2007 ORDINARY SESSION
________________________
(Second part)
REPORT
Fourteenth sitting
Wednesday 18 April 2007 at 10 a.m.
ADDENDUM
State of human rights and democracy in Europe
The following texts were submitted for inclusion in the official report by members who were present in the Chamber but were prevented by lack of time from delivering it.
Mrs HAGG (Sweden). – I would like to congratulate our President and the Assembly for proposing this very important debate on the situation of human rights and democracy. As it has been pointed out by Ms Curdova and the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, women’s rights are about human rights.
As Chair of the Sub-Committee on violence against women of the Parliamentary Assembly, it is my pleasure to inform you that the Parliamentary Assembly is not only discussing the issue of human rights, but also taking concrete action to protect them. Our Assembly is indeed fully involved in the implementation of the Council of Europe Campaign to combat violence against women, including domestic violence, which was launched in the Spanish Senate on 27 November 2006 and will last until mid-2008.
As it was earlier pointed out by our President, “domestic violence against women, whether physical, sexual, psychological or deriving from economic dependence, knows no geographical, age or ethnic or distinction and affects every type of family relationship and every social milieu”. Statistics show that at least one woman in every six throughout Europe faces violence in the home as an everyday reality. In other terms, this means that thousands and thousands of women in Europe are suffering domestic violence. This is unacceptable in our democracies.
This situation led the Parliamentary Assembly to call for a pan-European Campaign and to recently adopt Resolution 1512 (2006) to mobilise all 46 national parliaments and the parliaments enjoying observer status with the Assembly under the slogan “Parliaments united in combating domestic violence against women”. We firmly believe that all parliaments can usefully contribute to ensure a better, safer environment for women. We do believe that our national parliaments and each of you have the means to create the legal conditions which will lead to a better protection of victims, to the prosecution of perpetrators and to the measures that will ensure more equality between women and men. We are also committed to work in close co-operation with NGOs and I would like to mention here the fruitful co-operation we have established with Amnesty International, which is contributing to the PACE project to combat domestic violence against women.
Do I need to recall here that combating domestic violence is an obligation of every member state of the Council of Europe, deriving from the European Convention of Human Rights and from Recommendation Rec (2002)5 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the protection of women against violence? This Recommendation sets standards, which every Member State should reach to give an adequate protection for women from violence in the home. This Recommendation should be implemented in all member states. The Council of Europe is monitoring the implementation of this Recommendation. But is it enough? The Campaign aims precisely at evaluating the existing legislation in Member States and identifying where there is a need for stronger political action and whether our monitoring mechanisms need to be reinforced.
Up to now, 41 contact parliamentarians have been appointed to implement the Campaign in their national parliament. All across Europe, seminars, conferences, hearings have been organised to raise awareness of the Members of national parliaments and the general public on the need to combat what is one of the most widespread and often hidden violation of human rights. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our colleagues who are pushing this issue in their national parliament and contribute to change mentalities. A handbook was published to help parliamentarians get involved in the Campaign and take action in their parliaments. A website, posters, leaflets, and a photo exhibition are now available, sometimes translated in the national languages with the help of the national parliament, to spread the message against domestic violence against women.
Let me also point out that this Campaign contributes to reinforcing the position of the Parliamentary Assembly as a key actor of the protection of human rights and to secure the leading role of the Council of Europe in the field of human rights. This is becoming quite clear in the discussions we had with our colleagues’ parliamentarians in the European Parliament, the Interparliamentary Union or the Nordic Council.
I would like to thank the Committee on Political Affairs and Legal Affairs for highlighting the issue of domestic violence in their reports and, in particular, for calling on the Committee of Ministers to take the necessary measures to step up the fight against this scourge at the end of the Campaign.
The network of contact parliamentarians working in and for your national parliaments stands ready to promote cross-cutting exchange of experience and to contribute, in very concrete terms, to reinforcing the protection of human rights in each of our country. This Campaign provides you with an opportunity to be actively involved in a human rights issue, to break the silence and stand up to denounce a human violation happening every day behind closed doors. Don’t miss this opportunity – you will be saving lives.
