AA16CR13

AS (2016) CR 13

2016 ORDINARY SESSION

________________________

(Second part)

REPORT

Thirteenth sitting

Tuesday 19 April 2016 at 3.30 p.m.

In this report:

1.       Speeches in English are reported in full.

2.       Speeches in other languages are reported using the interpretation and are marked with an asterisk.

3.       The text of the amendments is available at the document centre and on the Assembly’s website. Only oral amendments or oral sub-amendments are reproduced in the report of debates

4.       Speeches in German and Italian are reproduced in full in a separate document.

5.       Corrections should be handed in at Room 1059A not later than 24 hours after the report has been circulated.

      The contents page for this sitting is given at the end of the report.

(Mr Agramunt, President of the Assembly, took the Chair at 3.35 p.m.)

      The PRESIDENT – The sitting is open.

1. Election of a judge to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Slovenia

      The PRESIDENT – The ballot to elect a judge to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Slovenia is now open again. The polls will close at 5 p.m. Those who have not yet voted may still do so by going to the area behind the President’s chair.

      The names of Mr Eduard Köck and Mr Jokin Bildarratz have been drawn as tellers. They should go to the back of the President’s chair at 5 p.m.

      I hope to announce the results of the election before the end of the sitting this afternoon.

2. Rules of Procedure

      The PRESIDENT – Do you have a point of order, Mr Mignon?

      Mr MIGNON (France)* – It is not really a point of order; I just want to refer to Rules 23.1 and 23.3 of our Rules of Procedure, which you of course know. I did not want to do this this morning but because the Prime Minister of Turkey spoke at some length members of Assembly did not have time to put questions. What happened in the public gallery was quite unacceptable. Rule 23.3 states that individuals who are admitted to the public gallery should not disturb our proceedings, and they did disturb our proceedings. I call upon you, Mr President, to make sure that those rules are strictly applied in future. Thank you.

      The PRESIDENT* – Thank you, Mr Mignon. I call Mr Rochebloine.

      Mr ROCHEBLOINE (France)* – I second what our colleague Jean-Claude Mignon has just said. A question session should really be a question session. Usually we hear the minister speak for some 30 minutes and then we have 30 minutes for questions and answers. There was the opportunity to put only five questions this morning. Yes, we are listening to a minister but it is also an important opportunity for us to put questions. Today there was just one question per group; that is rather regrettable and should be taken into consideration in future.

      The PRESIDENT* – Thank you, Mr Rochebloine. I call Ms Durrieu.

      Ms DURRIEU (France)* – I, too, protest against what occurred. I have never encountered the kind of situation we were confronted with this morning from the beginning to the end of the session, with there being no protest. The number of non-parliamentarians in the Chamber was really quite striking.

      The PRESIDENT* – Thank you, Ms Durrieu. All I can say is that I more or less agree with you but, after all, in this Chamber freedom of expression is guaranteed for all, including prime ministers. He knows the rules but if he insists on speaking longer, there is not much I can do. At the end he did answer the questions put by the five parliamentarians on behalf of the political groups. I am sorry. I agree with you but it is the right of individuals who address the Assembly to take their time. It is very difficult to impose a hard and fast rule of a certain number of minutes for a prime minister to speak. With Mr Juncker we saw exactly the opposite. He spoke very briefly and answered questions succinctly, so 20 questions were put. Obviously, that was far preferable. But there is no way I can impose that.

      You are right: the disturbances from the public gallery were unacceptable. However, I reacted on three occasions, insisting that individuals remain quiet. I was tempted to insist that the public gallery be emptied and I was about to, but the Prime Minister was almost at the end of his address. As for the non-parliamentarians within the Chamber, I assume that all individuals in the Chamber have the right to be here, but I cannot control that individually. There are honorary members who have the right to gain access to the Chamber and I do not know every individual by sight. I assume that the ushers are allowing in those with the right to be here and not anyone else. I assume and hope that the individuals here had the right to be here. Are there any further comments on these issues? If not, we shall move on.

3. Changes in the membership of committees

The PRESIDENT – Our next business is to consider the changes proposed in the membership of committees. These are set out in Document Commissions (2016) 04 Addendum 2.

      Are the proposed changes in the membership of the Assembly’s committees agreed to?

      They are agreed to.

      4. Questions to Mr Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

      The PRESIDENT – I now welcome Mr Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, who will answer questions from members of the Assembly. Secretary General, welcome once again to our Chamber for this traditional question and answer session. Major events have happened since our January part-session and you have been extremely busy and active following the terrorist attacks in Brussels, the European Union refugee issue, the constitutional crisis in Poland and the issue of human rights in Crimea, to name but a few developments. I am sure that members will want to raise these and other issues in their questions. Let us proceed with our exchange of views.

      Mr GHILETCHI (Republic of Moldova, Spokesperson for the Group of the European People’s Party) – My question is about the removal of children from their families. Last year, I had the honour to present to this honourable Assembly Resolution 2049. If I am not mistaken, it was unanimously adopted. The resolution states that children should be removed from their families on the basis of co-decision. What about countries in which children are removed on the basis of administrative interim orders. Is that in line with Resolution 2049 and the European Convention on Human Rights?

      Mr JAGLAND – Thank you for the question, but I need to learn more about what it refers to. Perhaps Mr Ghiletchi is referring to practices in my own country of Norway. I am aware that there have been a lot of protests around Europe about those, but it is difficult for me to go into the particular cases. There are privacy issues and also the secret procedures involved. You are probably aware that in Norway there is very strong protection of children. There is a practice set in law, and I do not think that it contradicts the resolution that was mentioned. I cannot go into the cases that have led to the protests and demonstrations around Europe.

      Mr LE BORGN’ (France, Spokesperson for the Socialist Group)* – Like many others, I was shocked by the amnesty given last week by President Ivanov of Macedonia to 50 individuals involved in a serious telephone tapping scandal for which a special prosecutor was appointed last year. That is in violation of the agreement of July 2015 and it is a threat to the upcoming elections. How do you react to this clannish decision? It is not in line with the rule of law. How can we react?

      Mr JAGLAND – I was surprised when I heard about the decision by the president. We are closely following what is going on. Our understanding was that there was an agreement to investigate all the cases properly and that elections were to be held according to the agreement. It seems to me that many things have now changed but I continue to call on all parties to come back to the agreement so that elections can be held and everybody can participate in them. As I said, what happened recently was a surprise to me.

      Ms LUNDGREN (Sweden, Spokesperson for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) – Our colleague Nadia Savchenko has been illegally transferred to Russia and illegally sentenced to 22 years in prison. Nadia has been on a dry hunger strike for 14 days. This issue is about the rule of law and our colleague Nadia Savchenko’s life. What have you, as Secretary General, done and what are you doing to get Nadia Savchenko released?

      Mr JAGLAND – The Council of Europe and I have called for the release of Nadia Savchenko on humanitarian grounds. We continue to call for her release. It would be counter-productive of me to speak about what I have done in more concrete terms; in certain cases you cannot achieve anything if you speak publicly about things. We will continue to work for the release of Nadia Savchenko on humanitarian grounds.

      Mr WOLD (Norway, Spokesperson for the European Conservatives Group) – Secretary General, would you be so kind as to inform the Assembly about the background to the sending of a group of Council of Europe human rights experts to Crimea?

      Mr JAGLAND – The background is as follows: 2.5 million people are living in Crimea and they are protected under the European Convention on Human Rights, which means that they have the same rights as everyone else. Regardless of the current or future status of Crimea, that will not change. People will continue to live there and we must look after their rights. No international organisation has been able to go to Crimea for more than 18 months. There have been strong demands on the Committee of Ministers from many delegations and from Ukrainian authorities as well as a direct request to me that the Council of Europe should find a way to open the doors for monitoring the situation in Crimea.

      I had to find a way to take the first step, so I got an agreement with the Russian and Ukrainian authorities to send a special human rights mission headed by the Swiss diplomat, Ambassador Stoudmann, together with in-house experts to write a report on the status of human rights, relating in particular to important articles in the Convention, so that I could report back to the Committee of Ministers. Only then could we start discussing how to open Crimea up for more permanent monitoring bodies. The mission on Crimea therefore was not about monitoring, but about writing a report on the situation there. They spent 18 days there during which they had more than 50 meetings in three different places. They went to schools and had discussions with students and pupils, and they met civil organisations and the Crimean Tatars. Now we can discuss how we can further look after the rights of the people in Crimea.

      That is important because people in Crimea have the right to complain to the European Court of Human Rights and applications have already arrived, so it is obvious that the Council of Europe must have the right to look into what is going on there. That was the background for the mission, and I hope we can now have a constructive discussion on how to take it from there. Obviously it must be a step-by-step process and, if everyone wants to move forward, that is a possibility.

      Mr KOX (Netherlands, Spokesperson for the Group of the Unified European Left) – I do not have a question on Ms Savchenko, but I just got information that President Poroshenko has announced that he has agreed with President Putin for her to be released shortly. That is good news.

      On the European Union-Turkey deal – we will discuss it later in an urgent debate – this morning Prime Minister Davutoğlu said that everything is fine except for the money, but on Monday we learned that the Commissioner for Human Rights assessed that aspects of the deal might be immoral, illegal and impossible. That is a contradiction. What do you think about the human rights aspects of the deal? Might human rights be hurt by the deal?

      Mr JAGLAND – Thank you for that important question. The Council of Europe is not party to the deal between the European Union and Turkey, but we have an obligation on implementation. For instance, now, when people are staying in the reception centres while their applications are processed, it is important for us to look first at how they got there, whether they had access to a lawyer and whether they could appeal a decision. After that, we must look into the conditions and where they are staying. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has already paid a visit to some such places and we will continue to watch what is going on there. I have appointed a special representative who has also been there – he has also been to the border between Greece and “The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” – who has a mandate to stay in close contact with the other international partners and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to co-ordinate our actions with regard to those issues.

      The people on the Greek islands and those in Turkey, as I said earlier, have the same rights as everyone else under the Convention. From the minute they put their feet on European soil, they are covered by the Convention, and that is why we have an obligation to look after how they are treated, whether they have access to a lawyer and the conditions in the centres in which they are located. That is our mandate, which we will continue to look after very carefully.

      Mr ROCHEBLOINE (France)* – I have two questions. First, on what grounds and following what kinds of consultations did you decide to suspend the Council of Europe’s participation in the joint working group on human rights issues in Azerbaijan? Secondly, in the context of the crisis in Europe right now, does the Council of Europe plan to carry out a review of international conventions that have been agreed under its aegis, such as the 1963 convention on multiple nationality or the 1997 convention on European nationality rules? Thank you very much indeed for having joined the French delegation yesterday for a particularly interesting exchange of views.

      Mr JAGLAND – I cannot say that we have any plans to revise the conventions you mentioned. I cannot say now that that would be a good idea, because I have not heard about any processes ongoing in-house on that.

      When I was in Azerbaijan, we agreed with the authorities to set up a joint working group – a three-party group, with some from the government side, some experts from the Council of Europe and some from NGOs – with a mandate to look into certain cases relating to human rights and people who were in jail. We started out well, but the process did not lead to anything. Having witnessed new people being detained, we could only conclude that the group’s work did not produce any concrete results. A number of people were detained and brought to court when we were on this working group. For instance, one of the most famous human rights defenders, Intigam Aliyev, was convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. The only conclusion we could draw was that this mechanism did not give any results, so we decided to inform President Aliyev that we saw no point in continuing this work.

      That is the background, and you know that many other things have happened. I decided to apply Article 52 of the Convention for the first time, which gives me as Secretary General the power to instigate certain investigations in a member country. I had to take action because, as I have said, so many people were brought to trial and put into jail. As you have seen, because I did this, quite a few human rights defenders have been released, but more remains to be done. I hope that we can return to more normal practices and work with the Azeri authorities so that we do not continue with this traffic in and out of prisons, and let independent courts give justice to people. That must be the ultimate aim of the Council of Europe – that justice comes from the law and the courts, not by pardoning people and releasing them on that basis.

      Mr ZOURABIAN (Armenia) – Trilateral talks in Armenia on the new electoral code, with the equal participation of the authorities, the opposition and civil society, produced no consensus. The whole opposition and civil society came up with a consolidated set of five main demands to ensure the integrity of the upcoming elections, but the authorities refused to accept them. Would it be possible for you, Secretary General, personally to urge the Armenian authorities to be more constructive in building consensus on the electoral code?

      Mr JAGLAND – I always take the position that it is of the utmost importance that one finds a consensus on such basic things as an electoral code. So we have urged the Armenian Government to find such a consensus, but it also depends on the opposition. We have said that we are at the disposal of both parties to find a way so that both the majority and the opposition can have a fair competition for power. That is always our principled position – that basic matters such as the constitution and the electoral code must be based on a consensus involving all the parties and civil society.

      Mr HERKEL (Estonia) – My question is about Mr Stoudmann’s report and his human rights visit to Crimea. The protection of human rights is an extremely important task, but I found some controversial wording, such as “local authorities” instead of “de facto authorities”. My question is about why that happened and what your opinion is on the question of political status.

      Mr JAGLAND – There is no doubt about the Council of Europe’s position on this. Crimea belongs to Ukraine and its annexation was illegal. At the same time, we have an obligation to protect the rights of the people living in Crimea. As we have seen, I said that clearly when I issued the report. It does not deal with the issue of status: it deals only with human rights issues in Crimea, related to the basic articles in the European Convention on Human Rights. You can always find some words that can be used to discuss other matters, but please look at the content of the report. It is clear that the report cannot be used to change the position of the Council of Europe on the status issue.

      Mr KANDEMIR (Turkey) – There is rising xenophobia against Muslims in Europe. Could you please give us an assessment of the Pergida movement, which clearly supports the principle of Islamophobia? The principle of equality is a fundamental value of the Council of Europe, so what measures are you taking with respect to the actions of that group, which are clearly against that principle?

      Mr JAGLAND – I have spoken out against the messages coming from the group you refer to, and many other groups. I am very worried by what I have seen and heard in many places in Europe. Yesterday, I made a very strong statement about the party in Germany that said that Islam is not in conformity with the German constitution. I am very glad that all the other political parties in Germany, including Chancellor Merkel, reacted strongly against it. Time and again I have urged the mainstream political parties to stand up against it. We have the hate speech campaign, and in two weeks more than 30 countries have joined.

      We convened all the Ministers of Education last week in Brussels to present an important project about what it means to be a member of a society in Europe, which schools can use to teach children about the role of religion, freedom of expression and what it means to be a member of society in Turkey, Norway and France, and in Europe. That important project could help teachers and schools to combat the extremist forces that we are witnessing now on the European continent.

