06/10/2005 | News
PACE's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights today adopted the following statement: “PACE’s Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights is alarmed about alleged ill-treatment in prison of Platon Lebedev, Khodorkovsky’s Yukos associate. The Committee launches an urgent appeal to the Russian authorities to grant Platon Lebedev, one of the leading former Yukos executives in prison, access to urgently needed medical treatment, including the exercise of his right to be examined by a doctor he trusts, and to receive the medicines he needs...
06/10/2005 | News
PACE today called on the Libyan authorities to release or grant a fair trial to the five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor found guilty of deliberately infecting with HIV/AIDS some 426 children in a Benghazi hospital. In a resolution, the Assembly said the medical team should be regarded as completely innocent and said they were "being used as scapegoats for a dilapidated Libyan health system".
05/10/2005 | News
Thomas Hammarberg, currently Secretary General of the Olof Palme International Centre in Sweden and a former Secretary General of Amnesty International, was today elected as Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights by the Organisation’s Parliamentary Assembly. Mr Hammarberg received 104 of the votes cast in the second round of the election, which took place during the Parliamentary Assembly’s Autumn plenary session in Strasbourg. Marek Antoni Nowicki (Poland) received 93 votes and Marc Verwilghen (Belgium) received 33 votes.
05/10/2005 | News
PACE today welcomed the “positive evolution” in Ukraine under President Yushchenko and the first achievements of the new authorities, but recognised that they have encountered numerous difficulties in the first nine post-revolution months, originating from the years of rule of the previous regime as well as internal conflicts within the new administration. The Assembly urged the Ukrainian authorities to carry on with the reform process and not to let political competition jeopardise the country’s development.
05/10/2005 | News
In an enlarged debate on the activities of the OECD this afternoon, PACE welcomed overall solid growth in the world economy and noted well-contained inflation in the OECD area, but worried about the huge and steadily rising US deficit as well as timid growth in the eurozone. High and volatile oil prices pose a further risk, said the parliamentarians, calling on OECD countries to do more to increase energy efficiency and diversify sources. PACE also welcomed extensive ongoing co-operation with Russia, and growing links with China.
05/10/2005 | News
All Council of Europe member states should fix at eighteen years the minimum statutory marriage age and make it easier to prevent, detect and annul forced marriages – those where at least one person has not given their full and free consent – PACE said today. "It is an outrage that, under the cloak of respect for the culture and traditions of certain communities, there are authorities which tolerate forced marriages and child marriages even though they violate the fundamental rights of each victim," the parliamentarians said in a resolution.
04/10/2005 | News
“Ten years have passed since Moldova became a fully-fledged European democracy as a member of the Council of Europe, but much still remains to be done,” declared Marian Lupu, Speaker of the Moldovan Parliament, addressing the PACE. In the short time that it has been in existence, the new Moldovan Parliament has passed a raft of laws of vital importance for democracy, but the process of legislative reform is not over yet, he said. Welcoming Mr Lupu, President van der Linden recalled the achievements of the Moldovan economy during Mr Lupu’s stint as Minister for Economic Affairs and said that the Council of Europe expected the Parliament to be equally successful when it came to adopting European standards.
04/10/2005 | Session
Freedom of religion is the key to protecting human rights, including women’s rights, according to the UN's Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief Asma Jahangir, who addressed PACE today as part of a debate on women and religion in Europe. "The link between the state and religion is often at the origin of problems relating to women’s rights," said Ms Jahangir. Welcoming her, President Rene van der Linden said Ms. Jahangir had been a critic of blasphemy laws in her home country, Pakistan, and a staunch defender of human rights, including women's rights.
04/10/2005 | Session
European governments should guarantee the separation between church and state to ensure that women are not subjected to “religiously-inspired policies and laws”, for example in the area of family, divorce and abortion law, PACE said today. Approving a report on women and religion in Europe by 84 votes to 16, the parliamentarians declared: “Women’s rights are often curtailed or violated in the name of religion”. Freedom of religion and respect for culture and tradition should never be accepted as a pretext for such violations, they said.
04/10/2005 | President
"This statue is also emblematic of the idea of team-spirit that characterises our work and the differing political and cultural identities that make up the Council of Europe. The same spirit is present in the team that has led to the presentation of the statue to the Council of Europe today. I thank the Government of Spain for presenting the gift, the Region of Murcia for its generosity and the artist Gonzalez Beltran for the imagination and skill that has gone into its creation" said René van der Linden on the occasion of the inauguration of the Spanish "Monument to Human Rights" at the Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg today.
04/10/2005 | News
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), meeting in plenary in Strasbourg, today unanimously elected Mateo Sorinas Balfegó as Secretary General of the Assembly for a five-year term, beginning on 1 February 2006. Mr Sorinas was born in Tarragona (Spain) on 13 March 1946. After obtaining a master’s degree in physical sciences from Complutense University, Madrid in 1968, he worked as a teacher in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, where he was a member of the executive committee of the Teachers’ Union.
04/10/2005 | Election observation
In the first round of the election for Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, held this morning, Thomas Hammarberg (Sweden) received 78 votes, Marek Antoni Nowicki (Poland) received 89 votes and Marc Verwilghen (Belgium) received 65 votes. No candidate having obtained an absolute majority of the votes cast, a second round ballot will be held tomorrow between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.