Mr TEKELIOĞLU (Turkey). – First and foremost, I would like to thank Mr Pourgourides as well as Mr Gross for the detailed report they have prepared. Both rapporteurs touch upon very important issues and draw our attention to the problems threatening rights and democracy in Europe. Moreover, I believe that drafting such reports will not only enhance the visibility of the Council of Europe but also underline the leading role of this Assembly in protecting and promoting human rights.
However, having said this, I have to draw your attention to certain compatibility problems deriving from having three different reports on the related subjects. Some members of our delegation have underlined a couple of times during the committee meetings that these three reports should be consistent and coherent. We also urged our rapporteurs to stick to the mandates drawn for them while preparing their reports. We have also brought this to the attention of our rapporteur, Mr Pourgourides, because the mandate drawn for him was to prepare a thematic report, not a progress report on the Council of Europe member states. However, Mr Pourgourides insisted on referring to certain member states in his explanatory report rather than focusing on a thematic report. Unfortunately, by insisting on this approach, Mr Pourgourides paved the way for the problems of inconsistency.
I would like to give a concrete example. In the resolution prepared by Mr Pourgourides, “northern Cyprus” is referred to as an area where the Council of Europe human rights mechanisms cannot, or can only partially, be implemented. We challenged this reference in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights but Mr Pourgourides insisted on his approach and the reference to northern Cyprus remained in the text even though the European Court of Human Rights considers northern Cyprus as a territory where it exercises its jurisdiction. However, on the other hand, in the report on the “Progress of the Assembly’s monitoring procedure” which is prepared by the Monitoring Committee, “northern Cyprus” is not referred as a “black hole”. This is not because the Monitoring Committee simply forgot to refer to northern Cyprus in its report, but because our rapporteur, Mr Pourgourides, insisted on inserting northern Cyprus in the resolution he prepared, even though he knew that the European Court of Human Rights exercises its jurisdiction in the northern part of the island. I can name many judgments of the European Court of Human Rights as regards the northern part of Cyprus and most of these judgments have been implemented or are in the process of implementation. Referring to northern Cyprus as a black hole in the “state of human rights report” will not only create an inconsistency in both reports but also be in contradiction to the Court’s jurisprudence. Furthermore, the Court judgments on the northern part of the island have also been referred to in the opinion prepared by the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population.
Apart from these consistency problems, I would like to say a few words on the current human rights situation in Turkey. Turkey’s comprehensive reform process aimed at the promotion and protection of human rights yields its fruits now. To achieve the goals of its human rights policy, Turkey has pursued close and constructive co-operation with international human rights mechanisms.
Last but not least, I would like to emphasise once again that the word done by the Council of Europe in terms of protection and promotion of human rights in Europe is valuable. Turkey has benefited immensely and still benefits from this work and I would like to give our full support to all Council of Europe activities carried out under this mandate
Mr MATUŠIĆ (Croatia). – It would take all my three minutes if I were to thank all of you who took the trouble to cover such an extensive subject as this. Instead I am going to thank the two, as it were, main rapporteurs, namely Mr Pourgourides and Mr Gross, who accomplished their task with outstanding distinction. The first presented us with an extensive picture of the subject Europe-wide; the other one has given us additional “food for thought” and challenged our ideas on “where and how we are heading” in terms of implementing the existing instruments regulating this field. Considering what was said about our budget being 90 times lower than that of the European Parliament, and our having 19 more countries, I must say that all our rapporteurs were and are doing amazingly good work.
Coming from Croatia, I could not help noticing point 72 of Mr Pourgourides’ explanatory memorandum, which states that our General Gotovina is at the ICTY in The Hague, while Karadžić and Mladić are at large. I would hate to think that unfair principles are being used in dealing with different countries as especially today, here we are once again discussing and swearing to the fundamental principles of the European rule of law and human rights, undeniable and equal to all.
At the same time, in a way I am happy that Croatia was mentioned “only” in terms of its slowness in dealing with court cases, and I am happy to say that we are removing existing obstacles by ongoing reform in that field.
To Mr van Thijn, Rapporteur of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population, I say that he should not be “concerned by the need to find a fair solution to the issue of lost tenancy rights” in Croatia because the problem has already been dealt with adequately.