      Another important initiative I have taken is to engage the director of the library in Alexandria to write a counter-narrative that could be very useful for all those who think that Islam is the root cause of everything wrong in Europe and the world. This will help to get the history right and show that the Muslims have contributed a lot to European culture and history. Of course, we have also contributed a lot to the Muslim world and Arab countries. During the centuries, there has been an interesting interaction over the Mediterranean, and we are trying to get that message out, teaching everybody who lives on the European continent that we are bound together and giving the Muslims living here on the European continent something to be proud of. Every day, they hear that there is something wrong with Islam – that Muslims are doing terrorism and so on – but the reality is the opposite.

      We have dealt with terrorist forces in Europe previously. There were the red army groups in Germany and Italy, and the IRA (Irish Republican Army) in the United Kingdom – in Northern Ireland. We never said that IRA terrorism was Christian terrorism. We always said that it was criminal activity and we took it on as such. That is the way in which we must also deal with what is being called Islamist terrorism. Yes, they say that they are Muslims but they misuse Islam to do criminal acts that are illegal in Europe. We have a lot of things to tell the people in Europe and to teach them about our history. The Council of Europe is very active in that respect and we will continue to contribute to a civilised discussion about the challenges this continent faces.

      Mr OMTZIGT (Netherlands) – Thank you, Mr Jagland, for the clear explanation of the work that you are doing. The Assembly appreciates that. You decided to close the Article 52 investigation into the secret CIA prisons after 10 years. The countries have had plenty of opportunities to reply. A number of countries did not reply and were condemned, for instance, by the European Court of Human Rights. All replies in the first round of replies were made public by your predecessor but the second, and last, round of replies has not been made public in full. We have seen some disclosure. We have the secret prisons and secret flights by the secret CIA. I hope we do not have secret replies. Will you consider making them public, and what will you do with those countries, such as Montenegro, that have not replied? What will you do with countries that are still investigating, such as the United Kingdom, which has a serious ongoing investigation?

      Mr JAGLAND – I have not seen any secret replies. There is a problem here. One reason that countries have not been able to reply is that they do not have sufficient information. I urged the American authorities, not so long ago, to help those countries to get sufficient answers. Some countries have been in a difficult situation but I did not think that we had sufficient grounds to continue the Article 52 investigation. The letter that was sent by my predecessor to all the European countries led to some good things but I cannot see that we could go any further than where we are now.

      The PRESIDENT – Thank you. We must now conclude the questions to Mr Jagland. Secretary General, I thank you for this fruitful exchange of views. We look forward to continuing our discussions at the next part-session.

5. Europe Prize

      The PRESIDENT – Today the Sub-Committee on the Europe Prize had to decide who should receive the 2016 Europe Prize.

      There were 37 candidates and a shortlist of five municipalities with strong applications. The shortlist was: Bamberg and Sinzing in Germany; Girona in Spain; Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukraine; and Lublin in Poland.

      I now have the honour to announce the winner of the 2016 Europe Prize.

      It is Girona.

      Congratulations to this deserving city and its strong commitment to Europe!

      This is a reminder that the vote is in progress to elect a judge to the European Court of Human Rights. The ballot will close at 5 p.m. Those who have not yet voted may do so by going to the area behind the President’s Chair.

      (Ms Palihovici, Vice-President of the Assembly, took the Chair in place of Mr Agramunt.)

6. Joint debate: Preventing the radicalisation of children by fighting the root causes and Towards a framework of competences for democratic citizenship

      The PRESIDENT – We now come to the joint debate on the reports from the Social Affairs Committee and the Culture Committee. The first is entitled “Preventing the radicalisation of children by fighting the root causes”, Document 14010, and is presented by Ms Sevinj Fataliyeva. Sir Roger Gale, rapporteur of the Culture Committee, will present his committee’s opinion, Document 14025, and Ms Gabriela Heinrich, rapporteur of the Equality Committee, will present her committee’s opinion, Document 14024. The second report is entitled “Towards a framework of competences for democratic citizenship”, Document 13992, and is presented by Mr Jacques Legendre.

      We will aim to finish this item by about 6.45 p.m. Therefore I will interrupt the list of speakers at about 5.50 p.m. to allow time for the replies to the debates and the votes.

      May I remind you that speaking time is limited to three minutes?

      I call Ms Fataliyeva to present her report. You have 13 minutes in total, which you may divide between presentation of the report and reply to the debate.

      Ms FATALIYEVA (Azerbaijan) – The radicalisation of children and young people has regularly dominated the headline news over the past few years and months, including the latest terrorist attacks in Brussels and Turkey, and I express my deepest sympathies to both countries. However, the radicalisation of children, including all minors according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and young people, concerns us all. No country and community of Greater Europe can be excluded when it comes to this issue.

      In my report, I focus on what I call the indigenous causes, or the home-made, root causes, of radicalisation. Children and young people – I am convinced that we must look at both categories together because there is a continuum of children developing into young people – have always been sensitive to radical ideas and discourse. Often linked to their identity-building during early teenage years, they are naturally attracted by radical ideas because they want to change the world. We have seen this many times, linked to both political and religious movements. We cannot deny, however, that the processes of radicalisation we are currently observing are often linked to extremist terrorist organisations, such as Daesh. They are specific and deserve our special attention. In my report, I took a closer look at how such movements affect children and young people so that we may be able to suggest specific policy measures aimed at preventing minors from being their victims. I say “victims”, because that is what they are: minors falling for radical ideas or being recruited by organisations that glorify and carry out violent terrorist acts. They are not actors; they are the victims of terrorist organisations.

      I fully agree with the experts who work with children and young people in the field. Our committee heard from the experts that the major root causes of vulnerability towards radical ideas that lead to violent extremism are: social status, a lack of opportunities, and the exclusion of children and young people. Processes of religious radicalisation – and, of course, other forms of radicalisation – are regularly kicked off by feelings of frustration when adolescents or young people do not find their social purpose and a meaningful place in society. In Western Europe, this often concerns young people of Muslim-Arabic background whose families have been living in a country for several generations. Young people’s frustration is generated by the fact that they are discriminated against in the education system and in their access to training courses and decent jobs later on in life. Where children and young people feel some form of social exclusion, radical ideology may serve as a “lifejacket” that seemingly lifts them up. In a stage of life when they are searching for an identity and a role in society, ideologies offer them a prominent role in their own community and can even help them to emancipate themselves from their families.

      In many cases when young people face discrimination and intolerance, frustration is coupled with an anger that increases young people’s willingness to engage in violent acts, either by committing smaller crimes locally or by becoming foreign fighters in distant conflicts, such as those in Syria or Iraq. In the most extreme cases, they kill themselves as suicide bombers. I could list many more radicalisation factors, but time is lacking.

      The Internet, social media and prisons are particularly sensitive places for spreading radical ideas and recruiting young people to extremist causes. Specific measures are certainly needed. The increasing intolerance and discrimination against young Muslims is a reinforcing factor for Islamist radicalisation, in particular in western societies that sometimes reach levels of true Islamophobia. Coming from a predominantly Muslim country myself, I must underline the fact that current Islamist movements and terrorist attacks have nothing to do with the absolute majority of peaceful Muslims across the world. They do not appreciate such abuse of their religion and they condemn violent terrorist acts. The aim of my report is, therefore, not to blame any religious community in particular, but, on the contrary, to protect young Muslims living across Europe from the violent terrorist organisations that have made their appearance in some of the most recent terrorist attacks.

      Finally, let me share some of my policy recommendations aimed at preventing the radicalisation of children and young people. “Social inclusion” is the key phrase. To provide children with a meaningful place in society, we need to take care of them from an early age. This necessarily makes education and training key tools for reaching out to them, providing them with equal opportunities from the very start and allowing them to access decent and satisfying jobs later on in life. European values may also be conveyed to them via specific training courses. All partners need to be actively involved in ensuring that they find a meaningful place in society: families, teachers, carers, civil society organisations and even religious leaders. Experts are convinced that specially trained people are needed to work individually with children – in their families directly, in disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods and in detention centres – through associations and religious communities. A special focus is needed on social media, where most of the radical ideas are spread at high speed and without being fully controlled. Further work will be needed to find out what works best against radical ideas being spread in the digital world. The media, which contribute to stereotypes that fuel intolerance and discrimination, need our attention too.

      The radicalisation of children and young people is an abuse of their innocence and their goodwill in fighting for apparently “good causes”. We need to fight it by all means, but always with respect for other fundamental rights. We need to make sure that, in all our countries, children and young people of any ethnic or religious background have equal opportunities, receive the social recognition they naturally aspire to, and are able to build up social ties in local communities where they can live rewarding and peaceful lives as young Europeans. Let us all do so within our respective professional functions and social environments, including our own families.

      I thank all the members of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development and the rapporteurs for their opinions. The committee has discussed this issue in a very dedicated and detailed way. Unfortunately, we were not able to discuss all the amendments that have been tabled. I would like to draw the attention of the Assembly to the fact that, starting from the seventh amendment, we were not able to consider them at the committee meeting today.

      The PRESIDENT – Thank you, Ms Fataliyeva. You have six minutes remaining. I now call Sir Roger Gale, the Rapporteur of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media, to present his committee’s opinion. You have three minutes.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – I congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report, which we have simply tried to strengthen and clarify in one or two cases. I do not wish to go through all the amendments at this stage; one or two of them are contentious and have not been accepted by the committee. I presume we will come on to deal with them at the appropriate time. At this stage, all I wish to say is that the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media took the report cold and revised it in in the light of the work already done by the rapporteur. The sole aim of the amendments – I must stress this – is to strengthen the report. None of the amendments is in any way critical. We hope very much that most, if not all, will be accepted. That is all I want to say at this stage.

      The PRESIDENT – Thank you, Sir Roger. I call Ms Heinrich, Rapporteur of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination, to present that committee’s opinion. You also have three minutes.

      Ms HEINRICH (Germany)* – Madam President, colleagues, first of all my thanks go to Ms Fataliyeva for what is a very important and very good report on strategies against the radicalisation of children and young people. It is not only Islamist-motivated terror attacks that show the importance of this report; the unfavourable trend in many countries of violent attacks by right-wing radicals on refugee hostels and on those who are perceived to be foreigners show how important it is for the Council of Europe to address this issue. It is right that we intervene in a timely manner to counter these trends.

      Radical ideas come about as a result of over-simplification and seeing everything in black and white. Complex realities are rejected, compromise is avoided, simple solutions that would apparently be to the advantage of certain groups in society are bandied about, and democratic principles and human rights count for nothing. To prevent radical ideas from being violently implemented, we need to do our bit as politicians – not just civil society. It is important that we promote a discussion on basic democratic values in society. It is important to take more account of independent thought, the goal of the Enlightenment, in the education system as a protection against indoctrination and radicalisation. We need to consider more closely girls and young women, particularly if they continue to gamble their lives, their health and their identity for whatever kind of ideology.

      We need to consider the gender aspects of the report, and we have some amendments along those lines, as we feel that it is important to flesh out the report in those respects to some extent. Otherwise, we are very satisfied with the basic thrust of the report. If we are seeking to protect children and young people from radicalisation, we need to ensure that they all enjoy equality of opportunity and that we do everything in our power to counter all forms of discrimination. We need to pay special attention to so-called deprived communities. All these various demands and ideas have been thoroughly explored in the report, and I am delighted that Ms Fataliyeva has dealt with this very important subject for the Council of Europe. After all, it is of concern to us all.

      The PRESIDENT – Thank you, Mr Heinrich. I call Mr Legendre, the rapporteur, to present his report. You also have 13 minutes in total, which you may divide between presenting the report and replying to the debate.

      Mr LEGENDRE (France)* – Good democratic practice is not something that just happens; it has to be learned. To prevent young people from becoming radicalised, we must teach them how democracy is practised to stop radicalisation. That is why, in addition to the report presented by Ms Fataliyeva, it is my honour to present a report on work that should be brought to the attention of education ministers. The objective is to draft a framework of competences or a set of skills for democratic practice and intercultural dialogue.

      The report states that we must do our utmost to ensure that young people can live in a democratic society based on the values of human rights and the rule of law and be active and responsible citizens. That is why we have tried to make concrete proposals in the report. We recommend to member States a series of measures whose implementation will require the political support of all involved. We recommend that the framework of competences be applied at all education levels, while considering diversity, the kind of school or institution involved and participation in the local community, without dissociating the acquisition of theoretical knowledge and the practical implementation of that knowledge.

      We must adjust school programmes to transmit the skills of intercultural dialogue and responsible citizenship. Education for citizenship could be separate from or linked to – it can be done in different ways – other school programmes. The risk is that civic education or education for democracy might be treated in some countries as auxiliary – something that is completed when all the other important things have been done. It is not that at all. To prepare young people for intercultural dialogue and good democratic practice, it is necessary for everyone to understand that it is an essential aspect of any education.

      The initial and in-service training of school principals, educators and teachers should be designed to give them the skills to transmit these competences. If necessary, they should be provided with teaching modules to ensure that they are fully aware of all aspects of the framework of competences. When teachers are being training in whatever specialism, time must be set aside for the teaching of living in a democratic society. Furthermore, learning to respect human rights, to engage in cultural dialogue and to be a democratic citizen is something that school principals and other people must be skilled in. There must be evaluation and validation procedures to measure the progress made in theoretical understanding and appropriate behaviours.

      We in the Council of Europe know full well that another tool is available: the skills portfolio, which can be used to make these competences more visible. We have already created such a portfolio – a common reference framework for the teaching of languages – and many professionals consider it a great success. Let us apply the same approach to education for democracy. To enhance such competences, it is important that all those who act in the name of the State are fully conversant with these values, so the teaching of this to future civil servants is essential.

      We also propose that the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, the International Non-governmental Organisations (INGO) Conference of the Council of Europe and other stakeholders should be involved in co-ordinating the Council of Europe’s action with other international organisations, such as UNESCO, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievements and the European Union institutions, to be more effective in introducing this framework of competences into member States’ education systems.

      The draft recommendation calls on the Committee of Ministers to follow up as quickly and effectively as possible the preparatory work that is being done to draw up the framework of competences and to provide appropriate follow-up mechanisms. We can take advantage of the very good example of the common reference framework for the teaching of languages, which has involved drafting pedagogical support and guidebooks for teachers, and that could be done for the framework of competences. In fact, when you leave the Chamber, you can see some of the supporting documentation that has been prepared and that could allow the framework to be fully implemented.

      This report complements our colleagues’ report: the idea is to prevent radicalisation. If we can contribute to that important effort, it will be to the Council of Europe’s credit.

      The PRESIDENT – Thank you, Mr Legendre. You have six minutes remaining. We will now begin the debate. I call Mr Küçükcan, who has three minutes.

      Mr KÜÇÜKCAN       (Turkey, Spokesperson for the European Conservatives Group)* – I thank both rapporteurs for their very important and informative reports. Changes in social dynamics and new developments in communications and access to information have brought not only new opportunities but certain threats and dangers. As Ms Fataliyeva has said, one of the most important outcomes of those trends is the inclusion of children in radical movements. Innocent individuals are being radicalised. This is a very important issue, and we must deal with it in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The issue is also very sensitive, and we must be diligent in choosing the remedies.

