04/02/2010 President
Strasbourg, 04.02.2010 - Mevlüt Çavusoglu, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today welcomed the creation, by the Belarus parliament, of a working group “on the issue of death penalty as an instrument of punishment” composed by members of both chambers.
He encouraged the working group to examine experience of Council of Europe member states in this field as it showed that there were no valid reasons to maintain the death penalty. “This is a positive step in the right direction. PACE stands ready to assist the Belarus parliament in this process,” he said.
On 23 June 2009, PACE asked its Bureau not to lift the suspension of the Belarus Parliament's special guest status until such time as a moratorium on executions has been introduced by the appropriate Belarus authorities.
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The PACE granted special guest status to the Belarus Parliament in 1992. Due to a lack of progress in terms of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, this status was suspended in 1997, and Belarus' request for membership of the Council of Europe was frozen the following year.