Croatia is a relatively small country with relatively short democratic experience (not to mention its recent experience of war), but paradoxically, in a way, that could be an advantage. We are small enough to be transparent so it is possible to spot and monitor sensitive points faster and with greater accuracy, either in the field of overall democratic processes or human rights, or, as Mr Gross put it, “the democratic acquis of the Council of Europe”.
I do hope that better implementation of our skilfully devised instruments involving such acquis will follow Europe-wide, for all our sakes.
Mr VRETTOS (Greece). – Mr. Pourgouridis has elaborated an excellent report. Without doubt, and this is clear to the overwhelming majority of European citizens, the state of human rights in Europe may not be perfect, but it would have been worse if the institutions of the CoE had not existed. We have achieved a high standard which has not been surpassed by other, non-European, states or groups of such states. Furthermore, the decision taken recently by the Council to increase the budget of the Court of Human Rights will enhance its ability to deal more effectively with a greater number of cases. Difficulties may exist, but the overall judgment of the work of the instruments and institutions of the Council of Europe is recognized as a benchmark for the institutions of the European Union and other international organisations which deal with human rights issues. It has to be noted that the growing number of cases pending before it may be a result of the Court's success, but it is also an indication of the human rights problems still existing in member states.
However, from another point of view, in our work we are confronted with an unprecedented challenge. Terrorism and its paraphernalia threaten a lot of what we have achieved so far. 1 245 illegal flights, from 2001 to 2005, by planes of non-European states and organisations – notably the CIA – have been identified so far.
Terrorism has become a plague for our vocabulary, the excuse and reason and moral visa for state-sponsored violation of human rights our violence, which is violence often used on the innocent of our countries and elsewhere.
Perhaps, we should start by making sure that the people manning the executive branches of our member states do not violate the laws in the process of implementing them, by for example, illegal arrests and interrogations. On another level, we should not permit the illegal transfer of sets of personal data to other institutions, when we cannot be sure that they will be used in accordance with our laws. Technology today may offer legally permissible ways to check a list of suspects against a list of passengers without the transfer of sensitive personal data over the ocean to other states.
Last but not least, at this time of increasing European integration, there are events of the past that should not be left to contaminate the present. Such is the case of the occupation of Northern Cyprus, which the report mentions in the explanatory memorandum, and which is the only case of a European state occupying part of another European state. In addition, there still seems to be a case for recognition by the Council of the genocide of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 as the first holocaust of the 20th century. Most people who knew about it at the time and in the years to come remained silent, and it was followed by the ethnic cleansing of the Greek population of the coasts of the Black Sea and contributed to the appearance of the second holocaust, that of the Jews of Europe. The cultural and institutional climate which made these terrible widespread crimes, and other less widespread crimes, possible should never be permitted to rise again, and this is where the Council of Europe has a great role to play in Europe and an even greater example to set for the rest of the World.
Mr LIBICKI (Poland). – I would like to refer to the unprecedented, appalling verdict of the European Court of Human Rights issued last month, in which the Court for the first time in its history questioned the priority of the cardinal right of a human right to life. In the Tysiąc case against the Polish Government, the Court issued a verdict in favour of Mrs Tysiąc and awarded €25 000 in damages to a woman who, on the basis of her own concerns and an opinion of a single general practitioner, complained about having been refused a right to an abortion. According to Mrs Tysiąc, she was entitled to this right because she had claimed that her health was in jeopardy and that the pregnancy posed a threat to her sight. As proof, she had presented a single opinion of a general practitioner and rejected the opinions of eight specialists.
The Court’s verdict is not understandable for several reasons. It is not known why the Court did not take into consideration the unanimous decision of eight specialists but accepted the woman’s concerns supported by just one opinion of a general practitioner.
It is not known why the Court contravened its previous jurisdiction as, for example, in the case of D. against Ireland from 27 June 2006 pointing out the “necessity of comprehensive and delicate balance in application of the right to life equally to mothers and the unborn”. In that case the Court pointed out that even the strong concerns of the plaintiff did not relieve her of an obligation to use domestic law which meant that there had to be a formal confirmation of a threat to health or life.