      Associating radicalisation with Islam can lead us to the wrong conclusions. As the French political scientist and expert in Islamic movements, Olivier Roy, stated, instead of blaming the radicalisation of Islam for today’s developments, we should refer to the Islamisation of radicalism. If we want to get to the roots of radicalisation, we need a broad perspective. One dimension of that is deciding what we must do to prevent the radicalisation of children. There is a consensus on the means to be used. First, the educational means have to be improved. We have to change existing policies and regulations in accordance with the present conditions. Among other means, dealing with income insufficiencies, creating new employment opportunities and making the necessary infrastructure investments can have a positive impact. We must prevent new technological developments such as social media from becoming important instruments in the hands of radical movements.

      We have to underline democracy, human rights and the rule of law sincerely and work on new regulations to achieve that aim. As parliamentarians, we have to unify and to prevent differentiations by radicalisation. These individuals can re-enter our society if we can make all those impacts. Political practices are also very important in achieving our aims.

      Mr KÜRKÇÜ (Turkey, Spokesperson for the Group of the Unified European Left) – I thank Ms Fataliyeva for the report, but I am going to criticise it. I regret that I was not able to attend the meeting of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development during the preparation of the report, so that I could at least try to help it to develop in the direction I would like.

      First, we have a problem with the title of the report. What is wrong with radical? What is wrong with radicalism or radical ideas? At the root of the Council of Europe, there is something very radical – the French Revolution. Without revolution and without radical thinking, there is no human progress. There is no need to defame the idea of radicalism, radical thought or radical politics in order to exclude extremism, fundamentalism and fascism from our political sphere. “Radicalisation” is therefore the worst choice for defining what is happening among European youth vis-à-vis Islamic fundamentalism.

      Secondly, the real threat to Europe is not the rise of radical Islamic thought but the rise of fascism across the continent, which is now crossing the Atlantic and reaching the shores of the United States. If we look at Trump, at the Front National in France or at Austria and Hungary, we see how fascism is rising everywhere. The root cause of that fascist development is the capitalist crisis. If we are to tackle the root causes of radicalism, we must look critically at capitalism. Some measures that Ms Fataliyeva proposes might help, but they will not tackle the root causes.

      Finally, the rise of IS and Al-Qaeda are not European phenomena. They cannot be countered inside Europe. However, there is a European dimension to the rise of Islamic radicalism: imperialism and the search for domination in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere through occupation and means other than politics – that is, war and aggression. There is a reaction to every aggression, and that now takes the form of Islamic radicalism. In order to tackle the root causes, European countries and States should go back to their basic economic and political choices.

      The PRESIDENT – This is a final reminder that the vote is in progress to elect a judge to the European Court of Human Rights. The ballot will close at 5 p.m. Those who have not yet voted may do so by going to the area behind the President’s chair. We now return to the debate.

      Ms DALLOZ (France, Spokesperson for the Group of the European People’s Party)* – A colloquium of the National Federation of Associations for Child Protection looked at how young people can be radicalised. The role played by the isolation of an individual from their normal environment is fundamental. They are indoctrinated by recruiters on the Internet and cut off from their schools, leisure activities, friends and families. How can we work against that early stage of radicalisation, which leads to identities being destroyed and individuals being recruited and going off to Syria? Of course, schools and institutions designed to protect children should be working hard on that.

      We need to think together about our integration models, including our economic and social integration models in disadvantaged areas. Let us be clear: parents have to be vigilant and aware when bringing up their children, because they are surely at the heart of preventing radicalisation. I regret, rapporteur, that you have not stressed the role of parents. You quite rightly mentioned the need to restore mutual respect for democratic citizenship in education. Parents must convey that respect to their children. It is not for schools to step into the shoes of parents. It has been proven that young people who are radicalised quickly leave school or the training they are involved in, and their school results worsen. Once again, we must point the finger at families and make them responsible for the fact that their children are not attending school any more.

      You stress the role of families in bringing up children and teaching them how to use the Internet, but we must remember that extreme thoughts can be transmitted via the Internet and that children can be exposed to recruiters. The people whom children move around with can also radicalise them, and those who are legally responsible for children need to stop that happening and be very vigilant. Is it normal for 13 or 14-year-old children to be out until a late hour? Just because parents come from a poor background or an immigrant background, it does not mean they cannot do their job properly.

      That is true of all sorts of changes in behaviour. For example, we cannot say that a teenager decides to change the way they dress because they are going through a teenage crisis. A young girl who suddenly decides to wear the niqab is not going through an adolescent crisis. Often, families report such behavioural patterns too late, when the children have already gone to Syria. Families have to take responsibility, because they are the nearest people to these children.

      Ms BONET (Andorra, Spokesperson for the Socialist Group)* – First and foremost, I thank both rapporteurs for their excellent work, which is very important. The two reports are intertwined and we are talking about a global perspective.

      On behalf of the Socialist Group, I make the following comments. Most terrorists who have carried out attacks, whether they come from the western world or other parts of the world, are young people who have been radicalised. The attacks are partly about profound changes in their personal lives, which are intertwined with an erroneous understanding of certain faiths and faith tenets, such as conflict with the western world. They are trying to impose their way of life through violence and terror.

      Personal frustration feeds into radicalisation. Frustration can arise as a consequence of marginalisation or the context of their lives. Perhaps they have grown up in social exclusion, and perhaps that makes young people more vulnerable – perhaps that is why radicalisation becomes all the easier. Having said that, quite a few suicide bombers do not come from those backgrounds – on the contrary. It is important to make it clear that radicalisation must be seen in the context of social injustice and humiliation, which has an impact on young people and children. Of course, recruiters rely on that and offer or promise people better lives. We need to use democracy to fight against radicalisation, and to ensure that the fundamental values of those young people who are being discriminated against are defended by society. We need to defend democracy and freedom.

      Both reports make an important contribution. Prevention is essential. We want to avoid the radicalisation of children and young people who have grown up in democratic societies that respect human rights. We need to prevent radicalisation using different measures but, at the end of the day, this is about preventing conflict. It is important that western societies put in motion programmes to counter extremist discourse. We live in democratic societies and respect one another. It is important for us to promote dialogue, including inter-cultural dialogue – and democratic principles. We need cross-cutting measures to create societies that are more inclusive, and ensure that those young people and their nearest and dearest are included in that effort.

      We need to address the recruitment of young people, children and women. I think it is important for us to identify the links between radicalisation, economic factors and terrorism, and to roll out measures that help us to promote justice. Finally, we need to work on education and look at the use of the Internet. We need to ensure that recruitment networks and platforms are addressed. They are the ones that are creating so much social media propaganda.

      Ms GAMBARO (Italy, Spokesperson for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe)* – I congratulate our colleagues, the rapporteurs Ms Fataliyeva and Mr Legendre, on these two important reports. I had the opportunity last week in Brussels to talk about them at the conference of the Council of Europe with education ministers – we were talking about safeguarding democracy through education. The resolutions lead us to think about dangerous and worrying phenomena, and we must take them on honestly. The events in our streets, our theatres and our undergrounds, and the bombs in our airports, are painful for us, and approaching things honestly is the most effective way.

      There are many reports of terrorists who, as children and young people, were brought up properly but who have somehow ended up hating all other religions. All of that happens through easily accessible Internet sources, which are a hotbed for disadvantaged areas that are deprived of European money. Young people wandering around in the streets with no supervision are a problem – the number has increased in Italy recently.

      Countries close to us have the phenomena of young people who are radicalised in that way. We need to alert member States of the Council of Europe to the need to fill the void through targeted programmes of cultural prevention and deradicalisation of young people. Teenagers from sink estates from poor backgrounds need to be taught that the hatred of people who are different from them is not a solution to their social and economic problems. We need a united vision of a solution. We need to address the problem by promoting culture and a solid education. Getting across those values will prevent terrorism, and the deradicalisation plan will allow us to resist the influence of terrorism. We have to build a culture of democracy, with the values of human rights and a vision of a pluralist and tolerant society – a society that is tolerant of diversity. That must be based on intercultural dialogue with a syllabus in our schools that involves the fundamental values of democracy and human rights.

      The PRESIDENT – Thank you, Ms Gambaro. The rapporteur can reply at the end of the debate, but does Ms Fataliyeva or Mr Legendre wish to respond now?

      Mr LEGENDRE (France)* – I just want to say that talking about schools and the role that can be played by them does not in any way downplay the role of parents. Ms Dalloz was right to point out that the responsibility of the school does not preclude parents taking responsibility. We hope that, when those young children become parents themselves, they remember the lessons they learned.

      Ms ZIMMERMANN (France)* – I thank the two rapporteurs for their excellent job of work. Obviously, radicalisation is highly topical, but I think we should have placed the emphasis elsewhere because we do not see very much in the report about young women. Since the outbreak of the conflict in Syria, we have increasingly seen the radicalisation of young girls and women, which is a source of great concern. Experts are saying that there is a risk that Islamic State, like other jihadi movements such as the Chechen movement, might use women suicide bombers in future attacks in Europe.

      More than boys, the social backgrounds of those young girls are highly diverse. It is interesting to note that they rarely have criminal records or histories of offending, unlike radicalised boys, who often have gone off the rails. Those girls have often done very well at school and are very sensitive to humanitarian issues. In order to attract them, terrorist organisations have recourse to specific recruitment strategies. On the Internet, recruiters or groomers have no compunction about portraying an image of the Muslim woman who is denigrated in the West. They present the caliphate as having all kinds of advantages. It is a romantic ideal far removed from the sordid reality of life as a Daesh jihadi bride. That is why we need to look at the approach taken by those recruiters on the Internet. They have mimicked a French advertising campaign. In their version, women wear the niqab under the strapline, “Because I’m worth it”.

      Organisations responsible for preventing radicalisation have pointed out that 60% of calls from parents to alert them to the radicalisation and perhaps imminent departure of their children concerned girls. Is that because that form of radicalisation is more visible? That is possible because wearing the niqab could be a visible form of radicalisation; something that these teenage girls perceive as protection against the hyper-sexualisation of our society. Or perhaps parents pay more attention to their daughters.

      It is important to note that we are talking about very young girls who are planning to leave for Syria. They are often more highly educated and more receptive to the ideological and religious aspects of Islamist indoctrination. Islamic State has understood the strategic advantage of recruiting these western girls and women – many of them are converts to Islam – and over the past couple of years has fine-tuned its discourse to describe IS in glowing terms and the diversification of women’s roles in the caliphate. In the face of the formidably effective hold that they have over those young women, we must adapt our prevention methods. I want to flag up the initiative by Mothers for Life, which is winning the information battle in fighting against Islamic State’s sectarian processes. I also draw attention to the work of female imams, who are working in Algeria and Morocco to give Islam a more feminine face and serve as a counterweight to fundamentalist ideology.

      The PRESIDENT – The ballot for electing a judge to the European Court of Human Rights is now closed.

      The counting of votes will take place under the supervision of the tellers, Mr Köck and Mr Bildarratz.

      I invite them to go at once to meet behind the President’s Chair.

      I hope to announce the results of the election before the end of this sitting.

      We now return to the debate.

      Mr ROUQUET (France)* – Identifying the causes of radicalisation is essential for prevention. The exercise is complicated because the causes are of course multifarious. In the international press, I was interested to follow the situation of a young Swedish girl who left her village for Iraq out of love and because she was not able to find herself. Religion was just a pretext in that case, but the relationship with religion is nevertheless important. The problem arises in different ways in States that have adopted very different solutions. I think particularly of France and the principle of “laïcité”, Belgium and its system of official agreements between the State and religions, Denmark with its State religion and the United States, where religion is so present.

      Economic and social factors also play a part, but that explanation has its limits. Apparently, some terrorists were well integrated and had rather advantaged backgrounds. Of course we must actively combat social segregation, which is in any event harmful to national cohesion. Frustration associated with real or psychological problems is doubtless another explanatory factor among adolescents, as is their search for meaning in this increasingly complex world.

      Islamophobia must be combated but it must never become a pretext for preventing discussion about certain real problems. I am thinking of, for example, Salafism, and the rather dubious role that some oil monarchies in the Gulf play. More generally, let us also do something about the persecution of Christians in certain Muslim States. The recognition of the free exercise of religion through abandoning the prohibition of apostasy would send a useful message of tolerance to the countries concerned.

      It is difficult to find solutions. Clearly, intense terrorist propaganda can be found on the Internet. Nevertheless, one must not underestimate the importance of human contact as a triggering factor in schools, gymnasiums or in front of residential buildings. It is also essential that we do not gloss over the difficulties that teachers encounter when religious or family beliefs are in direct opposition to reality, be it in history or science. To limit myself to an example that has nothing to do with terrorism, let us consider the refusal of certain teachers, particularly in the United States, to teach the theory of evolution in the name of the Bible. Another difficulty – or at least risk of contradiction – is: how can we reconcile the need to detect risky behaviour in school without creating a sense of persecution? Another problem is the lack of legitimacy of a counter-discourse among young people who are affected by the official discourse.

      De-radicalisation of young people who have slipped into terrorism is an even more complex process and deserves a separate report by our Assembly that would set out, member State by member State, the successes and the failures that we have all experienced.

      (Ms Guzenina, Vice-President of the Assembly, took the Chair in place of Ms Palihovici.)

      Ms HOFFMANN (Hungary)* – Education ministers of member States of the Council of Europe recently took an initiative to draw up a framework of competences for a culture of democracy and inter-cultural dialogue, and we must welcome this development. It is most topical for the Assembly to discuss a report on this subject and to adopt resolutions to allow political decision makers in every country to take cognisance of the initiative and be mobilised to take the necessary measures to implement that framework or skill set in all our European countries. I therefore wholeheartedly support the report, “Towards a framework of competences for democratic citizenship” that Mr Jacques Legendre drew up and I commend him for it.

      An increasing number of phenomena jeopardise solidarity and democratic values in today’s societies. I include in my list the fact that many families find themselves in crisis. Secondly, children spend between three and five hours a day in front of a screen – television or computer – are not checked, and nobody counters the negative influence of the media on these children. Thirdly, life does not afford children enough positive examples of solidarity, co-operation and inter-cultural dialogue – that is, democratic citizenship. At the same time, young people sometimes face confrontation and conflict, and they become radicalised. Fourthly, adults and elderly people live increasingly by themselves and they do not always have the support of positive communities around them.

      We must therefore intervene if we want to contribute to building societies that are based more on solidarity and foster shared European values. That skill set or framework of competences, to which the report refers, is a useful basis for that exercise.

