13/05/2009 | President
PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig has said that the Council of Europe can point to “an extremely positive” record of achievement in the last sixty years. Addressing the organisation’s Foreign Ministers in Madrid at a meeting to mark the 60th anniversary, the President said the Council’s moral force flowed from “a unique combination of diplomatic subtlety and rigour in defending our values”. Concerning the Ministers’ decision to forward a list containing two candidates for the election to the post of Secretary General, the President said that although he was not yet in a position to present the Assembly’s reaction, he thought that the parliamentarians “are not going to like this decision”.
11/05/2009 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
At a meeting in Istanbul on Thursday 14 May, the Equality Committee of PACE will discuss the report by John Austin (United Kingdom, SOC) on the urgent need for action on so-called “honour crimes”, which sets out specific legislative, preventive and victim-protection measures for dealing with this violation of women’s fundamental rights. The United Nations Population Fund estimates that a total of up to 5,000 people a year fall victim to “honour” killings.
11/05/2009 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
“It is a shame for Europe that 15 to 20 years after the conflicts which ravaged the South Caucasus region in the early 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people displaced by these conflicts continue to live in shabby and marginalised conditions with little prospect of return or restitution of their property,” said John Greenway (United Kingdom, EDG), rapporteur on protecting the human rights of long-term displaced persons, at the close of his four-day fact-finding mission to Yerevan and Baku. “The international community must reinvigorate its efforts to find new political impetus to create durable solutions for these people. We should avoid them becoming Europe’s forgotten people.”
06/05/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The PACE rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty, Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), has welcomed the promise by the Laos authorities not to apply the death penalty against British national Samantha Orobator, who was allegedly caught smuggling drugs. The 20-year-old woman fell pregnant in prison and is due to give birth in September. "The death penalty is a terrible violation of the right to life at all times, but Samantha's case is a demonstration for all to see that death is not justice," said Mrs Wohlwend. PACE would continue to follow the case closely, she said.
05/05/2009 | Monitoring
“While it is too early to give a full assessment of the effects of the changes to articles 225 and 300 of the Criminal Code of Armenia, the first signals give reason for optimism” stated the two co-rapporteurs with respect of Armenia, George Colombier (France, EPP/CD) and John Prescott (United Kingdom, SOC), after the discussions that took place last week in Strasbourg in PACE Monitoring Committee on the recent political developments in Armenia.
30/04/2009 | Session
In a text adopted today on the humanitarian consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia and the follow-up given to Resolution 1648 (2009), PACE recommends that priority be given to dialogue between all parties, and steps must be taken to support civil society initiatives. “It is the people living in the conflict region who are the victims of this conflict. Steps have to be taken to give them opportunities to build up a humane and peaceful future without further war. To achieve this, building trust is essential. Without political willingness to go for solutions, nothing will change,” said Corien Jonker (Netherlands, EPP/CD), Rapporteur for the Committee on Migration, who made a fact-finding visit to South Ossetia on 13 and 14 March this year.
29/04/2009 | Prizes
The 2009 Europe Prize has been awarded to the Turkish town of Ankara. The decision was taken unanimously by PACE Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs meeting today in Strasbourg. Through its forty twinnings in the world, Ankara has developed a very dense network of international contacts and attaches great importance to the development of cultural relations by organising every year Cultural Days. And thanks to its international conferences (such as the 5th Glocal Forum) it has contributed to strengthening friendship and understanding among people.
29/04/2009 | Session
The Assembly reviewed this morning the action taken by Georgia and Russia on Resolution 1647 (2009) adopted by the PACE in January 2009. The information report submitted by the co-rapporteurs of the Monitoring Committee (Luc Van den Brande (Belgium, EPP/CD) and Mátyás Eörsi (Hungary, ALDE)) concluded that Georgia has not yet fully complied with all of the Assembly’s demands. Russia, for its part, has failed to comply with most of the demands and might even be seen as moving further away from the minimum conditions for meaningful dialogue.
28/04/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
According to PACE, despite the fact that the number of women in prison in Europe is growing, women are still only a minority of the prison population, with the consequence that prisons are mainly designed for men and often do not address the specific needs of women. Moreover, as there are very few prisons for women, and even fewer places for women in pre-trial detention, women are held further away from their home, which means cutting family ties.
28/04/2009 | Session
In a resolution adopted today, PACE invited the member states to adapt their national legislation in order to prohibit and penalise forced marriages, female genital mutilation and any other gender-based violations of human rights, encouraging them to prosecute abductions, illegal confinements and forced returns of women or girls to their countries of origin. According to the parliamentarians, cultural or religious relativism cannot be invoked to justify these acts.
28/04/2009 | Session
Despite a period of turbulent transformation and several challenges, Serbia is “moving forward and making progress on the road to European integration”, according to PACE. In a resolution adopted today, the Assembly called on Serbia to prepare a “roadmap” of concrete actions to reform its democratic institutions – especially the parliament – improve human rights and reinforce the rule of law. This would “prepare the way” for closing the Assembly’s monitoring procedure, the parliamentarians said.
28/04/2009 | Political Affairs and Democracy
PACE Political Affairs Committee today held an exchange of views with Shen Ting, Chairperson of the Chinese League of Victims of the Shanghai 2010 World Expo. According to Mrs Ting, in the framework of the development of the World Expo site, there have been many incidents in which residents have been removed from the site against their will. “The actions of the Shanghai authorities over the past few years demonstrate that the government has utterly deviated from the principles of the World Expo and from the commitment it made - no coercive removals - in its bid to host the Expo by violating the basic rights of the original inhabitants of the World Expo site.”