In the case of Mrs Tysiąc, the Court arbitrarily found, contrary to the unanimous opinion of eight specialists, that the concerns of the plaintiff could not be treated as irrational. It is a shocking inconsistency and an evident discrepancy in the Court’s decisions.
It is impossible to understand on what basis the Court found that the admissibility of abortion in some cases along with a penalty for illegal abortion may have a paralysing effect on the process of decision-making by Polish doctors in this matter. It is an extremely subjective opinion by the Court, which does not have rational justification in the facts.
Hardest of all to understand is what Judge Borrego rightly pointed out in his dissenting opinion, that is “how was it possible to claim that the birth of the six year-old child living in Poland violated the European Convention on Human Rights” and that his life, according to the Court, was worth less than the right to privacy, filled with unjustified concerns about the mother’s health. Judge Borrego stated that he had never expected the interpretation of the Convention could go as far as that, and he therefore considers it horrifying.
I could not agree more.
Mr WITA (Poland). – We nations of Europe know from experience what world war means. We remember that the two wars, which swept the whole world were started in Europe. We have experience of totalitarian systems. When we talk about human rights and democracy, we know what we are talking about. We had the chance to observe the results of the failure of those values. We know that human rights and democracy are important values, which are built on basic values such as freedom, personal security and the right to life.
To achieve a good understanding we have to see the whole of human life as it really is. We have to remember that people live simultaneously in the world of material values and the world of spiritual values. All human needs belong to both those worlds, and when we talk about human rights we cannot separate them. In the past, sensitivity to the spiritual dimension of human existence has been poor.
Critical analysis of our modern civilisation shows that without this sensitivity we cannot talk about respect for the dignity of human beings. If we cannot talk about dignity for human beings we are completely lost. We use many words; we spend hours debating respect for human rights; we spend days, weeks, months and years on that, but progress is always too limited and sometimes we go backwards.
I would like to present an up-to-date example of a Polish citizen. A woman called Alicja Tysiąc had won a case in the European Court of Human Rights against the Polish Government. She had health problems when she was pregnant, and she was worried that childbirth would make her health worse. She wanted to have an abortion, what I see as the murder of a child. She could not have a legal abortion in that case, as the problem was her eyesight. One doctor thought that it was dangerous, but eight specialists did not see a big problem. After giving birth, the woman did not go blind, but she won compensation from the Polish Government. Her child is now six years old. I think that the Court have got it wrong. I think that human rights should protect life and especially the life of children. Concern for the child, even before its birth, from the moment of conception and then for many more years, is the primary and fundamental test of human rights. I appeal to the Court of Human Rights to protect the human right to life, not the right to kill. Thank you very much.
Mrs BILOZIR (Ukraine). – Thanks to the respected Rapporteur – Mr Christos Pourgourides who
conducted a very serious preparatory work on the state of human rights observance in Europe, we have got complete information on various fields of human rights infringements.
I would like to mention that for Ukraine the issue of protection of the rights of its citizens, who are working abroad, is one of the most crucial in the whole range of human rights protection issues. This is explained by the existence of a demand for migrant workers in the European Labour Market. However, the access to this market is quite limited and non-transparent. Therefore a high percentage of Ukrainian migrants work abroad on an illegal basis.
As we know, the illegal labour migration is followed by the high criminalization rate, absence of decent social and legal protection, discriminatory work and compensation conditions, which creates problems for both donor and recipient countries.
In this direction, the legalization of the illegal migrant workers, providing legal grounds for their employment, migration management and relevant international coordination will allow to control the migration flows as well as to ensure human rights observance.
I would like to turn your attention to the following aspect of the report.
Respected Mr Pourgourides proposes that the Assembly could recommend to the Committee of Ministers to go back to the idea of creation of the European Migration Observatory as a competent monitoring body over all the migration processes and the situation with migrant workers rights.
As a representative of the donor country I believe that such a proposal should be strongly supported, because it would be quite difficult to control the situation without the existing coordination centre, thus the human rights infringements will continue to exist.
I am sure this idea will be supported by the other colleagues.
Nowadays there is a unified international legal base on this issue, which includes international treaties and bilateral agreements on migration quotas between countries.
I can analyse the situation from the perspective of Ukraine. The number of Ukrainian migrant workers all over the world varies from 3 to 7 million people, depending on the way of collecting the data. But, unfortunately, there are very few bilateral agreements between Ukraine and other countries.