      I would like to inform my colleagues briefly about an initiative that we launched a while ago in Hungary to do with young people’s democratic outlook. In our law on education in 2011, we stipulated that secondary school students should spend 50 hours doing community work. It is a compulsory element of their studies before they take their exams at the end of secondary education. They can help elderly people in retirement homes, perform different tasks in organisations for the disabled – indeed, they can do any sort of local community work. That means that young people, as part of their secondary education, get real experience of good practices. They will see for themselves how good it is to do something good for someone else. Once they have accomplished the tasks that they have chosen, they will, as adults, be more aware of the problems that other people encounter. Doubtless they will volunteer for such activities in future. I am proud of our initiative and I wanted to report back to you on those positive experiences. Most of the secondary school students who have participated in the initiative continue with the activities on a voluntary basis after completing the compulsory part of the course.

      On that positive note, I suggest that we emphasise the importance of practical experience and personal activities in the framework of competences. At the same time, we should of course, promote theoretical learning.

      Ms QUÉRÉ (France)* – I thank the two rapporteurs. Recent events have shown that radicalisation is affecting more and more young people, whatever their social or cultural background. In this context, as the sociologist Maroussia Raveaud has said, quite apart from transmitting knowledge, it is the job of schools to prepare young adults to be citizens in future and to live in their society. The prevention of radicalisation in schools requires a dual approach: strengthening the democratic values of students to help them resist any attempt to radicalise them; and reporting radicalised behaviour in co-operation with other institutions working with the school. I think the first point is the most appropriate way to instil a long-lasting resistance to any processes of indoctrination or recruitment by radical Islam.

      In your report, Mr Legendre, you mention various options, which I think are very interesting. Better training of teachers to get across these values is essential. Indeed, we have seen how difficult it is in some schools to broach subjects such as secularism, women’s rights or even Shoah. Teachers, often left alone to field a barrage of questions and even accusations by certain students, may feel overwhelmed. If intercultural dialogue and exchange is really going to be a constructive exercise to build democratic citizenship, the debate has to be thoroughly prepared. Of course, subjects such as history can help, as well as visits to appropriate institutions.

      In addition, a citizens’ reserve – citizens from different backgrounds giving talks in schools – would be a great idea. They could very much support this whole process. If someone who has been sent to the death camps can come and give a talk – or a female football coach or a successful businessman with an immigrant background – they can add great conviction to the theoretical teaching of our values. These witnesses are positive examples of strength of character, aspiration and success. We need to portray a positive message. Democratic citizenship should not be just a set of duties – respecting others, for example – but a set of rights.

      Another factor is the recognition of young people’s citizenship skills, once they have acquired them. Rapporteur, I think it is very important that this learning process should lead to certification but also that it should be recognised when young people are looking for jobs. In France, for example, alternatives to military service can promote these skills. Similarly, the bill on equality and citizenship which is to go before the French Parliament before the summer is suggesting recognition of the skills acquired by a student as part of their voluntary activities.

      The Council of Europe conference last week should help us move towards a European recognition of skills in democratic values. School is not the only institution that can fight radicalisation but it is an essential pillar and it allows us to make every student into a good citizen.

      Mr HEER (Switzerland)* – I thank the rapporteurs for these reports. However, I think something is missing. Much has been made of radicalisation via the Internet and what has been overlooked in these reports is radicalisation in certain faith communities – in mosques, in particular – in Europe. There are an awful lot of hate preachers and we should not countenance that.

      My Turkish colleague from the Unified European Left said that radicalism in and of itself was no bad thing and something that came about in the wake of the French Revolution. It might be true to say that by definition radicalism is not necessarily bad but if faith is used in such a way that it leads to bomb attacks we need to look afresh at the situation. Just look at the scores of victims in the Arab world and in Turkey in particular, and the fact that the principal victims of these terrorist attacks are Muslims. It certainly cannot be in the spirit of Islam to have Sunnis and Shiites perpetrating terrorist attacks on one another and the kinds of situations we have seen in Nigeria and Pakistan.

      If we are going to talk about radicalisation, I call on you, distinguished fellow members of the Parliamentary Assembly, to stand behind the radical implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights. I think we should be radical in calling for the Convention to be properly applied across all the member States of the Council of Europe and for them to properly defend and uphold the values enshrined in the Convention and ensure that it applies to all faith communities and all religions. That is what we should be fighting for.

      The PRESIDENT – I do not see Mr Fischer so we will continue with Mr Howell.

      Mr HOWELL (United Kingdom) – The radicalisation of young people is an important issue for us all but we need to get the perspective right if we are to tackle it successfully. I will draw on my personal experience of the Palestinian area to draw out some common themes.

      We should all be aware of the increase in violence in recent months, a lot of it committed by young people. Much of it has been knife crime. Why is this? I discussed this with an Arab pollster. From what he said, it was obvious that the starting point of this was not religious belief or even adherence to a political doctrine. A link can be drawn to the decline of the Palestinian Authority in the opinion polls owing to a range of factors, and the decline of Hamas. Young people could not see any future in following either organisation. What they wanted was a means of showing to whom they belonged and of demonstrating their identity with what they were striving to achieve. Who they attacked with knives was almost incidental, but once they had started they became caught up in a web of radicalisation.

      Those conclusions were actually brought out in a committee paper produced by the British Parliament as long ago as 2012. It said that the drivers of radicalisation included grievance as a key part of the process. There was frustration at an inability to take part in the political process and a lack of representation, so what we need to do is build trust in democratic institutions. The sort of people we are targeting in this are those who believe that they should not participate in the democratic process at all. These extremists specifically attack the principles of civic participation and social cohesion, and purport to identify grievances to which terrorist organisations can claim that they have a solution. We need to turn first to those people so that they take part in local and national life and make decisions that we help fund. One way in which we can do this, for example, is by tackling the issue at universities, where it would be extremely useful to find Muslim chaplains able to challenge extremist views on campuses and provide pastoral care for Muslim students.

      The final point I leave you with is the necessity for counterterrorism to attack the hardcore elements of extremism but for us also to tackle in a much more subtle way the strategies of dealing with young people in the place where they live and in a civic society.

      Ms SANTERINI (Italy)* – Extremist behaviour on the part of some young people is becoming more widespread in Europe and is a challenge to politicians and institutions – particularly schools. Having radical convictions and values is not necessarily wrong; we always complain that young people do not make choices. However, when a violent ideology detached from reality and people’s lives is involved, things become dangerous. People become targets. It is not enough to build walls or bring in restrictions. Democratic societies already have the means of managing internal discord.

      Problems with young people are not new – remember the Red Brigades a few years ago. The phenomenon is different today because the extremism is serving Daesh, which wants to turn back history and shed blood, even after all we went through in Europe with the Shoah. We have been told that Daesh is nihilist and self-destructive but it seems to fascinate young people who are badly integrated, perhaps without a sense of future or identity. They are using religion.

      We need to respond through prevention, training and dialogue, and those are not weak instruments. Punishing young people is not good, but prison can lead to other skills. Islamophobia has played into the hands of rebellion. We must fight hate in all its forms and, as co-ordinator of an organisation that fights intolerance, I think we need to draw on the strength of our democratic institutions. We need a new set of ideas. We need to combat hate on the Internet and elsewhere. It is good that we are having a joint debate about radicalisation and citizenship skills. Being a citizen cannot be learned from books; it is something lived in daily life. We need to get that across to young people in schools and elsewhere. Only a strong Europe that resists barriers can make all our young people feel that they are full citizens.

      Mr SALMOND (United Kingdom) – I wish to speak in favour of the positive principles set out in these reports. We must and can defeat the extremist ideology of Daesh and its allies. If we in 21st-century Europe cannot find a vision more attractive to our young people than a medieval death cult, we should have a good look at ourselves.

      Each and every one of us knows that we cannot defeat this ideology simply by raining down bombs from the skies of Iraq and Syria or by abandoning the freedom and liberty that are the cornerstones of our European democracy. We must tackle this cancer at its roots. Those of us in the United Kingdom who await the findings of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war – and hopefully the naming of and attribution of responsibility to guilty men whose military adventurism led us into the current nightmare – know only too well that military action in itself cannot provide the answer. We must tackle the causes of the cancer, not just its symptoms.

      I am the only male elected member from Scotland in this Assembly; my colleague Ms Ahmed-Sheikh is the only female Muslim in the entire United Kingdom delegation. Our national poet in Scotland Robert Burns once wrote: “When Europe’s eye is fixed on mighty things / The fate of empires and the fall of kings / When quacks of State must each produce his plan / And even children lisp The Rights of Man / Amidst this mighty fuss, just let me mention / The Rights of Woman merit some attention.”

      I want to highlight a key aspect that merits attention – the vital role that Muslim women have in combating extremism. The best way to prevent the radicalisation of Muslim youth is by making women central to our efforts to combat extremism in the wider community. As a Syrian woman whom I met in London recently said to me, the opposition to terrorism must lie in civil society. We must listen and learn from the experience of Syrian civil society and replicate best practice here in Europe. Representatives of the Badael Foundation have recently told me about the practical ways in which women in Syria are helping on the ground in their own communities. Women have been central to combating child recruitment to armed groups, co-ordinating the disarmament of men in public places so that children may walk around without seeing armed men.

      At the other end of the scale of this grassroots action, I am grateful to the United Nations for its commitment to supporting a Scottish National party initiative of engaging female Muslim parliamentarians from across the world to use their insight and influence in the Muslim community to drive forward the progress that we all want. Muslim women have a unique perspective on this serious and strategic challenge. We all know that women and families have been the key casualties of terrorism. They also provide some of the answers. Islam is not the cause of terrorism; it has the antidote to terrorism within it. Muslim women have a particularly vital and strategic role in doing what we want to do. Let us carry forward this initiative on a Europe-wide basis.

      Ms ÅBERG (Sweden) – How we counteract radicalisation among children and young people is a current issue that directly affects the future of Europe. Radicalisation is not a new phenomenon, but it has gained more attention lately as it has created thousands of innocent victims.

      To stop people being recruited to carry out acts of violent extremism, preventive measures are the most important. The other important thing is to call things by their real names – poverty does not automatically radicalise and criminalise youth. My experience as a social worker is that immigrant youths often feel homeless. They do not feel they belong in their parents’ home country or in Swedish society. Sweden, with good intentions, often allows people to feel that their immigrant backgrounds are more important than the fact that they were born in Sweden. These youths feel the conflict between the norms of Swedish secular society and the demand from their parents to live according to the old home nation’s norms. That conflict is skilfully taken advantage of by political extremists who offer community and belonging.

      In Sweden we have problems in telling the difference between religious organisations that preach a peaceful and tolerant version of Islam and those who spread hate towards western secular societies. Politicians have often let Islamist organisations represent all Muslims – and we are paying for that, given that hundreds of youths sympathise with Daesh. For fear of being labelled as Islamophobes, we have not taken the debate to the fundamentalists. For several decades the Swedish State has paid generous grants for youth organisations, religious bodies and so on without having any control of their agendas. It should be obvious that organisations that support different kinds of violent extremism should not receive anything from the public. At the same time, it is important to strengthen organisations who work to fight radicalisation.

      An aspect is missing from the draft resolution: a strong condemnation of religious fundamentalism and militant Islamism as it calls for radicalisation of children and youths. Islamophobia is created and thrives when militant Islamists hijack Islam for their own purposes.

      Mr BYRNE (United Kingdom) – I want to endorse the report and welcome its conclusions. I believe that this debate is long overdue. The reality is that across Europe we now confront a revolution in the accessibility of violence. We have a war zone on our doorstep and extremist recruiters in our communities, armed with smartphones. The terrible, tragic irony is the amount of time we now spend debating the greatest exodus we have seen out of Syria and Iraq and into Europe since the Second World War, yet that is being fuelled in part by the tragedy of the 3 000 and counting foreign fighters fleeing to fight in Syria and Iraq.

      It is crucial that we recognise the power, force and potency of the ideology that we confront, which is beamed to our children’s smartphones with all the slickness of a pop video. That offers our disaffected children a sense of pride and of purpose. It offers them a sense of potency – what some call a winner’s narrative. It appeals to a sense of piety even though it offers heresy, but above all it offers a sense of provocation rooted in the idea that there is a clash of civilisations between Islam and the West. That is why we have got to work so much harder to share counter-narratives to extremism. We must work harder to share what works with each other.

      There is a trap to avoid, which is the idea that somehow there is some kind of conveyor belt on which piety and religious conservatism somehow lead inextricably to extremism. That leads governments to clamp down on the free speech of our Muslim neighbours, which in turn fuels the sense that there is a war between Islam and the West, which is the very sense that Daesh recruiters use to recruit. There is not a clash of civilisations but a clash within a civilisation of Islam, where the forces of Daesh are seeking to create a 21st century theocracy based on 7th century values that will roll up 63 Muslim nations into one caliphate of a billion people in which freedom of conscience for Muslims will be eliminated, replacing the diversity of Islam with one single narrow heresy.

      We will ultimately win this fight because our ideas of democracy, freedom of conscience and human rights are better than the ideas of the extremists, but we must use those ideas not to lecture our young people but to inspire them. Young people today are angry at injustice. That is a good thing. We need that anger if we are to make progress as a continent, but there is no substitute to showing how those ideas can be used for peaceful change, not violent change. Islam and Europe share a legacy of Abrahamic prophets, Greek philosophy and Arabic science. That is an extraordinary foundation on which to build, but it is our young people who must be the builders.

      The PRESIDENT – The next speaker, Ms Dalloz, has already spoken on behalf of her group, so we will move on to Ms Durrieu.

      Ms DURRIEU (France)* – I would like to thank the rapporteurs and specifically Mr Legendre, who tackled the complex topic of competences for citizenship. That is very much at the heart of the philosophy of the Council of Europe, which was set up in 1949 and whose mission was to preserve peace human rights, democracy, the rule of law and citizenship in States governed by democracy and the rule of law. Our roadmap is clear and our mission is to continue down the path, and the report is a logical consequence of that.

      We are talking about young people. What does citizenship mean to unemployed 18 to 25-year-olds? How can we talk about an inter-cultural dialogue if they have not really benefited from that necessary minimum level of culture? What about tolerance in that context? Another concept that should not be rejected that has not necessarily been translated into other languages and cultures is that if you want to show respect for a concept you should put it at the heart of schools and the education system in addition to what is provided by the family: learning about values. We need to put civic education at the heart of our system, because if you want to learn about citizenship you need to know what a State is. If you are talking about a citizen who will have a nationality, you need to grasp what a nation is. Once you have talked about States and nations – they are essential components – you also need to be aware that we all have our backgrounds, roots and origins. We all have family names and we all belong to groups – even those who seem to have forgotten that. We have a history and background – common roots.

      In my region we speak the langue d’oc and in the future the region could be called Occitanie. While I would not necessarily support that move, that is my background. We all have our regions and areas – mine is in south-western France – and all of that needs to be taught to young people. We need to talk to them about peoples, territories and areas and make that clear to them because while that is well understood by some, it is less so by others.

