24.06.2009

Address by Amnesty International

on the occasion of the third part of the 2009 Ordinary Session

of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly

(Strasbourg, 22-26 June 2009)

Mr President and members of the Assembly,

It is with honour that I address you today, on behalf of Secretary General Irene Khan and our members around the world.

Let me begin by thanking you for the constructive way in which your Assembly engages with Amnesty International and the broader NGO community. We look forward to strengthening our partnership on the goals we share.

Looking back over the Council of Europe’s six decades, there is much to celebrate. I wish to highlight here two key institutional achievements.

One is the legal framework of the Council of Europe. It contains more than 200 treaties, the impetus for which has often started here in the Assembly. We are pleased that the Convention against Trafficking has entered into force and now look forward to the adoption of a Convention on violence against women, to build on your successful campaign.

Another achievement is the work of the Council of Europe’s Assembly, Court , the Commissioner, the CPT and the other monitoring bodies. They have addressed states on countless cases and issues. Your influence extends beyond the borders of Europe.

Given this background, it would be self-defeating to curtail the right for individuals to petition the Court. Obviously, the best way to reduce the Court’s caseload is to ensure respect for human rights and effective remedies at home. But while this goal is pursued, there is a need for increased resources to address the Court’s backlog. Such resources should not come at the expense of the Council’s other human rights work. Amnesty International urges you to ask your governments to provide the necessary resources.

Mr President,

I wish now to address briefly five areas of common concern: they are the death penalty; impunity; counter-terrorism; discrimination; and freedom of expression.

First, Amnesty International strongly shares your determination to abolish the death penalty everywhere in Europe. We are pleased that you will continue to press Belarus – the last executioner in Europe – to establish a moratorium on executions. As ever, we will be with you at the forefront of the campaign to abolish capital punishment in Europe and everywhere in the world.

Second, we all need to redouble our efforts to eradicate impunity, as stated in your report debated this morning.

As we know, impunity is still pervasive in Europe. It fuels lawlessness in the North Caucasus, despite official claims of normalization. The long-planned visit of your rapporteur, Dick Marty, has been postponed again. The Russian authorities have told Amnesty International that our planned visit there is “no longer necessary". And no one from any side has been held to account for the war crimes committed during the conflict between Russia and Georgia last year.

More than 10 years after the end of the conflicts in the Balkans, the relatives of people who went missing are still waiting for answers; women who were raped still seek reparation; and people forced to flee their homes are still unable to return.

Around Europe police forces still operate with a large measure of impunity, as evidenced in your Monitoring Committee’s report. Over the past year Amnesty International has addressed similar concerns for example in Austria, France, Greece and Spain. We will continue to press for independent bodies to investigate complaints against police and we join your call for effective investigations of police use of force in the post election violence in Armenia and Moldova.

Finally, some governments try to avoid accountability for violations committed by their forces outside of their borders. They claim that their obligations under the Convention do not stretch that far. This is a view that unfortunately has been shared, at least in part, by the Court. But how can it be acceptable for states to do abroad what is clearly prohibited at home? There are now further cases against the United Kingdom on this issue before the Court, and we hope that it will affirm the principle that human rights have no borders also when it comes to holding states accountable for their operations abroad.

Third, the legacy of violations in the context of counter-terrorism still needs to be confronted. Your Assembly has played a leading role in exposing the complicity of European states in the US programme of renditions and secret detention. Yet again states are seeking to avoid accountability.

We cannot allow states to hide their involvement through silence and denials, or through laws which designate as state secrets what are really embarrassing truths and possibly evidence of crimes. We urge you to insist on proper regulation and democratic oversight of civilian and military intelligence services, as recommended by Terry Davis. We will continue to press for that.

In addition, counter-terrorism laws continue to be used in ever wider contexts, undermining human rights safeguards, and governments send people to countries where they face torture and denial of justice – sometimes on the basis of diplomatic assurances which are unenforceable and have been broken. We still have much work to do to stop such practices.

Fourth, 60 years on from the creation of the Council of Europe in the wake of the Holocaust, we still witness discrimination and racism, always ugly and often violent and lethal. Fear of terrorism has produced suspicion and hostility against Muslims. Jews are still attacked here in Europe. And lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people are frequently targets of hate crimes. Last week the Lithuanian Parliament passed a law which institutionalises homophobia.

The current economic crisis fuels xenophobia, with migrants and asylum- seekers facing violations as they get intercepted, detained and expelled. Europe appears ever more heartless as desperate human beings drown in the seas in an attempt to reach its shores. We need a response that is humane and fully respectful of the rights of migrants and asylum-seekers.

In this context we must denounce the European Union’s Directive on the return of irregular migrants, which lowers existing standards and sets a poor example for other regions. Regrettably, governments have failed to answer your call for effective human rights standards in accelerated asylum procedures. European institutions should be raising standards, not bringing them down to the lowest common denominator.

And again, among the most marginalized, Roma continue to face systematic discrimination across the region. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, fewer than one third of Roma children attend primary school. In Serbia and Italy, authorities have forcibly evicted Romani communities without providing adequate alternative accommodation. Footage that emerged from Slovakia showed police humiliating six Romani youngsters inside a police station. It is time to put an end to this shameful mindset and behaviour towards the Roma.

Fifth, we are concerned that the space for expressing dissent and speaking out for human rights is narrowing in Europe. Freedom of expression and association remain under attack, as do human rights defenders themselves.

In Armenia and Azerbaijan, independent journalists and religious groups outside official structures are harassed. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in Croatia, journalists investigating war crimes and corruption have been attacked. In Turkey, the work of human rights defenders is hampered by unjustified prosecutions, threats and intimidation.

In Russia, laws on libel and slander and other legislation are used to stifle dissent and silence journalists and human rights activists. Amnesty International staff based in Moscow are facing growing forms of bureaucratic harassment.

Mr President,

The successes of the Assembly and other Council of Europe bodies over the past 60 years are perhaps without parallel. However, they can be undermined all too easily if states fail to take their obligations seriously.

We urge you to strengthen the role of the Assembly and defend the resources necessary for your human rights work.

As members of your national parliaments, you are also uniquely placed to ensure that your laws and monitoring systems comply with human rights. You can hold your governments to account, and push the human rights agenda forward.

As with 60 years ago, the challenges for human rights in Europe are many and daunting. No achievement is ever acquired forever. We must be vigilant and fight, sometimes repeatedly, to preserve them and build on them.

Amnesty International looks very much forward to working with you in addressing these challenges and bringing Europe, and indeed the world, ever closer to full respect for human rights for all.

Thank you.