14/03/2005 | Standing Committee
PACE's Standing Committee will be meeting in Paris on Friday 18 March. Members will hold an exchange of views on the Council of Europe Summit of Heads of State and Government to be held in Warsaw on 16 and 17 May 2005. A request for an urgent debate on the draft Council of Europe convention on trafficking in human beings has been submitted by PACE’s Equal Opportunities Committee. The rapporteur on the question, Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC), believes that the convention is far from guaranteeing adequate or effective protection for victims.
14/03/2005 | News
PACE's Committee on Culture will be holding a hearing on the media and terrorism in Paris on 17 March. Participants will be looking at the role played by media coverage in terrorist strategy, the potential for media self-regulation, existing legal measures and the political steps that could be taken to strengthen them. Among journalists attending will be the editor of "Chechen Society" Timur Aliyev, leader-writer for "El País" Francisco Gor, "Le Figaro" journalist Georges Malbrunot, the Secretary General of Reporters sans frontières Robert Ménard, Czech Radio journalist Vit Pohanka, TV presenter and member of the editorial board of Al-Jazeera Muhammad Krishan, and controller of editorial policy at the BBC Stephen Whittle.
11/03/2005 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s rapporteur on European deltas Leo Platvoet (Netherlands, UEL) has just returned from a fact-finding visit to the Ebro Delta in Spain (3-4 March 2005), where he saw at first hand how the construction of upstream barrages has reduced natural sedimentation, contributing to major erosion of the delta, which is a protected area and home to many rare bird species. “Some 50,000 people live in the delta region, however, and this must also be taken into account in any plan to preserve this ecosystem,” pointed out Mr Platvoet, who met local mayors, farmers and hunters as well as environmental campaigners. He has also visited the Po and Danube Deltas for his report, which is due before the summer.
11/03/2005 | News
"In recent weeks, a number of persons indicted for war crimes from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and, most recently, from Kosovo, have agreed to give themselves up voluntarily to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia," said PACE President René van der Linden in a statement today. "This is a welcome development because it reinforces the chances that justice will finally be done for the terrible crimes committed during the wars in the Balkans."
11/03/2005 | President
"I am extremely concerned to learn of the serious deterioration in the health of the Belarusian opposition leader and political prisoner Mikhail Marynich," said PACE President René van der Linden in an urgent appeal today. "I call on the authorities to transfer him immediately to a civilian hospital, with facilities for providing all necessary medical care, to allow immediate and unconditional access to him by his family, legal representatives and members of the diplomatic community, and to conduct a full, open and independent enquiry into the circumstances surrounding the sudden deterioration in his health."
10/03/2005 | President
"A clear and unambiguous message: the European Union should make full use of the experience, institutions and instruments of the Council of Europe", PACE President René Van der Linden underlined addressing a dinner-debate organised on 9 March in Strasbourg by the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the Council of Europe.
10/03/2005 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
The Vice-Chair of PACE’s Culture Committee Josef Jařab (Czech Republic, LDR) today opened the 7th European Ministerial Conference on Mass Media Policy in Kyiv by hailing the role of the Ukrainian media during the Orange Revolution. In Prague during the Velvet Revolution as in Kyiv, he said, “it was the media that quickly manifested dramatic changes in their work and attitudes, and it was the media that helped the revolutionary spirit to spread and gain the needed momentum”. Stressing that media policy could enhance democratic development, Mr Jarab also pointed out that a truly pan-European media policy – based on the conference’s themes of integration and diversity – could only be achieved via the Council of Europe.
09/03/2005 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Minodora Cliveti, (Romania, SOC), Chair of PACE's Committee on Equal Opportunities, said she was shocked by the pictures of members of the police forces striking women and young people demonstrating in Istanbul last Sunday. “Such pictures are not only unacceptable for the excessive use of violence they portray, but are also harmful for Turkey’s image in our member states. It is a matter of deep regret that the extraordinary process of reform being implemented by the Turkish authorities, including in the field of women’s rights, should be tarnished by acts which have no place either in Europe or anywhere else in the world,” said Ms Cliveti.
09/03/2005 | News
On the eve of his departure for a working visit to Moscow from 10 to 11 March, PACE President René van der Linden said he hoped that the death of Aslan Maskhadov would not trigger more violence and lead to a deterioration of the situation in the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation. "PACE is committed to building a broader basis for dialogue aimed at achieving a political solution in Chechnya," he said. "This is why our Political Affairs Committee is organising a Round Table in Strasbourg on 21 March which should bring together the broadest possible spectrum of representatives of the Chechen Republic and the Russian Federal authorities." The President said he regretted it had not been possible to bring Aslan Maskhadov to trial in accordance with Council of Europe principles.
08/03/2005 | President
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) President René van der Linden is making a working visit to Moscow from 10 to 11 March. After meeting the authorities of the Council of Europe’s host country, France, this is the President’s first visit to a member state. He is meeting with the Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly Boris Gryzlov, the Chairman of the Federation Council Serguei Mironov, the Special Foreign Affairs Advisor to the Russian President Serguei Prikhodko and Foreign Minister Serguei Lavrov.
07/03/2005 | Election observation
The 6 March parliamentary elections in Moldova were generally in compliance with most OSCE and Council of Europe commitments and other international election standards. They did however, fall short of some key commitments, particularly regarding campaign conditions and media access, concluded the International Election Observation Mission, in a statement today. “We regret that Moldova has not lowered its threshold as the Council of Europe recommended already in 2001. This has influenced the result and the balance of the new Molovan parliament,” said André Kvakkestad, who headed the PACE delegation.
04/03/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE's Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, meeting in Paris on 3 March, adopted the following declaration: “The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights notes with satisfaction that the United States Supreme Court, in its judgement of 1 March 2005 in Roper v. Simmons found the application of the death penalty against persons who were minors at the time of the crime unconstitutional. The Supreme Court held that the execution of minors constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment” within the meaning of the 8th Amendment, according to the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” that the Court had already referred to in earlier judgements restricting the application of the death penalty against the mentally handicapped and minors under 16 years of age..."