04/03/2005 | News
PACE 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 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe notes with grave concern the recent trial and imprisonment of Mr Mikhail Marynich. Mr Marynich is an opposition politician in Belarus, who had stood against the current President in the 2001 presidential elections, and a former ambassador of Belarus to various European countries. Mr Marynich was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment on charges relating to the theft of computer equipment from the US embassy in Belarus, despite the fact that the US State Department itself made clear that it had no complaints against him ..."
01/03/2005 | Monitoring
Co-rapporteurs Jerzy Smorawinski (Poland, EPP/CD) and Soeren Soendergaard (Denmark, UEL) return to Albania from 28 February to 3 March to assess progress following the Assembly’s last assessment, with a focus on parliamentary elections in the summer.
01/03/2005 | Election observation
A 30-member PACE delegation, headed by André Kvakkestad (Norway, EDG), will observe the parliamentary elections to be held in Moldova on 6 March 2005 as part of an International Election Observation Mission (IEOM). The parliamentarians will arrive in Chişinaŭ on 3 March to meet with party representatives, the Chair of the Central Electoral Commission, journalists and NGOs. On election day, they will be deployed in the capital and in towns around the country. A PACE “pre-election” delegation said it was concerned by the lack of a clearly visible election campaign and called for broad and impartial coverage in the mass media as well as measures to facilitate the voting of all Moldovans, including those in Transnistria.
01/03/2005 | News
"There is something which all migrant women have in common: the two-fold discrimination to which they may be subjected in their host countries, on the grounds of both gender and origin, increasing their vulnerability, especially in the labour market". Minodora Cliveti (Romania, SOC) was speaking this morning at the opening of the hearing. Jointly organised in Paris by two PACE committees, the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men and the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population, the hearing should afford an opportunity to look at three main themes: access to rights, obstacles to integration and participation in public and political life.
01/03/2005 | News
“The European Court of Human Rights has 11 female and 33 male judges – which means that only about a quarter of the judges are women. There’s still a glaring imbalance between women and men, even though the PACE, which elects the judges, made it a rule in 2004 that lists of candidates must have at least one candidate of each sex. This discrepancy between women and men is a threat to the Court’s legitimacy and authority”, declared Vera OSKINA (Russia, EDG) at a meeting of the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in Paris on 28 February.
01/03/2005 | News
In his intervention at the opening of the hearing, John Wilkinson (United Kingdom,EDG) stressed this morning that migrant women face a host of different challenges in terms of their migration and integration to those of men, and policy must reflect these issues and challenges. "In view of restrictions on immigration in European countries, many women have to resort to clandestine status making it more likely that they become victims of gender-specific forms of abuse, including sexual exploitation", he added.
01/03/2005 | News
"Securing the fundamental rights of migrant women is an inseparable condition of their integration in the Council of Europe member states,” Gülsün Bilgehan (Turkey, SOC), rapporteur for the PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, pointed out in her concluding remarks at a hearing on the subject held today in Paris. She also emphasised that national legislation must look after the enforcement of the law of the country of residence and resolute measures to combat all forms of violence undergone by migrant women.
28/02/2005 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
"The draft Convention on action against trafficking in human beings is still far from guaranteeing the effective and adequate protection for victims which was the Committee of Ministers' objective when it instructed a group of experts to draft a convention which would have the added value of protecting the rights of the victims as human beings". Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC) was speaking in Paris on 28 February during a meeting of the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men. The PACE’s opinion on this draft Council of Europe Convention, based on a report by Ms Vermot-Mangold and adopted unanimously in January this year, called for 50 amendments to be made. Only two of these amendments - concerning victim protection and the binding nature of the Convention - have been incorporated into the text, however.
25/02/2005 | President
The next Council of Europe Summit of Heads of State and Government (Warsaw, 16-17 May) was top of the agenda when PACE President René van der Linden visited Paris on 23 and 24 February. Mr van der Linden argued for a clarification of the roles of the Council of Europe and the EU and warned against the danger of duplicating – at a higher cost and over a smaller geographic area – tasks already being efficiently carried out by the Council of Europe, particularly in the field of human rights, the prevention of torture and combating racism, intolerance and xenophobia.
24/02/2005 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
The integration of migrant women in Europe will be the theme of a hearing to take place on Tuesday 1st March in Paris. Organised by PACE's Equality and Migration Committees, the hearing will bring together around a hundred participants: parliamentarians from 46 European countries, experts and NGO representatives as well as the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe Maud de Boer-Buquicchio and the Council’s Commissioner for Human Rights Alvaro Gil-Robles.
23/02/2005 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Following consultations, a Round Table for the organisation of an exchange of views involving political parties and local politicians from the Chechen Republic and the Russian federal authorities is to take place in Strasbourg on Monday 21 March 2005, organised by PACE's Political Affairs Committee. A spectrum of around 50 invitees will include, among others, Chechen President Alu Alkhanov, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin and President Putin’s Representative in the Southern Federal District Dmitry Kozak.
23/02/2005 | President
"The result of Sunday’s election in the northern part of Cyprus shows the European orientation of Turkish Cypriots, and clearly signals their wish to end the division of the island," said PACE President René van der Linden in a statement today. "I hope these results will contribute to developing the confidence and trust of the Greek Cypriot population in the positive attitude of Turkish Cypriots," he added. Since January of this year, the Assembly has enabled elected representatives of the Turkish Cypriot community to take part in its work.