For instance, Ukraine has only one bilateral agreement with Portugal which regulates both employment and social protection issues of migrant workers. The rest of 9 existing agreements with the other countries (4 of them are European states: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovak Republic) regulate only employment issues.
At the same time, we don’t have an agreement with Italy, where nearly 500 000 Ukrainian migrants work and 88% of them are married women with children.
With regard to the important international treaties on this issue, Ukraine has recently ratified the European Convention on the Legal rights of Migrant Workers (ratification date is March 16, 2007 and the date of signature by the President is April 2, 2007).
It should be mentioned that in many articles of the European Convention there is a reference to the competent national authorities responsible for different migration issues.
And having established the European Migration Observatory could be useful for:
• Developing recommendations on the creation of the coordinated system of the relevant national authorities,
• Establishing basic principles of such a coordination,
• Developing unified standards of migration management for the European countries,
• Developing basic rules on temporary and migrant workers, transparent enough for migrants themselves.
I would also like to stress on the existing “white holes”, which concern the rights of migrants with non-determined legal status. They are in the process of legalisation, and could stay in such a condition for years.
These people are quite limited in many of their human rights. Being the responsible members of society and having solved many issues, they are still often seen as criminal elements.
In addition for many years the authorities of the recipient countries often lower the real number of migrants in ten to hundred times. This allows the official institutions in these countries to ignore the interests, rights and freedoms of the large number of people.
Therefore, the mechanism of observance and systematic protection of migrants’ human rights could be implemented only in a legal field, which needs its improvement.
In order to untie the efforts of the Council of Europe member states with regard to challenging issues of labour migration it is important to develop bilateral contacts of countries donors and recipients, and to take joint international actions.
The role of the Council of Europe as an international forum for developing joint action plans is of great actuality and importance.
And I would like us not only to respond to the urgent situations and deal with the existing challenges, but also to develop preventative policies towards various aspects of human rights infringements.
Mr MARGELOV (Russian Federation). – I thank the administration of the Assembly for organising this discussion, for a perfect and insightful study of this problem of timeless priority. It is a great honour to participate in the first debates on the situation in human rights and democracy in Europe.
Human rights are not simply an ordinary list of standards. They bear a wide humanitarian meaning. Therefore, our efforts in struggling for these rights reflect the attempt to strengthen the tacit status of Europe as a “world conscience”. It seems to be self-confident. However, it is one of Europe’s missions.
We live in an unquiet world where values are superseded by interests. However, the interests without values add an inadmissible multi-dimensional character to one-dimensional ideas of humanity. It gives rise to almost intangible arguments for violations of human rights in the name of humanity, including “scientific explanations” of genocide. Everything finds its roots either in supreme interests or home traditions, the threat of terrorism or deprived childhood.
It is easier to throw bombs than conduct negotiations. It is easier to deport all immigrants rather than identify the illegal ones. Some find it more efficient to blame a suspect under the torture than to use evidence obtained in the course of investigations. However, such easiness is deceptive; it is the easiness in inverted commas because it is the same easiness which is experienced by a pilot of a plane with a dead engine. The doomed plane will find its sorrowful end. Modern society can properly function only if it is stiffened by the protection of such rights.
While moving towards an ideal, we should realise that we face the history. It does not consist of one-dimensional aspects nor is it organised as we want it to be. That is why we should not adopt a tutorial attitude. Moreover, as it is known, such attitude may lead to a paralysis. We should identify the hopes of every person everywhere where his/her rights are prejudiced.
The Council of Europe stands for unity in variety. Such a variety has different dimensions, including as compared to the degree of compliance with European standards. We should accord understanding to it, and insist not on the blunders in the activities of institutions but on successes of positive trends. All countries of the “European time” need our encouragement and support. I do not mean connivance. I mean the European amiability which should be adopted when pointing at mistakes. The European capitals are aware of their deficiencies as well as Strasbourg is.
