11/01/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE's rapporteur on detentions at Guantanamo Bay, Kevin McNamara (United Kingdom, SOC), has welcomed the impending release of the four remaining British detainees, but again called on the United States to return or release all other Council of Europe nationals and residents – of which there could be more than thirty from ten countries. Their detention was "equally unlawful", he said. Mr McNamara is currently preparing a report on the legality of detentions at the US base.
10/01/2005 | Election observation
A delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), lead by Lord Kilclooney, former Minister at Home Affairs in Northern Ireland, observed the 9 January election of the President of the Palestinian Authority. The delegation was satisfied with the efficient organisation of this election. The overall high voter turnout clearly signals the belief of the Palestinian electorate in the democratic process. With the election of the new President, a new window of opportunity is opened for a renewed dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.
06/01/2005 | President
During his official visit to Mexico from 12 to 16 January, Peter Schieder will meet the President and Foreign Minister, party leaders and parliamentarians to discuss Mexico’s relations with the Council of Europe, where it holds observer status. He will also address the Mexican Senate.
05/01/2005 | Election observation
A 15-member PACE delegation, lead by Lord Kilclooney, former Minister at Home Affairs in Northern Ireland, will observe the election of the President of the Palestinian Authority to be held on 9 January 2005. During their stay in Ramallah and Jerusalem, from 7 to 10 January, the parliamentarians will meet with the candidates for the Presidency, the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, the Chair of the Central Electoral Commission and the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, as well as with representatives of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and NGO’s.
03/01/2005 | President
"The people of Ukraine are to be congratulated for having made a clear decision in the presidential election", Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) President Peter Schieder said on 28 December. "They should now unite behind the new President in meeting the considerable challenges facing the country, including its modernisation and reform and its fulfilment of the obligations and commitments undertaken when it joined the Council of Europe. I shall be inviting the new President to address the Parliamentary Assembly at its next plenary session in January 2005" President Schieder concluded.
27/12/2004 | Election observation
The repeat second round of the presidential election in Ukraine on 26 December brought Ukraine substantially closer to meeting international standards. Throughout the election an engaged civil society demonstrated an active interest in the democratic process, concluded the International Election Observation Mission in a preliminary statement released today in Kyiv. The Head of the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Mr. Tadeusz Iwinski, said: “The Council of Europe did not have a candidate in this election. We respect the choice the people of Ukraine have made and the expression of that choice was clear and democratic. Without prejudging the outcome of the official count, I am pleased to announce today that the Bureau of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly is extending an invitation to the new president of Ukraine to address its plenary session in late January.”
23/12/2004 | Bureau
Relations between Europe and the United States, Genetically Modified Organisms and the Third Summit are among items provisionally scheduled for debate at the Assembly’s winter session (24-28 January 2005). Other reports on the draft order of business, adopted last week by PACE’s Bureau, include observation of presidential elections in Ukraine and the Palestinian Authority, the circumstances surrounding the arrest and prosecution of leading Yukos executives, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the protection of human rights in Kosovo and Georgia’s honouring of its obligations and commitments. The Assembly itself will decide its own final order of business only on the first day of the session.
21/12/2004 | President
PACE President Peter Schieder today warmly welcomed the release of Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, the two French journalists held hostages in Iraq since 20 August. "I wish to transmit to them and to their families our joy and to pay tribute to their courage. I very much hope that their liberation will soon be followed by others", he said.
20/12/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Jamal al-Harith, a British muslim who spent two years detained without charge at Guantanamo Bay, told a PACE hearing on Friday how he was subjected to "systematic abuse" which he was informed amounts to torture under international law. Addressing PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee in Paris, Mr al-Harith told parliamentarians how he was assaulted, "short shackled", subjected to extremes of heat and cold and hosed down as well as being denied access to necessary medical care and harassed in practising his religion. Mr al-Harith says he has never engaged in any kind of terrorist behaviour.
16/12/2004 | News
The Monitoring Committee also adopted, during its meeting on 15 December, a draft resolution on the honouring of obligations and commitments by Georgia. According to the co-rapporteurs (Matyas Eörsi, Hungary, LDR, and Evgueni Kirilov, Bulgaria, SOC), a year after coming into power, the new Georgian authorities continue to demonstrate an unyielding resolve to carry out far-reaching political, legal, social and economic reforms. However, the post-revolutionary situation should not become an alibi for hasty decisions and neglect for democratic and human rights standards.
16/12/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Committee on Social Affairs, mmeting today in Paris, adopted draft resolution on "Assistance to patients at end of life". The text, prepared by Dick Marty (Switzerland, LDR), propose that Council of Europe member States define and implement "a genuine policy of assistance to patients at end of life which does not cause them to want to die". It therefore propose measures such as the promotion of palliative treatment, bearing in mind that the aim is to alleviate the patient’s suffering, while also realising that it may shorten his or her life in certain cases, and the development of codes of medical ethics to avoid superfluous treatments which can be regarded as over-zealous prolongation of life. The text underlines the right of any patient "capable of discernment, being fully aware of the facts, to decline the treatment proposed".
16/12/2004 | Election observation
A 30-member delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly, headed by Tadeusz Iwinski (Poland, SOC), will observe the re-run of the second round of the presidential election to be held in Ukraine on 26 December 2004. The parliamentarians will arrive in Kyiv on 24 December to meet with the two candidates and the Chair of the Central Electoral Commission. On election day, they will be deployed in the capital and throughout the country.