05/07/2007 | President
“Open borders are a pre-condition for prosperity. We cannot accept closed borders between Council of Europe member States”, declared PACE President in Yerevan. He also stressed that utmost priority must be given to improving relations among the countries of the region as a way to necessary reconciliation and to building a new future for young generations. He called for compromise to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which may be painful but necessary to ensure the development of the region.
04/07/2007 | President
René van der Linden, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is to visit Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia from 4 to 10 July 2007. This will be his second visit to the three countries of the southern Caucasus during his mandate. Mr van der Linden will be in Armenia on 4-5 July, Georgia on 5-7 July, and Azerbaijan on 8-10 July. On 7 July, he will visit South Ossetia for meetings in Tskhinvali and Kurta.
04/07/2007 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
“It is with great relief that we have learned of the release of the BBC journalist Alan Johnston”, said Robert Walter, Chairman of the Sub-Committee on the Media of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today. “Alan Johnston has been held hostage in Gaza since 12 March by a terrorist group which claimed religious legitimacy. As the Sub-Committee on the Media stated last week, holding an innocent person hostage for alleged political reasons is a grave violation of universal human values.
02/07/2007 | President
PACE President René van der Linden today expressed his disappointment that the Russia State Duma had still not assented to ratification of Protocol No. 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights, blocking its entry into force and triggering a partial renewal of the European Court, a complicated and time-consuming process. "By helping the Court to deal more quickly with its backlog of cases, the protocol’s main aim is to ensure individuals receive speedier and more effective justice," he pointed out. "We are all the poorer for this failure."
29/06/2007 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
PACE’s Sub-committee on the Media has again called on the kidnappers of BBC journalist Alan Johnston to immediately release him. Meeting on the fringes of the Assembly’s plenary, the sub-committee asked all Palestinian authorities to do their utmost to ensure his safe release. “Holding an innocent person hostage for alleged political reasons is a grave violation of universal human values,” the parliamentarians said.
29/06/2007 | Session
Religious groups must tolerate criticism and debate about their activities, provided it does not amount to gratuitious insult, but on the other hand hate speech – inciting discrimination or violence against people of a particular religion – should be penalised, PACE said today in a recommendation. Meanwhile blasphemy laws – which often result from the dominant position of one particular religion – should be reviewed.
25/06/2007 | News
The PACE culture and education committee rapporteur Guy Lengagne (France, SOC) today said he was ‘flabbergasted’, ‘appalled’ and ‘shocked’ by the PACE decision to refer back to committee his report on the dangers of creationism in education. ‘I can only see this as a ploy on the part of people who will use any means they can to combat the theory of evolution and impose creationist ideas. What we have here is the makings of a return to the Middle Ages, and too many members of this human-rights-based assembly fail to see it’.
25/06/2007 | Session
Adopting the agenda for its 2007 summer session, PACE today decided to change the date of its general debate on inter-cultural and interreligious dialogue (which will take place on Friday 29 June instead of Tuesday 26) and to refer back to committee one of the three reports which had been down for that debate (the dangers of creationism in education, Guy Lengagne, France, SOC). The reports on the image of women in advertising and on Europe's social dimension, scheduled for Friday, were brought forward to Tuesday 26. One of the high points of the session will be the debate on secret detentions in Europe (Wednesday 27), based on the latest report by Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE).
22/06/2007 | Session
The Assembly debates this morning in Strasbourg Dick Marty's (Switzerland, ALDE) second report on secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states. The report alleges a series of partly secret decisions among NATO allies in October 2001 which provided the basic framework for illegal CIA activities in Europe.
13/06/2007 | President
The European Union’s approach to European non-member states risks creating “new dividing lines” on the continent, according to PACE President René van der Linden. Addressing the 3rd Council of Europe Forum for the Future of Democracy in Stockholm today, Mr van der Linden said the EU neglected the fact that all Council of Europe member states were equal and had freely accepted commitments on joining. “We do not impose our views or values,” he said. The President also highlighted the importance of a link with the people in a democracy: “Democracy is not worth the name if it is not first and foremost the business of the people and their elected representatives”.
08/06/2007 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE rapporteur Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE) today revealed new evidence that US “high-value detainees” were held in secret CIA prisons in Poland and Romania during the period 2002-5 and alleges a series of partly secret decisions among NATO allies in October 2001 which provided the basic framework for illegal CIA activities in Europe. In an explanatory memorandum made public today, Mr Marty says he has cross-referenced the credible testimonies of over 30 members of intelligence services in the US and Europe with analysis of "data strings" from the international flight planning system.
08/06/2007 | President
“I don’t know which is more shocking: that European governments have been complicit in these activities, violating their legal obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights; or that they have used anti-democratic methods to conceal their actions and frustrate parliamentary and judicial investigations,” said PACE President René van der Linden today, reacting to adoption by the Assembly’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of Mr Marty’s second report on secret detentions and extraordinary renditions.