      Of course, there are some peoples who do not have recognised territories – the Palestinians, to name but one example – and there are peoples such as the Roma and Travellers who do not want a territory. There are also people who have been brought together by force or by law to make one people – take the examples of Turkey or France, dating back to 1515 – and then there are peoples who have become diverse even though their States are united, such as the United Kingdom.

      If we are talking about democratic citizenship, nationality or any of those concepts, we are entering into a highly complex debate. We have been having that debate in France for three or four months in which we have discussed stripping people of their nationality. We do not necessarily have such words at our fingertips, but nevertheless we have been discussing this issue intensely.

      Mr HAMIDINE (Morocco, Partner for Democracy)* – Dear colleagues, I would like to congratulate the two rapporteurs on the quality of their texts and on their objective approaches. I support the draft resolutions. The sights we have seen of terrorist attacks perpetrated in many countries in Europe and elsewhere and the numbers of children who for different reasons are joining extremist movements are of grave concern to us and a high priority. We fully agree that prevention should be the preferred solution. We must dissuade young people and children from being attracted by terrorist groups when they are at the age when their values and connections are being formed. Ideally, prevention should be based on tolerance, respect for others’ values and religions and on appropriate social measures. The preventive approach must target individuals in their specific context and be based on local partnerships among multiple institutions and stakeholders: the family; schools; religious educators; and inter-cultural dialogue and so on.

      Radicalisation finds its political roots and causes in the international transformation that over the past few decades has been experienced in the war in Syria, the collapse of the State in Iraq, the complex political processes and political chaos in Egypt and the occupation of Palestinian territory. The combating of extremism and radicalisation must be based on a holistic approach with defence of the values promoted by the Council of Europe and ensuring promotion of democracy and the rule of law in Muslim States. We must not fall into the trap of fundamentalists who think you can identify terrorism with Islam; the two are very different.

      Mr ESEYAN (Turkey)* – I start by congratulating the two rapporteurs. Today we are in crisis everywhere in the world, in all our societies, and one of the reasons is the erosion of democratisation and of the concept of democratic citizenship. These terms have lost their meaning, but I believe that we would not survive without the existence of democracy.

      We believe in a freedom-biased, rational society that knows the importance of social problems and the accomplishments of that society. However, those qualifications can be reached at the end of the education we should give our young people. The name of the phenomenon is the crisis of democracy, and it is the result of educational incompetence. For several reasons, young people no longer have any interest in politics. They are alienated from politics, and that brings together the lack of confidence of politicians. Whether a country is economically advanced or not, if the young population is full of radicalism and intolerance, the outcome will not be positive. As indicated in the report, many young people have not been able to integrate into their societies and have fallen into the hands of terrorist organisations. What we need is a cultural dialogue and mutual understanding, pluralistic societies and a young generation who believe in all those values. But what we have created today is not democracy: it is a crisis that is a result of an inability to implement democracy.

      I underline my particular gratitude to both rapporteurs who have prepared reports that bring idea-based solutions into our midst.

      Mr GHILETCHI (Republic of Moldova) – I congratulate Ms Fataliyeva on her first report. I wholeheartedly support the report and draft resolution, but I have tabled one amendment that seeks to add an additional protection for human rights to the recommendations. This amendment complements and builds on the excellent work done by the rapporteurs and the committee on this very comprehensive document.

      The amendment states that this Assembly acknowledges that we have a diverse Europe with many different religious communities. For many millions of our citizens, faith and belief are important parts of their lives and of the communities in which they live. As representatives of Parliaments from across Europe, we celebrate pluralism and diversity in our societies, and we know that the rights enshrined in Article 9 and Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights are critical in protecting freedom of religion, thought and conscience. Therefore my amendment calls on State authorities to recognise those rights and accordingly to exercise restraint when tackling extremism, and to intervene only where there is actual incitement to violence and endangerment of the lives of other people.

      Throughout history, lives have been lost in Europe to protect the right to religious freedom and freedom of conscience which is now enshrined in Article 9 of the Convention. In the landmark case of Bayatyan v. Armenia (2009), the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights said “respect on the part of the State towards the beliefs of a minority religious....ensures cohesive and stable pluralism and promotes religious harmony and tolerance in society”. This report states in paragraph 57, “I strongly believe that a committed fight against international terrorism must be vigilant about respecting fundamental rights and the rule of law”. I fully agree with the rapporteur’s comments and that is why this amendment is important, as it makes clear that national authorities should take action to counter the ideologically extreme views that incite violence and directly put others’ lives in danger, and highlights the importance of balance in doing so. The amendment states that member State authorities must ensure that they respect the rights of those holding religious beliefs and accordingly do not act in a manner that unduly infringes on and interferes with citizens’ rights to express and manifest their religious beliefs.

      I hope that colleagues will agree that the promotion of peaceful co-existence and diversity means that State authorities should not interfere with religious practice unless there is a real and verifiable risk of incitement to violence. I fully agree with the aims of this report and its recommendations, and the amendment will add to the overall aims of these recommendations by providing an important message of proportionality and restraint.

      The PRESIDENT – I do not see Mr David Davies, so I call Ms Antičević Marinović.

      Ms ANTIČEVIĆ MARINOVIĆ (Croatia) – Education for democratic citizenship and human rights education are vital for the achievement of peaceful, sustainable and inclusive societies based on respect. Education plays an essential role in the promotion of the core values of the Council of Europe – democracy, human rights and the rule of law – as well as in the prevention of human rights violations. More generally, education is increasingly seen as a defence against the rise of violence, racism, extremism, xenophobia, discrimination and intolerance.

      Education for democratic citizenship means education, training, dissemination, information, practices and activities which, by equipping learners with knowledge, skills and understanding and moulding their attitudes and behaviour, aim to empower them to exercise and defend their democratic rights and responsibilities in society, to value diversity and to play an active part in democratic life with a view to the promotion and protection of democracy and the rule of law.

      Education for democratic citizenship needs a renewed commitment of schools to gender equality in order to challenge negative stereotypes and to advance and maximise the potential of young women. The participation of foreigners in public life is also a very important aspect of citizenship education. Sustainable development is not only a matter of concern for international decision-makers; it is also every citizen’s responsibility. Education for the participation of young people in local and regional life considers the inclusion of young people as crucial to build more democratic, inclusive and prosperous societies. Critical thinking is an important issue in education today. Researchers have shown that most students today are weak in critical thinking skills. They do poorly on simple logical reasoning tests. The goal of a debating curriculum is to enhance the development of responsible citizens, and the pedagogical methodology consists of cultivating debate skills and moral development. School-based nurturing of such development will lead to autonomous critical thinking by students and their development into responsible citizens.

      We must invest more in the education of our youth. As Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon that you can use to change the world.”

      Ms JOHNSEN (Norway) – I thank the two rapporteurs for these important reports. I would also like to thank colleagues for the very good discussion that we are having.

      The number of young people drawn to extremist movements, such as Islamic radical organisations, in a search for identity and a meaningful place to belong, is increasing. That is serious and is of great concern. As I understand it, radicalisation means accepting extreme violence just to get your goal through for religious or political reasons.

      People with the intention of destabilising Europe use young people in their mission. Young people are sensitive to ideological discourse and a sense of social purpose. They are lured into extremist movements and, in the most extreme form, suicide bombing. They are made to believe that they are heroes of a global cause but they are, indeed, abused for the vicious fight of ideologists ready to sacrifice the lives of innocent people. How is that possible?

      Many European countries have, over several years, proposed preventive strategies and action plans against terrorism but still we have witnessed gruesome terrorist attacks on innocent people on European ground. In Norway, we had a violent terrorist attack in 2011; 69 young people were brutally shot down not by Muslims, but by a radical individual. In 2014, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security presented an action plan against radicalisation and violent extremism. The Internet and hate speech on the net is especially targeted, as the Internet is a recruitment place as well as a place for hate speech.

      I fully agree with the rapporteurs that prevention is the key to combating the radicalisation of children. Prevention must start at early ages, when values and beliefs are formed. That is a target for schools and families. I am glad to hear that on 12 April the Council of Europe’s Standing Conference of Ministers of Education adopted a framework for securing democracy through education. The European Wergeland Centre in Oslo collaborates with the Council of Europe in implementing education for the democratic citizenship of our member States.

      We must combat radicalisation push factors, such as poor living conditions, lack of education, social instability and alienation from society, and education in democratic citizenship is the very basis for all that.

      Baroness MASSEY (United Kingdom) – I support the report on the framework of competences for democratic citizenship, which was so well presented by Mr Legendre. Of course, the two reports we are discussing overlap with regard to promoting democracy and values.

      The report on democratic society argues convincingly for young people to gain skills of critical thinking, co-operation, and involvement in citizenship and human rights globally. It emphasises the need for educational frameworks and teacher training, and recommends that schools, as one of the pillars of democracy, examine their education policies to implement such a framework. The issue of implementation, however, requires care, attention and sensitive determination, particularly with regard to parents. I shall say more about that in a moment.

      Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of visiting the European Youth Centre Strasbourg, which I found inspiring and encouraging – a real model of inclusive and sensitive education. I was, for many years, a senior teacher in a school. My job was to set up a programme of personal, social and health education. Some of those concepts, such as enabling people to make informed decisions, increasing self-esteem and communication skills, and developing good relationships, fit in with the notion of citizenship and democracy. I mention that because it was not smooth progress to set up that programme. There were dilemmas. Where would the programme fit into the curriculum? Would it be a separate subject, part of other subjects, co-ordinated across the curriculum including out-of-school activities, or elsewhere? Mr Legendre’s report speaks of those dilemmas, which do need to be addressed.

      Even very young children can learn about relationships and decision making, and not necessarily in formal lessons. Many primary and secondary schools in the United Kingdom have school councils. All of that reinforces teaching about democracy. In the United Kingdom, we have several initiatives and teaching materials that support the notion of good citizenship. We have the Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) Association, the Citizenship Foundation, a UNICEF programme on rights respecting schools, and character education programmes. Those programmes are for schools to implement as they see fit for their pupils and communities.

      As I said, I am very impressed by the report. The dilemma for me is how its recommendations would fit in with or go alongside other curricular programmes. How can we integrate all this, particularly if, as in England, there is a growing emphasis on academic attainment and school league tables? We need a realistic dialogue to ensure that education for democracy is not left to chance and to discuss how the many initiatives for democracy and values fit together.

      Mr NISSINEN (Sweden) – I pay tribute to the probing and thought-provoking report prepared by Ms Fataliyeva and our Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development. The part about pull factors luring young people to become radicalised makes for highly interesting reading, and holds many ideas for how we bring young people back before they commit terrorist attacks. I will focus more on what the report calls the push factors in Islamist radicalisation – the things that are said or done by those who propagate, often in violence-laced language, in favour of a Salafist or related reading of Islam that invites and incites jihadism.

      We must ask ourselves what we are doing to respond to such activities. For example, should public money go to associations that lend themselves to that kind of preaching, as happens in Sweden and elsewhere? If we speak out against this practice or against the message of hate, would that risk falling under a perhaps increasingly wide definition of what we choose to label as hate speech? I would hope not. What if we speak out in favour of a greater role for women in the life of associations, including religious ones, as we will on Thursday in our debate on improving women’s public representation? Will we then be told that that could be hurtful to the congregations in question, even though the subordination of women takes place on our soil? Should we not see assimilation to host country values as the essential part of integration, rather than as something that can just as well be forgotten?

      Finally, should rehabilitation take precedence over prosecution as the draft resolution seems to recommend in its paragraph 5.3 when it comes to people who are “returnees from foreign conflicts and extremist organisations”? Many of our countries want to prosecute on the grounds of such offences. That being said, I sympathise with the reports and the draft resolution’s emphasis on prevention, deradicalisation and reintegration, and on the fundamental rights, freedoms and responsibilities enshrined in the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Human Rights. It is clear that much could have been done in the Brussels neighbourhood of Molenbeek to pre-empt the radicalisation of the many youngsters who went on to commit the most heinous terrorist attacks.

      We have both to pull and push young people not towards, but away from the lunacy of fanaticism. Our western values are worth standing up for and defending. We owe it to the victims of terrorism and to the preservation of this civilisation of ours that our forebears fought so hard to achieve.

      I call the rapporteur, Mr Legendre, to reply. You have five minutes.

      Mr LEGENDRE* (France) – Thank you, Madam President. I would like to thank the many speakers who have given their support to my report.

      Ms Hoffmann and Ms Quéré both gave examples of work in which young people are participating, and where young people and adults are working together. I think that is very interesting. Mr Heer is right to remind us that radicalisation also takes place in mosques. That is a form of organisation and we must denounce it and fight it if we want to be effective. Ms Santerini talked about the role of knowledge in people’s behaviour. We need to teach young people to behave in such a way that is congruent with democracy. Ms Durrieu asked a very good question: what does citizenship mean for an unemployed person? Before they were out of work they were a student at school. They should learn about democratic values – the younger the better – before they go into the labour market and professional life.

      Mr Salmond referred to the formidable problem of the death cult, which I think goes beyond Islam. Indeed, we cannot just attribute it to Islam. In the past, it was some of the Francoist generals who said, “La muerte! La muerte! Let us go to our deaths.” If someone has a death wish, it is very difficult to put them in a State where they cannot destroy other people. What is so terrible is that young women and men are willing to assassinate and murder their compatriots who have done absolutely nothing at all. There is a kind of death wish that goes far beyond.

      Mr Nissinen talked about hate speech. We should not be afraid to stamp out hate speech. We must not respond to hatred with hatred, but teach people that hatred never leads to a positive outcome.

      The PRESIDENT – Thank you. Does the Chairperson of the Culture Committee, Mr Ariev, wish to speak? You have two minutes.

      Mr ARIEV (Ukraine) – I just wanted to emphasise my surprise in hearing the voices, in a democracy, of radicalism in this Chamber. We know the radicals in our history. Vladimir Lenin was the first radical of the 20^th century. We all know the consequences of his radicalism and we still feel them today. Adolf Hitler, Kim Jong-il, the leader of North Korea, and Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran: these people represent a definition of radicalism and we know how they turned out.

      We need to react constantly to prevent the development of radicalisation. We must first react by education. Well-educated people, with a high level of feeling for culture, do not join radical movements that sometimes transform into terrorist attacks, with victims numbering in the tens up to millions.

      I support both reports. I am very grateful to Mr Legendre and Ms Fataliyeva for their work, and for the work of their committees. Thank you very much.

      The PRESIDENT – I now call Ms Fataliyeva. You have six minutes

      Ms FATALIYEVA (Azerbaijan) – The need for this report appeared in the light of the current situation in Europe and in the entire world. Our report highlighted the problems that are bothering everyone. I strongly believe that radicalisation is the right term and the right word to describe these recent trends.

