15/01/2010 | President
Statement by Micheline Calmy-Rey, Chairperson of the Committee of Ministers and Lluís Maria de Puig, President of the Parliamentary Assembly Strasbourg, 15.01.2010 - “We welcome the approval, for ratification, of Protocol No. 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights by the Russian State...
15/01/2010 | President
PACE President, Lluís Maria de Puig, has called on Council of Europe member states to shoulder their humanitarian responsibilities following the Haiti devastation. “At this moment in time our thoughts lie with the victims, and the families and friends of the victims. The uncertainty and lack of communications just add to the suffering of all those involved. My condolences go to the people of Haiti, as well as to our colleagues in the United Nations and others who are caught up in the earthquake and who may have died, gone missing, been injured or are suffering,” the President added.
15/01/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD), rapporteur of PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, will make a fact-finding visit to Athens on 18 and 19 January as part of the preparation of his report on the implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. The judgments considered by Mr Pourgourides cover those not fully implemented more than five years after final delivery, or raising important implementation issues, particularly where they concern human rights violations of extreme gravity.
12/01/2010 | Session
“Faked pandemics: a threat to health” will be one of the major themes of the next plenary session of PACE, to be held in Strasbourg from 25 to 29 January. The PACE Social Affairs Committee has proposed the holding of an urgent debate on this subject. If the Assembly agrees when it adopts its agenda on the opening day, the debate is likely to be held on the morning of Thursday 28 January. The committee will be holding a public hearing on the same subject on Tuesday 26 January at 8.30 am, attended by representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO), the European pharmaceutical industry and experts on the subject.
11/01/2010 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Italy and Europe must learn lessons from the “cauldron of racist violence, xenophobia and exploitation” that boiled over in the Italian town of Rosarno over the weekend, according to Corien Jonker (Netherlands, EPP/CD), Chair of PACE Migration Committee. “The fire under the cauldron was lit by the drive-by shootings of migrants with air-guns,” said Mrs Jonker. “The causes were cumulative, however, with exploitation of both regular and irregular migrants, involvement of criminal gangs and xenophobia, leading ultimately to the riots, injuries, death and the transfer of a large number of the migrants to reception centres away from Rosarno.”
11/01/2010 | President
“The legacy of party closures in Turkey remains a source of concern,” PACE President, Lluís Maria de Puig stressed, referring to the recent closure of the Democratic Society Party (DTP) following a decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court. The President expressed the hope that this decision would not undermine the authorities’ positive steps in favour of reconciliation.
08/01/2010 | Election observation
A 39-member delegation of PACE, led by Mátyás Eörsi (Hungary, ALDE), will be in Ukraine from 14 to 18 January to observe the presidential election, alongside observers from the OSCE and NATO Parliamentary Assemblies, the European Parliament and the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The delegation will meet the leading candidates, election officials, civil society and media representatives before observing the ballot on 17 January in a sample of polling stations across the country.
07/01/2010 | Political Affairs and Democracy
The Chair of PACE Political Affairs Committee, Göran Lindblad (Sweden, EPP/CD), has condemned the violent and unjust way in which the Iranian government suppresses the opposition in the country. “The methods used by the authorities resemble the worst practices of totalitarian regimes and cannot be accepted by the international community,” he said. “Political dialogue is the only possible solution for Iran’s problems.”
05/01/2010 | Monitoring
Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD) and Joseph Debono Grech (Malta, SOC), co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Azerbaijan, and Christoph Strässer (Germany, SOC), rapporteur on the follow-up to the issue of political prisoners in Azerbaijan by PACE, today welcomed the decision by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev on 25 December 2009 to pardon 99 prisoners. Some of these prisoners are on the lists of alleged political prisoners of local human rights NGO’s. The pardoning decree also includes opposition Bizim Yol newspaper correspondent Mushvig Huseynov, who has been mentioned in PACE reports.
29/12/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
"I am deeply disappointed to learn that Akmal Shaikh, a British citizen condemned to capital punishment, has been executed in China this morning. To inflict death is not to do justice," said Mrs Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), rapporteur on the death penalty in Council of Europe member and observer states. "The application of the death penalty is a violation of the most fundamental of human rights, the right to life. Capital punishment has a brutalising effect in society. It must be totally removed once and for all from the legislation of all countries which strive to uphold democracy, the rule of law and human rights."
23/12/2009 | Monitoring
“We have taken note of the final judgment by the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights which says that prohibiting a Rom and a Jew from standing for election to the House of Peoples of the Parliamentary Assembly and for the State Presidency in Bosnia and Herzegovina amounts to discrimination and breaches their electoral rights,” the PACE co-rapporteurs on the functioning of democratic institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mevlüt Çavusoglu (Turkey, EDG) and Kimmo Sasi (Finland, EPP/CD), said on 23 December.
22/12/2009 | Monitoring
The recommendations of the ad hoc Committee of the National Assembly of Armenia into the events of 1 and 2 March 2008 provide “a comprehensive, although not complete” response to the political crisis, according to an information note by PACE's co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Armenia made public this week.