011 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu today stressed the need to complete quickly Serbia’s key outstanding commitments and obligations to the Council of Europe. “The reforms should not slow down,” he said, during a press conference in Belgrade. “The Serbian Government and Parliament should intensify efforts to amend the electoral legislation and abolish the so-called ‘party-administered mandates’, strengthen the independence of the judiciary, step up efforts to fight corruption and continue strengthening minority rights."
04/03/2011 | Standing Committee
A current affairs debate on co-operation between the Council of Europe and emerging democracies in the Arab world will be a highlight of a meeting of the PACE Standing Committee in Paris on 11 March 2011. Other topics to be debated include an opinion on the Draft Council of Europe Convention to Prevent and Combat Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, preserving the environment in the Mediterranean, the need for a global consideration of the human rights implications of biometrics, and “Genetically modified organisms: a solution for the future?”
04/03/2011 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
Mats Johansson, Standing Rapporteur of the PACE on Media Freedom, and Arne König, President of the European Federation of Journalists, today made the following statement on the situation of the media in Belarus: “We are shocked by the systematic silencing of the independent media in Belarus, which has dramatically increased since the presidential elections in December last year, resulting into a de facto denial of freedom of expression and information of the Belarus people.”
03/03/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
A leading expert on contemporary Egypt, the historian and writer Tewfik Aclimandos, as well as Egypt’s ambassador to France Nasser Kamel will be among those taking part in an exchange of views on the situation in Egypt at a meeting of the PACE Sub-Committee on the Middle East in Paris on 8 March 2011.
02/03/2011 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has expressed deepening concern at the plight of refugees and other foreigners currently fleeing or trying to flee from Libya. “The reports now coming out from UNHCR are dramatic. The humanitarian situation is worsening hour after hour. While already over 110 000 persons have fled Libya, more than 1000 persons per hour are fleeing from Libya into Tunisia.”
02/03/2011 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has expressed deepening concern at the plight of refugees and other foreigners currently fleeing or trying to flee from Libya. “The reports now coming out from UNHCR are dramatic. The humanitarian situation is worsening hour after hour. While already over 110 000 persons have fled Libya, more than 1000 persons per hour are fleeing from Libya into Tunisia.”
01/03/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
At a conference organised in Brussels by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, Bernard Marquet (Monaco, ALDE), member of the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, today called on governments to support the principles of the future European Charter of Shared Social Responsibilities, and the innovation which can result from its application, in the interests of maintaining social cohesion.
01/03/2011 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty, is dismayed by the prospect of the imminent execution of two young men, Aleh Gryshkautsou, aged 29, and Andrei Burdyka, aged 28, convicted for murder during an armed robbery in 2009. A broadcast on national television on 22 February 2011 recalled that the sentence had come into force after the two men's appeals had been turned down.