      By fighting the root causes of radicalisation, we can prevent the spread of terrorism and extremism. We can prevent children from becoming fighters if we direct them correctly. We should do our best to prevent children from being misled by a wrong interpretation of certain religions and being misled by wrong ideologies that lead to the wrong interpretation of justice, democracy and the protection of children’s rights. That, for us, is one of the most important things.

      I strongly believe the report will serve as an alarm call for national governments to take this problem seriously and to begin to take measures and action to strengthen intercultural dialogue, fight for equal opportunities and social inclusion for children, regardless of their religion and ethnicity. Our main goal is for children to live in a better world.

      Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my colleagues on the Social Affairs Committee, and to those colleagues who have shared their comments on the reports today. Special thanks go to the secretariat of our committee for their support and assistance.

      The PRESIDENT – Does the Chairperson of the Social Affairs Committee, Ms Kyriakides, wish to speak?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – I want to congratulate both rapporteurs. I really believe that we have two excellent reports before us today. Are they perfect? No, they are not. They are not perfect because we are dealing with two very complex subjects that have no one solution or answer. The reports highlight the complexity of the issues we are dealing with. They both focus on what we need to do, as societies, to make a safer and better world for our children’s future.

      I again congratulate both rapporteurs. A great deal of effort has gone into the reports. I congratulate the members of both committees for their very positive feedback and I thank the secretariats of both committees.

      The PRESIDENT – The debate is closed.

      The Social Affairs Committee has presented a draft resolution to which 28 amendments have been tabled.

      The amendments will be taken in the order in which they appear in the Compendium and the Organisation of Debates. I remind you that speeches on amendments are limited to 30 seconds.

      I understand that the Chairperson of the Social Affairs Committee wishes to propose to the Assembly that Amendments 2, 20, 3, 21, 13, 23 and 24 to the draft resolution, which were unanimously approved by the committee, should be declared as agreed by the Assembly.

      I understand that amendments 9, 12, 25 and 26 were also unanimously approved by the Social Affairs Committee, but as there are sub-amendments proposed to these amendments, we must deal with each of these amendments separately. Is that so Ms Kyriakides?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – Yes.

      Does anyone object? That is not the case. As there is no objection, I declare that amendments 22, 20, 3, 21, 13, 23 and 24 to the draft resolution have been adopted.

      I call Mr Babaoğlu to support Amendment 4. You have 30 seconds.

      Mr BABAOĞLU (Turkey) – The amendment would provide a social, psychological and political context for the problem. It would also explain the process of radicalisation that ends in violence. The purpose of the amendment is to enrich the discussion of radicalisation.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee is in favour of the amendment.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 5, which is in the draft resolution, paragraph 1, second sentence, replace the word “Islamist” with the word “religious”

      I call Mr Babaoğlu to support the amendment. You have 30 seconds.

      Mr BABAOĞLU (Turkey) – The purpose of this amendment is to avoid stereotyping Islam and Muslims. Singling out Muslims by using the concept of Islamist will contribute to the stereotyping of Muslims. We should avoid stigmatising anyone for their identity. We should bear it in mind that radicalisation can happen in all religions and even in secular ideologies as well. That is why we ask you to support the amendment.

      The PRESIDENT – I have been informed that Ms Fataliyeva wishes to propose an oral sub-amendment on behalf of the Social Affairs Committee, which is, in Amendment 5, to delete the word “replace” and insert the word “delete” and to delete the words “with the word “religious””. The amendment as amended would have the effect of removing the word “Islamist” from the second sentence of paragraph 1 of the draft resolution.

      In my opinion, the oral sub-amendment is in order under our rules. However, do 10 or more members object to the oral sub-amendment being debated? That is not the case. I therefore call Ms Fataliyeva to support her oral sub-amendment.

      Ms FATALIYEVA (Azerbaijan) – I suggest removing all the words before the word “extremist” because we should use the widest definition of that word and not narrow its essence.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the oral sub-amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee supported the oral sub-amendment unanimously.

      The PRESIDENT – What is the opinion of the mover of the amendment, Mr Babaoğlu?

       Mr BABAOĞLU (Turkey) – I support the amendment.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      The oral sub-amendment is adopted.

      We will now consider the amendment, as amended.

      Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment, as amended? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee is in favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 10. I call Sir Roger Gale to support the amendment. You have 30 seconds.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – The amendment was carried unanimously by the Culture Committee, as were all the committee’s amendments, and it flows directly from Amendments 2, 4 and 5, which have already been adopted. Again, it simply seeks to remove the potential stigmatising and stereotyping words and to broaden the report. I am a little disappointed that the main committee does not choose to accept it. Everyone needs to know that, but I still think that we are on safer ground if we broaden the report.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee is against the amendment.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      Amendment 10 is rejected.

      We come to Amendment 9, which is in the draft resolution, after paragraph 3, insert the following paragraph: “The Parliamentary Assembly recognises that religious belief and faith serve hugely important roles in the lives of countless citizens across the member States and add to pluralism and diversity in our society, and in that regard further recalls the rights enshrined in Article 9 and Article 2 of Protocol no. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Parliamentary Assembly reaffirms that the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is inherent to any true conception of a democratic society, therefore in taking action to counter the most ideologically extreme views which incite violence and directly put others’ lives in danger, member States’ authorities must ensure that they respect the rights of those holding religious beliefs and accordingly do not act in a manner which unduly infringes on and interferes with citizens’ rights to express and manifest their religious beliefs which fall short of incitement to violence and endangerment of the lives of others.”

      I call Mr Ghiletchi to support the amendment. You have 30 seconds.

      Mr GHILETCHI (Republic of Moldova) – The amendment would ensure that the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater. We want to restrain tendencies that lead to extremism, while protecting religious freedom, which is important because most people want to have freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. That is why we tabled the amendment.

      The PRESIDENT – We come to Sub-Amendment 1, which is in Amendment 9 replace the words “the most ideologically extreme views which incite violence and directly put others’ lives in danger” with the following words: “trends of radicalisation”.

      I call Ms Fataliyeva to support Sub-Amendment 1. You have 30 seconds

      Ms FATALIYEVA (Azerbaijan) – The sub-amendment is self-explanatory.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone with to speak against the sub-amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of Mr Ghiletchi?

      Mr GHILETCHI (Republic of Moldova) – I am in favour of the sub-amendment.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee is in favour of the sub-amendment.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

       We come to Sub-Amendment 2, which is in Amendment 9, replace the words “the rights of those holding religious beliefs and accordingly do not act in a manner which unduly infringes on and interferes with citizens’ rights to express and manifest their religious beliefs which fall short of incitement to violence and endangerment of the lives of others” with the following words: “these rights as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights”.

      I call Ms Fataliyeva to support Sub-Amendment 2. You have 30 seconds.

      Ms FATALIYEVA (Azerbaijan) – The sub-amendment is self-explanatory.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the sub-amendment?

      Mr GHILETCHI (Republic of Moldova) – I am against the sub-amendment because the amendment already refers to the European Convention on Human Rights. We do not need to repeat this. The point of these words is to ensure that governments will not unduly interfere with or infringe religious freedoms. It is important to keep the wording as it is and not to repeat the fact that we must respect the European Convention on Human Rights.

      The PRESIDENT – What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee is in favour of the sub-amendment.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment, as amended? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

       Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee is in favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      I call Sir Roger Gale to support Amendment 11, on behalf of the Culture Committee. You have 30 seconds.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – This may seem pedantic, but we felt that “tolerance” was simply putting up with something and not very positive. We want a positive approach to understanding and co-operation. On balance, we thought it was safer to remove those words, because we believe that everybody understands European values as meaning exactly what we want them to mean.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment?

      That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 12, which is, in the draft resolution, at the end of paragraph 4.1.2, to add the following words: “in public and in particular school life.”

      I call Sir Roger Gale to support the amendment. You have 30 seconds.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – I am happy to accept the oral sub-amendment. You may move straight to it, Madam President, if you wish.

      The PRESIDENT – I have been informed that Ms Fataliyeva wishes to propose an oral sub-amendment on behalf of the Social Affairs Committee, which is, in Amendment 12, to delete the words “public and in particular school life” and insert “all decisions affecting them.”

      In my opinion, the oral sub-amendment is in order under our rules. However, do 10 or more members object to the oral sub-amendment being debated?

      That is not the case.

      I call Ms Fataliyeva to support her oral sub-amendment.

      Ms FATALIYEVA (Azerbaijan) – This is not the reading of “participation” that applies from a children’s rights perspective, so the paragraph needs precision. We should add “all decisions affecting them”, based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the new Council of Europe strategy for the rights of the child.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the oral sub-amendment? That is not the case.

      The committee is obviously in favour.

      The vote is open.

      The oral sub-amendment is adopted.

      We will now consider the main amendment, as amended.

      Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment, as amended? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee on the amendment, as amended?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 22. I call Ms Heinrich to support the amendment. You have 30 seconds.

      Ms HEINRICH (Germany)* – When we are talking about religion, whether in schools or other institutions, it is important that the peaceful aspect is concentrated on and highlighted.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 25, which is, in the draft resolution, after paragraph 4.2.1, to insert the following paragraph:

“develop counter-narratives based on the accounts of persons who have left extremist or terrorist movements”.

      I call Ms Heinrich to support the amendment. You have 30 seconds.

      Ms HEINRICH (Germany)* – The point of the amendment is to provide those who have experience of radicalisation with the opportunity to make use of that experience in order to combat radicalisation.

      The PRESIDENT – I have been informed that Mr Donaldson wishes to propose an oral sub-amendment, which is, in Amendment 25, at the end, to insert “notwithstanding the responsibility of everyone in society to counter extremism.”

      In my opinion, the oral sub-amendment is in order under our rules. However, do 10 or more members object to the oral sub-amendment being debated? That is not the case.

      I call Mr Donaldson to support his oral sub-amendment.

      Mr DONALDSON (United Kingdom) – I have no objection to the original wording of the amendment, but I feel it is important that we do not absolve ourselves of responsibility right across society for countering extremism. We must all ensure we take responsibility for it.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the oral sub-amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      The oral sub-amendment is adopted.

      We will now consider the main amendment, as amended.

      Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment, as amended? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 6. I call Mr Küçükcan to support the amendment. You have 30 seconds.

      Mr KÜÇÜKCAN (Cyprus) – The purpose is to raise awareness of Islamophobia, which is a relatively new phenomenon that is on the rise. Public campaigns will enable people to have a better idea of what it is, as well as its impact on Muslims and wider society and the risks it can bring. Specific programmes might include governments engaging with Muslim leaders and the Muslim religious community so that they have a better understanding of one another.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 26, which is, in the draft resolution, after paragraph 4.2.2, to insert the following paragraph:

“encourage mosques to take a stronger preventive approach, emphasising Islam as a peaceful religion, and to develop further their activities in the field of prevention, particularly with young people and as regards the representation of Islam on the internet”.

      I call Ms Heinrich to support Amendment 26 on behalf of the Equality Committee.

      Ms HEINRICH (Germany)* – We want to encourage mosques to take stronger preventive action and to emphasise Islam as a peaceful religion, because they are part of the solution.

      The PRESIDENT – I call Ms Fataliyeva to support Sub-Amendment 1, which is to replace the paragraph with the following paragraph: “encourage religious communities to take a stronger preventive approach, emphasising the peaceful dimension of religions, and to develop further their activities in the field of prevention, particularly with young people and as regards religious representations the internet.”

      Ms FATALIYEVA (Azerbaijan) – This addition refers to involving religious communities in prevention programmes, which seems positive. However, States should not necessarily be communicating directly with mosques, so a sub-amendment was tabled.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the sub-amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of Ms Heinrich?

      Ms HEINRICH (Germany)* – I agree.

      The PRESIDENT – What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We will now consider the main amendment, as amended.

Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment, as amended? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 7. I call Mr Küçükcan to support the amendment. You have 30 seconds.

      Mr KÜÇÜKCAN (Turkey) – The purpose of the edit relates to the policy measures that are supposed to be developed. Without creating a comprehensive database, it will be difficult to have a policy. In order to see the impact of the implementation of the new policies, we need a database on hate speech and so on. That is the main reason that we would like a change to the report.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee has no position.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 14. I call Sir Roger Gale to support the amendment on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – I am aware that the rapporteur is averse to including references to other reports, as am I, but in this case it is worthwhile reminding the Committee of Ministers that they have already passed a supportive resolution with a course of action attached to it. This is an unsubtle way of saying to the Committee of Ministers, “When you come to this, please take note and get on and do something about it.”

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee has no position on this amendment or the ones that follow because we did not have time to discuss them.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 27. I call Ms Heinrich to support the amendment on behalf of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination.

      Ms HEINRICH (Germany)* – The amendment is just a drafting amendment.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      The committee is in favour.

      The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 28. I call Ms Heinrich to support the amendment on behalf of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination.

      Ms HEINRICH (Germany)* – The amendment would strengthen the campaign among members of the Council of Europe on awareness raising and prevention.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      The committee has no opinion.

      The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 15. I call Sir Roger Gale to support the amendment.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – The amendment was tabled quite simply to stress the fact that the work of associations and societies connected with those projects needs to be involved.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      The committee has no opinion on the amendment.

      The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 16. I call Sir Roger Gale to support the amendment.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – The amendment simply adds “media” and reflects the work of the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media. Not only the Internet but all media need to be referred to. The amendment simply corrects an omission.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee has no position.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 17. I call Sir Roger Gale to support the amendment.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – This is a straightforward grammatical amendment.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      The committee has no position on the amendment.

      The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 8. I call Mr Küçükcan to support the amendment.

      Mr KÜÇÜKCAN (Turkey) – The amendment was tabled to encourage the regulation of the social media that everybody talked about today. Without legal measures, hate crimes based on religion will continue to increase. It would also give licence to people who would like to conduct hate speech and other activities. We believe that legal measures such as those against anti-Semitism should be taken; otherwise, victims will feel helpless and will take refuge in their own communities, which would encourage more introverted attitudes vis-à-vis integration.

      The PRESIDENT – I call Ms Bonet to support the Sub-Amendment 1. You have 30 seconds.

      Ms BONET (Andorra) –       The sub-amendment would introduce order among the words “Islamophobic” and “hate”. It would also delete the second mention of the word “Islamophobic”. We are seeking to clarify and define more specifically so that we can take more action and introduce more measures to combat those things.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the sub-amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of Mr Küçükcan?

      Mr KÜÇÜKCAN (Turkey) – I have no objection.

      The PRESIDENT – What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee has no position.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment, as amended? That is not the case.

      The committee has no position on the amendment.

      The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 18. I call Sir Roger Gale to support the amendment.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – I make no apology for the fact that this is a reference to another external document. Article 20 is absolutely relevant to the work that the rapporteur is seeking to promote and achieve.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – The committee continues to have no position.

