17/6/2011

WELCOME SPEECH OF MR CAVUSOGLU,
PRESIDENT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY,
FOR MR IGOR KALYAPIN,
CHAIR, COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE
HUMAN RIGHTS PRIZE OF PACE 2011

STRASBOURG, 23 June 2011, 12h45

Distinguished guests, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

Today the Human Rights Prize of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is being awarded for the second time. Every two years, the Prize rewards an individual, a non governmental organisation or an institution for an outstanding civil society contribution to the cause of human rights.

The Panel of the prize includes three members of the Assembly: the Chairpersons of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and of the Monitoring Committee, as well as myself as President, and four independent experts who are renowned for their expertise and work in the human rights field. For this second edition of the Prize, a number of deserving individuals and NGO’s were nominated and were considered by this panel which chose the Prizewinner, a choice which was then endorsed by the Bureau and the Assembly itself.

I have the pleasure to welcome to our Assembly Mr Igor Kalyapin, the Chair of the Niznij Novogorod Committee against Torture. This relatively small organisation has carried out invaluable work and can be proud of its achievements. The relentless determination of its leaders, coupled with the competence of its members, many of whom are volunteers, has had a tremendous impact on the situation of human rights in Russia, and in particular in the North Caucasus region.

This year’s prize winner has much in common with British Irish Rights Watch, the first winner of the Assembly’s human rights prize. British Irish Rights Watch, as well as the Committee against Torture, have upheld human rights in times and in a region where terrorism was being fought. That shows that there need not be a contradiction between eradicating terrorism and respect for human rights, as the Assembly has repeatedly affirmed. On the contrary, it is precisely in such troubled times that there is a need to uphold human rights with renewed vigour.

The working methods of the Committee against Torture are remarkably professional. Their “mobile investigation teams” are renowned for appearing rapidly, at the request of victims and their families, on the scene of crimes such as torture, killings or abductions – especially in Chechnya and elsewhere in the troubled North Caucasus region. As legal representatives of the victims, they secure evidence that might otherwise be lost and engage in a constructive dialogue with the prosecutor’s office. The aim is to ensure that all crimes are investigated, even if the trail of evidence leads to suspects linked to the authorities themselves. In this way, the Committee against Torture is an important ally of the Council of Europe. As our colleague Dick Marty said in his capacity as Rapporteur on “Legal remedies for human rights violations in the North Caucasus region”, the climate of impunity in this region must be ended in order to undercut the recruitment efforts of the terrorists. The European Court of Human Rights has found violations of the right to life and the right not to be tortured in over 160 cases concerning mostly the Chechen Republic. In most of these cases, the Court found that the authorities had failed to carry out an adequate investigation. The work of the Committee against Torture, which is not without risk given the danger of reprisals by criminals fearing for their impunity, goes straight into the right direction, a direction which has been set in unison by the Council of Europe and by the highest authorities of the Russian Federation: to uphold and promote the rule of law, by fighting impunity.

For my part, I am confident that there will be further opportunities for this organisation and our Assembly to collaborate in this area.

We would like the achievements of the Committee against Torture to be recognised officially.

I therefore have the honour to present the Human Rights Prize of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to the Niznij Novgorod Committee against Torture, for its courageous and outstanding work in monitoring and bringing to light human rights abuses, and for its fight against impunity in the North Caucasus region.