The recent report of the Russian ombudsman to the president of the country is an example of such awareness. It considers the observance of human rights in Russia as unsatisfactory. The verdict is stricter than in the famous report of Gil Robles. Those wishing it may get acquainted with this report. It is important that it proposes amendments and additions to the laws, which will strengthen the observance of human rights in the country. Nobody is going to make these violations a routine, naming them as “cultural habits”. Our colleague Andreas Gross said about Russia that it is impossible to achieve perfect results in ten years.
Another important aspect of the protection of human rights is a resistance to extremism. Such resistance is evidently of common importance. At the same time, it is a sensitive matter. We cannot struggle while crossing out the values. “The moral dust” is inadmissible in resisting to what André Glucksmann named “the philosophy of evil”. The reality is not suitable for principles. That is why the range of judgments on such resistance is wide: from justification of tortures in planes to non-resistance to evil and violence. In fact, we should learn to resist the “uncontrollable” evil and violence. The observance of human rights and the fight against extremism are topics that still need unremitting attention. We should intensify the dialogue of cultures and understand the roots of extremism in different civilisations because our rational values confront, as it often seems, the irrational values.
The European Court of Human Rights is the last instance for all Europeans who have not found justice in their national courts. Human rights are continuously violated, resulting in the abundant claims that are a major problem of courts. The claims come from all quarters of Europe. The European courts have no time to consider them all
It is clear that we are obliged to strive to improve the activities of this institution, first of all, from the point of view of its “performance”. At least four years pass between the submission of claim and the corresponding decision, and there are cases pending in the European Court for ten years.
I believe that the 14th Protocol to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms makes a good opening for reforms. As is known, it suggests the improved procedure of claims receipt, the new institute of rapporteurs, reinforcement and control over the court activities. Russia agreed to ratify this protocol at the Warsaw summit but, unfortunately, it has not fulfilled its promise.
The Russian delegation to the PACE is working on persuading the Russian Parliament to ratify the Protocol.
Thank you for your attention.
Mrs HADŽIAHMETOVIĆ (Bosnia-Herzegovina). – First of all, I would like to use this opportunity to thank Mr Thomas Hammarberg for his action and devotion to resolving the problem of 265 citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose fundamental human rights were violated. Some of you are certainly wondering what the problem is. During the period 1996-2002, the UN International Police Force, IPTF, conducted the reorganisation of the police forces pursuant to the Bonn-Petersburg agreement of 1996, the UN Security Council resolutions and the decisions of the Peace Implementation Council held in London in 1996.
Besides other things, the mandate of the IPTF had to respect the laws in Bosnia and Herzegovina and internationally recognised human rights and freedoms defined by the EU Convention. This resulted in a serious violation of human rights, as the independent expert’s body of the Council of Europe (Venice Commission) also reaffirmed. The UN terminated its mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina on 31 December 2002. The EU with the European Union Police Mission ensured the continuation of the process of reorganisation of the police forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During the IPTF period, the verifying process of police officers in Bosnia and Herzegovina was conducted. According to the official information provided by the UNMBH 16,762 were certified, and 598 were decertified, some of whom have challenged the decisions to decertifying them before national courts.
For a long period, authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina have faced the harmful consequences of decertification, which resulted from preventing 265 police officers from exercising that profession in Bosnia and Herzegovina for life. In this way, the provisions of the EU Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Universal Declaration on Human Rights, UN International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and provisions of the Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination were violated. At the same time, Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities, national regular courts and courts consisted of foreign judges were not allowed to review the legality of decisions brought by IPTF during the UNMBH mandate from 1996-2002.
Without wishing in any way to diminish the role of the UN mission and its contribution to the peace and stability in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I have to say that Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities have faced legal consequences and negative effects of continuous and reasonable appeals logged by the 265 decertified officers.
Competent authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina found themselves “at stake” because they are obliged to make decisions that would respect on the one hand national constitutional and legal standards of human rights and fundamental freedoms guaranteed to each human beig and on the other hand, the legitimate mandate of International Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The agony of the 265 officers and their families has continued for more than five years. Meanwhile, some of them committed suicide; while others decided to begin a hunger strike, which resulted in an urgent visit of Mr Hammarberg, the Commissioner. I would like once again, in the name of Bosnia and Herzegovina authorities, to thank Mr Hammarberg and to express my hope that he will do his utmost to end this problem.