      The PRESIDENT – Wonderful.

      The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 19. I call Sir Roger Gale to support the amendment.

      Sir Roger GALE (United Kingdom) – This amendment speaks for itself. We are calling upon religious leaders to use their good offices to support this cause.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case. I shall leave the committee alone.

      The vote is open.

      We come to Amendment 1. I call Ms Fataliyeva to support the amendment.

      Ms FATALIYEVA (Azerbaijan) – The committee voted for this amendment unanimously. We are therefore in favour of it.

      The PRESIDENT – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case. The committee is obviously in favour.

      Ms KYRIAKIDES (Cyprus) – We are in favour.

      The PRESIDENT – The vote is open.

      We will now proceed to vote on the whole of the draft resolution contained in Document 14010, as amended. A simple majority is required.

      The vote is open.

      The Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media has presented a draft resolution (Document 13992) to which no amendments have been tabled.

      The Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media has also presented a draft recommendation (Document 13992) to which no amendments have been tabled.

      We will now proceed to vote on the whole of the draft resolution contained in Document 13992.

      The vote is open.

      We will now proceed to vote on the draft recommendation contained in Document 13992.

      The vote is open.

7. Election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Slovenia

      The PRESIDENT – I shall now announce the results of the ballot in the election of a judge to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Slovenia.

      Number voting: 142

      Blank or spoiled ballot papers: 8

      Votes cast: 134

      Absolute majority: 68

      The votes cast were as follows:

      Ms Nina Betetto: 14

      Mr Marko Bošnjak: 113

      Ms Nina Peršak: 7

      Accordingly, Mr Bošnjak, having obtained an absolute majority of votes cast, is elected a judge of the European Court of Human rights for a term of office of nine years starting not later than three months after his election. Congratulations to him.

      (Ms Mateu, Vice-President of the Assembly, took the Chair in place of Ms Guzenina.)

8. Evaluation of the partnership for democracy in respect of the Palestinian National Council

      The PRESIDENT* – The next item of business this afternoon is the debate on the report entitled “Evaluation of the partnershio for democracy in respect of the Palestinian National Council” presented by Mr Jordi Xuclà on behalf of the Political Affairs Committee. This will be followed by presentation of opinions by Mr Şaban Dişli on behalf of the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee, Document 14021, and by the opinion of Ms Marit Maij, which will be presented by Ms Elena Centemero on behalf of the Committee for Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, Document 14022.

      May I remind the Assembly that we have agreed that speaking time in all debates in this session will be limited to three minutes?

      We will aim to finish this item, including the vote, by 8.00 p.m. so I will interrupt the list of speakers at about 7.45 p.m. to allow time for the replies to the debate and the votes.

      I call Mr Xuclà to present the report. You have 13 minutes in total, which you may divide between the presentation of your report and reply to the debate. Mr Xuclà, you have the floor.

      Mr XUCLÀ (Spain)* – I am concluding two years of intense work with the Palestinian authorities, especially with our Palestinian parliamentary colleagues. Those two years made it possible for me to visit and know better the aspirations of a people who want to pursue their own State, which must be a democratic State where there is full respect for human rights and the standards of the Council of Europe. In October 2011, the Palestinian Parliament asked to be incorporated in a Partnership for Democracy with our Assembly. A first evaluation of our relationship took place in the plenary session with the presentation of the report of my friend and colleague, Tiny Kox.

      From the end of 2014 until now, I proceeded with the second evaluation. I will talk about specific aspects of our collaboration with our colleagues in the Palestinian Parliament but it is obvious that when talking about a country such as Palestine I cannot refrain from referring to how facts have evolved over the past two years.

      No reconciliation has taken place within the parliament in order to make it more operative and more effective in the institutional context of Palestine. You may recall that 10 years ago in January 2006 the Palestinians voted for the last time. I was there – I was 10 years younger – with the Carter Center to observe the elections. Three years later in 2009 the parliament was split into two halves and these two halves have not reconciled. Today the West Bank and the Gaza Strip live separately. The negotiations with Israel between 2014 and now did not find a solution for the declaration of two States according to the 1967 borders, mutual recognition, security for Israel, and democracy for Palestine. Apart from that, during those two years we have worked very positively.

      I underscore the excellence of the Palestinian delegation at our Parliamentary Assembly. All possible ways of working have been deployed. Working with the Palestinian delegation in approving this report at the committee in Paris, we said that if the members of the Palestinian delegation were the Palestinian Government, things would be better. Were our friend Professor Sabella the Prime Minister of Palestine, things would really be much better.

      We have done a lot of good work at the level of the Parliamentary Assembly. The Parliamentary Assembly and the Council of Europe have deployed every means to co-operate with the Parliament of Palestine and to collaborate with the executive authorities of Palestine, but we have to be realistic. I am going to submit a realistic report because today we are not tackling the debate on the recognition of Palestine but rather the evaluation of mutual undertakings – compromises – acquired through the Palestinian National Council and the legislative organ of the Palestinian Authority. I will refer in the report to certain realistic aspects.

      In the West Bank there has been a de factor moratorium on the death penalty since 2005, which has not been breached over our years of evaluation. This morning we had a debate in the committee on whether we should talk of the “Hamas authority” or just of Hamas. We will just say Hamas. In Gaza, unfortunately, the death penalty is applied. The Palestinian Legislative Council and the parliament have worked with us. They cannot work properly because they split, as we said, but they did some work with us. Although the Palestinian National Council undertook in 2011 to take the necessary reforms to adopt a fully democratic modus operandi, unfortunately these democratic reforms were not adopted. I say this with great regret because we want to help our colleagues and friends in Palestine but this lack of empowerment of the Palestinian Parliament produces an imbalance of powers in the institutional configuration of Palestine.

      Of course, progress has been achieved with regard to the presence of women in the social, political and economic life of Palestine but there is still violence against women and this is a serious problem that is of concern to us.

      Palestine is not a full member of the United Nations but the Palestinian authorities could have adopted many conventions of the Council of Europe over the past two years. We presented them to them and they could have adopted them to acquire a legislative corpus favourable to the protection of human rights, which do not fully work in Gaza. Administrative co-operation is a very lengthy process. We were able to visit a prison in Ramallah during our last visit and the work of the Council of Europe is very much centred on the evaluation of the state of human rights on the ground on a daily basis. Our impression was very positive compared with the situation that was obtained some years ago. I have been cognisant of the reality in Palestine for years but administrative co-operation is still very lengthy.

      I will stop now to leave myself some time to be able to respond to interventions. I thank you in advance for any intervention you might like to make.

      The PRESIDENT* – Thank you very much, rapporteur. You will have a little less than five minutes to respond to interventions later on. I call Mr Dişli. The floor is yours to present the opinion of the Legal Affairs Committee.

      Mr DIŞLI (Turkey)* – Dear colleagues, I congratulate Mr Xuclà and thank him for his work. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights fully supports the draft resolution. We, too, encourage members of the Palestinian Partner for Democracy delegation to continue their efforts to implement democratic reforms in the Palestinian territories. We are aware of the difficult situation and regret that agreements between the Palestinian authorities and Hamas have not been put into practice and that the negotiations between the Government of Palestine and Israel have not progressed.

      As has been stated previously in this Chamber, Hamas and the Palestinian National Council should unite behind Partner for Democracy status, as this would strengthen Palestine’s efforts for better democracy and help make it easier to conduct talks and negotiations with Israel. It is a pity that this opportunity has not yet been seized.

      Like Mr Xuclà, we are very happy to see the active participation of the Palestinian delegation in the work of our Assembly.

      We propose two amendments to the draft resolution. The first aims to reiterate the Assembly’s strong position regarding the abolition of the death penalty. The second expresses regret about the fact that some members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are detained by Israeli forces.

      The PRESIDENT* – Thank you, Mr Dişli. I call upon Ms Elena Centemero to present the opinion of the Equality Committee.

      Ms CENTEMERO (Italy)* – Marit Maij, who was appointed the rapporteur for opinion, has had to go back to her parliament and cannot be with us today.

      On behalf of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination, I congratulate Mr Xuclà on his detailed progress report on the implementation of the commitments undertaken by the Palestinian National Council in its request for Partner for Democracy status with the Assembly. In the light of the opinion voted for in 2014, the objective of this new opinion was to establish whether there had been any developments in the past two years in respect of the commitments undertaken by the Palestinian National Council under Resolution 1830: “actively promoting equal opportunities for women and men in political and public life; fighting all forms of discrimination (in law and in practice) based on gender; ensuring effective equality between women and men, including as regards marriage, divorce, polygamy and inheritance law and, where necessary, initiating a process of legislative revision; fighting all forms of gender-based violence”.

      The committee regrets that in the past two years the situation in respect of violence against women and the other areas listed above has not evolved much. The committee wishes to emphasise that women have a key role to play in Palestinian society. Women’s empowerment in the economy and participation in decision-making bodies at various levels of public life and in peace talks should be strongly encouraged. The committee welcomes the active participation of the Palestinian Partner for Democracy delegation. The committee is well aware that the political and legal situation make it difficult to achieve rapid progress and endorses Mr Xuclà’s recommendation to maintain the Partnership for Democracy with the Palestinian National Council and to make a new assessment of the partnership when appropriate. Finally, I stress that this opinion was adopted unanimously by the committee.

      Mr KOX (Netherlands, Spokesperson for the Group of the Unified European Left) – I congratulate Jordi Xuclà on his excellent evaluation of the partnership that started four years ago. I agree that we should congratulate the Palestinian delegation on their excellent conduct within the structures of this Assembly ever since the partnership was agreed. Four years of partnership have proven to be fruitful, but there are still a lot of opportunities to be explored in respect of what Partner for Democracy status offers to both parties. I support the resolution’s call to the Secretary General to mobilise the Organisation’s expertise to assist in further developments of human rights, the rule of law and democracy in the Palestinian territories and to make more use of the relevant instruments of the Council of Europe. There is still a lot to be explored and it should be explored over the next two years.

      As we said from the beginning, Partner for Democracy status is not for free. The Council of Europe should deliver more and better, as the resolution states; and the Palestinian National Council has not yet delivered one of the first commitments – for there to be parliamentary and presidential elections as soon as possible. I understand all the great problems that Palestine faces in organising such elections under occupation; it is a mission impossible. But it is known that Palestine is capable of dealing with missions impossible. I call on President Abbas to do his utmost to call elections for the parliament and the presidency as soon as possible. Both the executive and the parliament need new fresh air to function in a better way. Postponing elections will not help to improve the complex situation that Palestine is in. I put trust in the citizens of Palestine when they are invited to go to the ballot box.

      I again call on Israel finally to end its occupation, which creates almost all the problems confronting Palestine. This week Vice-President Biden said that even his government feels overwhelmingly frustrated with the Israeli Government, and that should be a signal to the government of Mr Netanyahu. It is really on the wrong track with its land grabbing, settlement expansion, legalisation of outposts and suppression and humiliation of Palestinian citizens. In the end, recognising Palestine and setting the people of Palestine free would first and foremost also be in the interests of Israeli citizens. To put more pressure on Israel, all Council of Europe member States should soon recognise the State of Palestine. Many have already, but many have to follow. That would be a signal to Israel that it has to set the Palestinians free.

      Finally, we have called for the release of Nadia Savchenko, and from what I read in the newspapers it seems that that call will be listened to. We should not have double standards, however – there are members of the Palestine Parliament in Israeli custody. If we support Nadia Savchenko, we should also support members of the Palestinian Legislative Council delegation, who should also be released. I hope that Mr Dişli’s amendment will be adopted.

      Mr FEIST (Germany, Spokesperson for the Group of the European People’s Party)* – I congratulate Mr Xuclà on the report. Once again, he clearly exposes where there is potential for improvement – unfortunately, there are many such opportunities. He said that in addition to basic freedoms and the issue of the implementation of the death penalty, the position of women is very important. This is a chance for the Palestinian National Council. Women have the energy to improve creaky structures and the current difficult situation.

      However, there is no excuse for the fact that there has not been much improvement or progress in respect of Palestinian agreement and unity. They themselves seem to be their own worst enemies. An agreement between Fatah and Hamas would mean that the consideration of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination went much further than at present. The differences are great. We must continue to support the Palestinian National Council because it has the instrument to enable the bringing about of the rule of law and to introduce equality.

      I am grateful to the rapporteur for pointing out that freedom of religion is one of the rights that has been referred to. The Palestinian National Council gave an answer about different religions living side by side, but there is not much evidence of that in the Gaza Strip. We should see where the deficits lie and make use of our opportunities to bring progress to this area. Progress is important not only for those directly involved but for the Middle East as a whole. It would send a very strong signal if the Palestinian National Council made a greater contribution than it has in favour of getting together the warring parties of Fatah and Hamas and getting them to support the principles enshrined in the agreement between Palestine and the Council of Europe. Thank you for this work and for a successful co-operation.

      Mr CORSINI (Italy, Spokesperson for the Socialist Group)* – The report proposes a realistic presentation of the developments in Palestine and the undertakings assumed by the national council in 2011 when the Partner for Democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly was recognised. However, we must say that the report regrets the situation with regard to reconciliation with Gaza; negotiations with Israel have not improved. I do not want to enter into the merits of the debate as to whether we are faced with occupied territories or contested territories. As far as I am concerned, we are faced with occupied territories and I am convinced that the prospect we should pursue is of two people and two democratic States. On that point I recall the resolution submitted at the Assembly by our former colleague, Mr Marcenaro, which defined a horizon of shared undertakings.

      I will make three criticisms that remain and which have been mentioned already. First, the status of women and violence against women, then the death penalty and the risk of a lack of freedom of expression and the fact that no elections have taken place with the Palestinian authorities since 2006. From that, the Palestinians must launch a challenge, pick up that challenge and try fully to achieve the promotion and enhancement of civil and human rights. There is a second aspect, too. The report deals with the national council, of which Hamas is not a part. Elections to that body have never taken place and the parliamentary organ of the Palestinian Authority, the PLC – the Palestinian Legislative Council – which includes members of Hamas, has done nothing since June 2007, when Hamas controlled the Gaza strip. Both organs within the Palestinian political arena are reluctant to proceed to elections to the Palestinian council, which is an important objective that should be pursued.

      Finally, a small observation that is no doubt of symbolic value – perhaps it is not practically relevant but it is expressive and telling – is the need to affirm the prospect of respect, tolerance and dialogue at an inter-religious level: the question of Temple Mount. The report underscores the importance of Temple Mount for the two religions of Judaism and Islam. While Article 21 says that it is the third most sacred place for Islam, in deep respect of the value of religious experience we should recall that it is also a sacred place for the Jewish religion. Therefore, when we mention al-Haram al-Šarīf, we should also say Temple Mount.

