23/04/2026 | 11:51:39 Thank you, Madam President. Dear colleagues, It is an honour for me to speak after our colleague Mr Bernard SABELLA from the Palestinian Legislative Council, because I believe the voice we just heard is a voice of someone who devoted and devotes his entire life to building peace and a better future for everyone in the Middle East. And this while so many in the Middle East want all of us to believe that there is not a good path to a future for the people. Hamas, Hezbollah and far-right... 22/04/2026 | 17:57:27 Thank you, Madam President. Ladies and gentlemen, Those who criticise the Knesset's majority decision in favour of a death penalty for Palestinians are absolutely right. And those who deduce from this that we must of course question Israel's observer status if the Supreme Court does not overturn this law are also absolutely right. I would just like to warn against one thing. I would just like to warn against starting to pretend that a development is taking place there that would be impossible... 28/01/2026 | 10:43:06 Thank you, Mister President. Ladies and gentlemen, Lowering the voting age, involving young people in Europe and setting up a new Council of Europe youth centre in the Black Sea region are all good things. However, I believe that the strength of our youth policy is measured by two other key questions: Firstly, on the question of whether our national governments are also prepared to raise the necessary funds for the youth work that our Council of Europe does so magnificently. Secondly – and I... 02/10/2025 | 12:35:37 Thank you, Mr President. Ladies and gentlemen, In one respect, I am somewhat irritated by our debate here. I have the impression from some of the speeches that it is not about the people in Gaza, but about ourselves. The Irish struggle for independence or the British war effort in the Second World War are then brought up. But this debate about ourselves does not do justice to the terrible situation for the hostages in the Hamas tunnels, for the innocent children in Gaza, for the people who... 30/09/2025 | 17:58:07 So, colleagues, this really is now a very serious amendment because I am so happy that we, as the Parliamentary Assembly, we are committed to expanding our relations with Kazakhstan. And I really want to see more relations with Kazakhstan. But we have to face the fact that there is transnational persecution by the authorities from Kazakhstan, in particular a case from Belgium. I think that we need to create a safe space for human rights activists, for journalists, for oppositional... 30/09/2025 | 17:11:06 Thank you, Mr President. Thank you, Mr Zsolt NÉMETH, for this report on the partnership between the Council of Europe and Kazakhstan, which is a great opportunity. It opens up avenues towards the strengthening of democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights. That is why we in the Socialists, Democrats and Greens (SOC) Group want to make sure that this co-operation is constructive. For us, constructive means recognising the progress that has been made without losing sight of... 30/09/2025 | 11:25:28 Thank you, Mr President. Ladies and gentlemen, On 27 March, Enes HOCAOĞULLARI stood here in this Hall and, as his country's youth delegate to the Congress of Regions, denounced the erosion of democracy in Türkiye. He spent a month in prison for this and is now on trial. We are witnessing an unprecedented erosion of democracy in a member state of the Council of Europe. Stefan SCHENNACH has mentioned the proceedings against the opposition party, the Republican People's Party, or CHP, where a... 23/06/2025 | 17:24:17 Thank you very much, President. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to expressly thank our rapporteur Frank SCHWABE for the important work that he has highlighted in his report and also for the work that is being done here in this Assembly at a time when nine EU Member States have decided to openly attack this Assembly, the institution of the Council of Europe, the Convention on Human Rights. It is good that we are defending the Convention on Human Rights through our actions, but the... 01/10/2024 | 20:20:33 Thank you, Mister President. Dear colleagues, I would particularly like to thank you for your many specific comments and suggestions, for example on the dialogue process in Vienna. I believe it is extremely important that we take more action than Europe in our Iran policy, and I would like to pick up on one thing again. We have all analysed the situation very well here. We all agree that the people of Iran deserve our support against this regime. We know that this regime is a danger to us. We... 01/10/2024 | 19:44:05 Thank you very much, dear Mister President. Dear colleagues, In September 2022, two years ago, a young woman wanted to start her studies in Iran. Jina MAHSA AMINI has finally found a place to study. She travels from her Kurdish hometown of Saqqez to Tehran to prepare for her future in this city, but she makes a supposed mistake. She doesn't wear her headscarf in the subway as the regime wants her to. As a result, she is arrested by the morality police, abused, beaten and eventually dies as a...