06/09/2004 | President
Jan Petersen, Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, Peter Schieder, President of the Parliamentary Assembly, and Terry Davis, Secretary General of the 45-nation Council of Europe, today expressed the "horror felt within the Council of Europe" following the tragedy in Beslan. "This barbaric act – which has shocked us all the more as it targeted what is most precious to us, our children – has ended in a dreadful bloodbath. There are no words strong enough to express our consternation, nor our feelings of friendship and solidarity towards the Russian people, the families of the victims and the country’s authorities," they said.
06/09/2004 | President
Speaking to participants of a seminar on "The Council of Europe - Politics and Practice", organised in Oslo today in connection with Norway’s Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers, PACE President Peter Schieder launched an appeal for reinforced co-operation with the EU and OSCE. "I strongly believe – and always did – that together we shall always be more successful in responding to the expectations of our citizens than working alone," he said. "Our co-operation with the EU should be reinforced, in promoting more systematic accession to CoE treaties, and in particular taking the necessary steps to allow EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights. This important topic will, I trust, be discussed by Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe member states when they meet for their third summit in Warsaw next spring," he said.
01/09/2004 | President
Peter Schieder, President of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, this morning made the following appeal: “We have just learned with great horror that hundreds of children and adults have been taken hostage in a school in Beslan, North Ossetia. We urge the perpetrators to free all of the hostages immediately. No cause can be furthered by such an act and nothing can justify it. “The Assembly stands ready to assist the Russian authorities in any way possible to secure a peaceful outcome,” he said. Peter Schieder also strongly condemned last night’s terrorist attack outside an underground railway station in Moscow, which killed ten people and left many wounded. On behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly, he extended his condolences to the families of the victims and expressed Europe’s full solidarity with the Russian people and authorities at this difficult time.
01/09/2004 | News
“Peace cannot be ordered, but must be made by all people even if they have dissenting opinions,” Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC), Assembly rapporteur on the political situation in the Chechen Republic concluded at the end of the fact-finding mission of a Council of Europe delegation to the region from 28 to 31 August. He expressed serious reservations with regard to the presidential elections which took place in the Chechen Republic on Sunday 29 August. In his opinion, these elections were far from meeting Council of Europe standards. Tadeusz Iwinski (Poland, SOC), Assembly rapporteur on the humanitarian situation of the Chechen displaced population, speaking at a press conference in Moscow today, strongly supported concrete plans to rebuild entire districts of the Chechen capital. These efforts, he said, combined with the federal scheme of compensation for lost housing – if realized – would have a very positive effect on the Chechen population.
31/08/2004 | President
In a letter addressed to his French counterparts and to Reporters without Borders, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe, Peter Schieder, expressed his support this morning for the families of the French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, who have been taken hostage in Iraq. "On behalf of the Assembly, I should like to assure the families of the two journalists of our support and our respect for the determination with which Mr Malbrunot and Mr Chesnot practise their profession in extremely difficult conditions." He firmly condemned the hostage-taking and called for the immediate, unconditional release of the two French journalists. "In holding freedom of expression hostage, the terrorists are trying to undermine democracy as a whole. There can be no justification for such an act," he concluded.
30/08/2004 | President
Assembly President Peter Schieder strongly condemned the terrorist act which, according to the FSB security service, caused the plane crashes last week in the Russian Federation. “In addition to the message of profound sympathy for the families of the victims which I sent to my counterparts at the Russian State Duma and the Council of the Federation, I would now like to express the Parliamentary Assembly’s full support in the fight against terrorism. “This heinous act illustrates the need to further improve international coordination against terrorism. No form of terrorism, whatever the cause it claims to serve, can ever be justified,” he said.
27/08/2004 | Monitoring
Hanne Severinsen (Denmark, LDR) and Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), co-rapporteurs for the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly monitoring of Ukraine, will make their next fact-finding visit to the country from 29 August to 1st September. The co-rapporteurs will focus on the preparations for the forthcoming Presidential election on 31 October 2004, in particular on the functioning of local self-government and state authorities within the election process and the independence of the media.
26/08/2004 | Standing Committee
The Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly is to meet on 7 September in Oslo at the invitation of the Norwegian Parliament. The meeting will be opened at 11am by the President of the Assembly, Peter Schieder, and the Speaker of the Storting (Norwegian Parliament), Jørgen Kosmo. The participants will exchange views with Jan Petersen, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway (which currently holds the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe), and with Terje Rød-Larsen (to be confirmed), United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process.
24/08/2004 | News
Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) and Tadeusz Iwiński (Poland, SOC) - Assembly rapporteurs on the political and humanitarian aspects of the situation in the Chechen Republic (respectively) - visited the region from 27 to 31 August 2004 as part of the preparations for their reports. The parliamentarians lead a Council of Europe delegation also including Jean-Claude Frecon (France, SOC) and Pascal Mangin (France, EPP/CD) - both members of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe - as well as two experts. They will give a press conference at the Interfax headquarters in Moscow on Wednesday 1 September at 10 a.m.
13/08/2004 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
At the end of a fact-finding visit to Mexico from 9 to 13 August, Swiss parliamentarian Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (SOC), who is preparing a report on "The disappearance and murder of a great number of women and girls in Mexico" for the Assembly's Committee on Equal Opportunities for women and men quoted two concrete cases of what she said should be called 'feminicides'. “On 28 February 2002, Clara Hernández Martines and her four children die in a fire set by an uncle in Ciudad Juárez. He declares he set the fire because she called him gay. On 22 September 2002, the body of Erika Pérez Escobedo is found at the side of a road in Ciudad Juárez. Despite the fact that the body shows signs of secual abuse and strangulation, the state prosecutor asserts she has died from an overdose and closes the case. These are only two of the over 300 cases of women and girls who have disappeared or been murdered in in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua (Mexico) since 1993," Mrs Vermot-Mangold said.
12/08/2004 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
On the eve of the Athens Olympics, Manuela Aguiar (Portugal, EPP/CD), who is preparing a report on “Discrimination against women and girls in sport”, has denounced discrimination against women in sport – pointing out that women remain under-represented in sport, continue to face sexist stereotyping in the sports media and have only a handful of top jobs in sport’s governing bodies.
12/08/2004 | Monitoring
“Society in Azerbaijan is increasingly polarised, resulting in a political impasse; social divisions are widening, with a very small minority growing disproportionately rich while the vast majority struggle to get by.” This is how Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) assessed the situation in the country after a fact-finding visit from 4 to 9 August.