      Ms LUNDGREN (Sweden, Spokesperson for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) – On behalf of the ALDE group I congratulate our rapporteur, Jordi Xuclà, on presenting a good, balanced report as stated in our discussions. We fully agree with the conclusions in the report.

      The Palestinian National Council became our second Partner for Democracy in October 2011. This is the second evaluation of the partnership. At the time we pointed ahead to where we wanted to move. We can see those points and follow the actions that have been taken in the report. The abolition of the death penalty is crucial for us. It is good to see that the Palestinian Authority has not done anything to violate that, but we must condemn what has happened in Gaza. The question of reform of the PNC is about not only a question of power between Fatah and Hamas but a greater power struggle in society. We hope to see more on that.

      On promoting equal opportunities for women, which many have talked about, there is more to be done even if we can see that some actions have been taken. We are glad that the Palestinian delegation is balanced between men and women.

      While we are talking about fighting corruption, I heard the World Bank and the IMF say that that has been done well in the Palestinian Authority. That is appreciated, but I hear that the people in Palestine do not see that. There is therefore more to be done, even if others are telling us about good performance.

      On fighting racism, xenophobia and so on, there is also more to be done. We see that in society and we hear a lot about hatred and other things flourishing. We need to address that, and, because we have the No Hate Speech movement, I hope we can do that together, because that is important to promote a better future for the people.

      There is a need for renewed energy in the Palestinian National Council, which should not hide behind the issue of occupation. There are things to be done on different topics. I see a lack of energy and a lack of trust, especially among young people. I hope you can go further on that with the Council of Europe’s help.

      Mr SABELLA (Palestine, Partner for Democracy) – First, allow me to thank Mr Xuclà for a factual and wise report. Thanks are also due to Mr Ary, who has accompanied Mr Xuclà throughout his visits to Palestine. Thanks also go to Mr Dişli and Ms Maij for their commentaries and opinions on the report.

      Before I proceed, on a personal note, if you are nominating me for Prime Minister, I have to decline, but I hope that when we next choose a Prime Minister, we will choose a woman. We see our Partnership for Democracy with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe as support for our struggle under occupation to exercise our inalienable and legitimate rights for freedom and independence. While the report is comprehensive in assessing the impediments for electoral and democratic processes, I need to emphasise the role of Europe and its institutions in helping us deal with Israeli occupation and need actively to bring that to an end. It is not enough for Europe to admonish, plead, advocate and argue, as all those steps remain theoretical, and there is no response to them. Europe needs to be able to take practical steps that would promote the peace process and make it clear to the Israelis that the status quo of occupation and illegal settlement in the occupied territories is not beneficial. Nor does it herald a lasting peace and possible reconciliation with their Palestinian neighbours.

      On the internal Palestinian political scene, the division is not only resented by our people, but it also impedes the processes of democracy and the active participation of our people in determining priorities for education, health, the economy, culture and other important and vital sectors of social and political life. We realise that we need to do more and that we as a people need to make our voice heard not only through the polling stations, but in active involvement in building our institutions and healing our wounds. We need your support through partnership. It is not an easy time for us, but knowing that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will remain steadfast in its support until we achieve our goals of independence and freedom, and that we will walk together until our people exercise our right to democracy, secure our human rights and ensure the rule of law, gives us comfort and confidence that we shall indeed overcome.

      Mr VAREIKIS (Lithuania) – When we started the project with Palestine, I have to confess that I was slightly pessimistic. I had no clear vision of the result. Now, when I read Mr Xuclà’s report, I am much more optimistic than I was two years ago. For me the message and the idea is that co-operation with the Palestinians is a functioning project. In the past few years, not every project of the Council of Europe has worked, and this project is working, despite the difficulties and problems. The Palestinian authorities are functioning, and we have to destroy the myth that it is a non-functioning country. It is functioning. Of course, it has its problems and difficulties, and it has special status, but it is functioning. I hope that finally Palestinians will create what we call civil society – a democratic society.

      The Council of Europe is not only a partner in co-operation. We are like professors in a university and I regret to say, Mr Sabella, you are like our students. We propose a form of society that we think is successful, with human rights, a market economy and democracy. You have to read the report carefully. I wish to emphasise that the first point is reconciliation. The Council of Europe, the European Union and European integration are the products of reconciliation. That reconciliation was not a simple process, but it happened and it is still working. The second point is that it is necessary to do the homework to establish the necessary conditions. The rapporteurs mention the death penalty and gender equality, and many other issues that a democratic society needs to address.

      The third point is about struggle, which we often talk about. I suggest building bridges. If a society is separated from others by rivers, it will not be a successful country. A country that is united by bridges with neighbouring countries can be successful. My suggestion is that Palestine becomes a bridge-building State. As I said, I am not extremely optimistic, but I am moderately optimistic that this project will succeed.

      Ms DURRIEU (France)* – We congratulate the rapporteur. It has not been easy, but his work is objective and balanced. Nevertheless, evaluating how the Palestinians have honoured the engagements that they entered into, given their situation, seems tricky. We have to remember their situation; if we do not, we cannot understand why little progress has been made. I stress that this rampant colonisation is a daily evil that never seems to stop, and the Americans no longer do anything to prevent it.

      I want to come back to the history of the division between Fatah and Hamas. At the time of the Palestinian elections in 2006, Mr Xuclà was in the West Bank. I was also there in Jericho with Mr Carter when the count was taking place. I can tell you that eight days earlier nobody thought that Hamas could win. Nor did they think that three days earlier, but on the day the results came out, there was general consternation. We were there as observers, observing elections that we announced had been properly held, and nobody contested Hamas’s victory. The international community took the decision to refuse to accept the results of that election. We must remember that, because in that respect we are responsible for what is going on. The rift between Hamas and Fatah is a responsibility that we must assume.

      We can talk about elections, but there have been no elections since 2006, so we have the right to question the legitimacy of everything that exists now. We know that Hamas could and would win another election. We are not talking hypothetically here – it is the most likely outcome. Given that context, I would like to stress three issues. There is the French diplomatic initiative which we took to the United Nations to try to relaunch direct dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It may work or it may not, but we really need an international conference, especially after the failure of the Americans and the vacuum that has been left. A vacuum is a very dangerous thing. The two-State solution is at stake, but it is the only way.

      The second point is the fact that Turkey and Israel are growing together, and the third fact I want to mention is the question of whether Daesh could take root in the Palestinian territories. I do not think so, because that scourge is something that the Palestinians are aware of, but we must make sure that it does not happen.

      The PRESIDENT* – I do not see Mr Hollik, so I call Mr Forer.

      Mr FORER (Observer, Israel) – First, I want to mention that it is obviously in Israel’s interest for the Palestinians to become a fully democratic society that guarantees the rule of law and respects human rights, but the issue of occupation is irrelevant to many of the issues covered by the report. It is irrelevant to the status of women and violence against them, to the lack of freedom of speech, and to the fact that no elections have been held in the Palestinian Authority since 2006. Those issues are totally in the hands of, and are the responsibility of, the Palestinians themselves within their society. Moreover, by using the word “occupation” as terminology, we adopt, in a one-sided way, the Palestinians’ view of the situation while disregarding the Israeli one, by which the territories are contested. Yet we are dealing now in democracy, which, in fact, does not exist in the Palestinian Authority, but we must emphasise some things.

      Just yesterday, we discovered in Israel a tunnel that Hamas had dug from the Gaza Strip deep into Israeli territory in order to attack innocent civilians – innocent women and children. That is the death penalty that they wanted to give to innocent women and kids just because they are Jews. In addition, yesterday afternoon Palestinian terrorists bombed a bus in Jerusalem, injuring innocent people. Yet not only does the Palestinian Authority not condemn the terror, but Abu Mazen is literally paying thousands of euros every month to terrorists and the families of terrorists who carried out terrorist attacks.

      Instead of talking about a democracy that does not exist, we need to recognise that the Palestinian leadership has chosen to lead its own people in the path of blood instead of in the path of peace. As long as those in leadership positions feel that they can continue to lead their own people in the path of blood while the international community closes its eyes to the terrorist attacks committed, they will continue to support the terrorists.

      We all need to understand that the people mentioned are sitting in jail because they supported terrorists and helped terrorist attacks. For things to get better, the Palestinians first need to stop supporting and start condemning terror. I suggest that the Assembly nominate a committee to check what happens in the books and in the education system in the Palestinian Authority, and to check the incitement that is happening there, to stop terror and incitement to terror.

      Mr FRÉCON (France)* – It is now my turn to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Xuclà, on the high quality of his balanced report. The ambition of our Assembly in launching the initiative of Partnership for Democracy was a very high ambition indeed. It was a matter, no less, of having evolved towards the rule of law a structure – the Palestinian National Council – whose mission is to represent the entire Palestinian people including those of the territories and members of its diaspora.

      The first difficulty, as our rapporteur shows and underscores, is to wait for genuine elections at the Palestinian Legislative Council, which is a parliamentary authority envisaged under the Palestinian constitution. The last elections took place in 2006. Many members of parliament are in prison or prevented from leaving Gaza. In other words, it is a paralysed legislative authority. The National Council – the parliament of the Palestinian people – has hardly ever been convened, and its representativeness may be questioned, for lack of elections. It is, indeed, a venturesome wager for our Assembly to have tried to evolve towards the implementation of measures guaranteeing public freedoms and for institutions to not proceed based on popular legitimacy, which is, however, indispensable. It is a daring, but essential, wager. The rapporteur rightly states that Palestinian persons with responsibility indicate that the cause of the difficulties in progressing is the situation of occupation to which their territories are subjected, although one might be tempted to exonerate oneself on the ground of that occupation. It cannot be ignored that it weighs heavily and negatively on any positive political evolution in Palestine.

      The mayor of Ramallah, whom I met in his town hall some years ago, described the difficulties he had in moving about in his own territory and even within his own municipality. Reconciliation of the two major Palestinian families, which, alas, is still being awaited, could create a dynamic, but does everyone want that? The perpetuation of the status quo may, especially in the young, sow the seed of political disillusion as to the feasibility of a two-State society, which is the only viable solution.

      The recognition of Israel, the rejection of violence and the acceptance of past agreements are the three criteria defined by the Quartet to support a Palestinian government of national understanding. To see the Palestinians become Partners for Democracy, let us help them quickly become partners in peace.

      Mr HEER (Switzerland) – I thank Mr Xuclà for his report. We heard a lot about the bashing of Israel because of the so-called occupation, but Israel is the only democratic State in the Near East and the Middle East, and it is the only solid partner we know there. The problem of Palestine is that it is divided between Hamastan, also known as Gaza, and the West Bank. There is a divided Palestinian society, and you cannot blame Israel for any of the occupation because we had a peace accord – the Oslo Accord – which was made but not kept by the Palestinian sending suicide bombers every day or every week. We all remember those awful things we saw, including exploded buses and so on.

      I hope that Palestine can become a democratic State, but I doubt whether that will be the case. Ms Durrieu said that Hamas might even win a democratic election. They once won a democratic election, and we should ask ourselves how it is possible that a terrorist organisation is winning democratic elections. It is because people in Palestine are fed up, or were fed up, with corrupt leaders, and in Hamas they saw an alternative party that looks out for the small and ordinary people, and makes promises, which, of course, are false because it is a terrorist organisation. It is the fault of the Palestinians that they have a corrupt system and that they let it be a corrupt system.

      I support Jordi Xuclà. The Council of Europe should really work to help the Palestinians in a democratic revolution. I am sure you will be able to find peace in the Middle East if Israel has a democratic partner it can trust, and if Israel can be sure that, if there is a peace accord, it will also be kept by the other side. The situation is as it is, but I stress that the accusations blaming Israel for the occupation – mainly from the left – are false. A State, regardless of whether it is Israel, Switzerland or whatever, has one task: to be a secure State and a safe place for its citizens. Even Israel has to be a safe place for the Arabic people who live there. That is the duty of the State and that is what Israel is doing.

      Mr ROCHEBLOINE (France) – I welcome the tone of the report, which offers a kind of consolidation of the Partnership for Democracy established in 2011 between the Palestinian National Council and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In a region that is continually fraught with a tragic chain of violence, fighting and exile, everything that can foster the development of democratic principles and individual liberties in a forward-looking way has to be warmly welcomed. However, it behoves us to remain lucid about the difficulties facing that development, difficulties of which our colleague Mr Xuclà’s report gives several vivid examples. The division into two parts of the territory placed under the political authority of the PNC and the constant pressure exerted by Israel on the daily life of Palestinians and any political initiatives of their council are not supportive of the peaceful construction of a democratic society.

      Among the first characteristics of a political entity on the path towards statehood – this is a sound and incontestable doctrine – is its capacity to act as a legal entity, a subject under international law, and as a player on the international stage. We cannot say the current policies of the Government of Israel are such that they would permit the Palestinian authorities to develop that capacity. However, I am convinced that recognising effectively, in all its dimensions, the international selfhood of Palestine is the basis on which we can establish a stable solution to this conflict. Of course, for that we need the walls to tumble and fall: the metaphorical walls of misunderstanding and the concrete walls that are like scars on the land.

      This is a place that has received a message of international love. We know that it does not depend on our Assembly in any primordial way, even though this is a good place for discussion and for getting together. We also know that it is only in the context of stability and security that any initiatives developed here will achieve their full significance. Only with this perspective can the process of democratisation and modernisation be truly launched.

      With the proviso of those comments, I support the draft resolution tabled by the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy and its rapporteur.

      Mr KHADER (Palestine, Partner for Democracy) – Dear colleagues, let me first congratulate and thank Mr Xuclà and the Secretariat team who assisted him on their remarkable work in preparing this report, which is definitely objective, fair and principled. It has caught the gist of the matter.

      Alongside freedom and independence, it is one of the utmost aspirations of the Palestinian people to build a modern, pluralistic democracy that respects human rights and guarantees equality for all its citizens – women and men. But we are living in a peculiar and complex situation. Just as the Israelis’ ongoing occupation of Palestine impedes the achievement of our independence, it is also a main obstacle in the path of our democratic development.

      Occupation is relevant here. One of the most recent examples of this is the declaration by Prime Minister Netanyahu that he will never allow Palestinian elections in which Hamas takes part to take place. Now, I ask you: what kind of democratic elections are they when a party that has won about 30% or 40% of the vote in the most recent elections is excluded?

      Another serious impediment to our democratic process is the Palestinian split. Even here, the Israeli factor in encouraging and pressing to maintain that split is strongly evident. I must add that the negative attitude taken by the United States and some European powers towards the results of the most recent elections has played an important role in precipitating and perpetuating the split. I must admit, however, that all this explains but does not justify our shortcomings, or relieve us of our responsibilities.

      I belong to a party that is affiliated to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), but which adopts critical, even oppositionist, positions towards many of the policies pursued by the PLO majority. We would like to see more resolution in ending the split and achieving national reconciliation. We would like elections to be called immediately. We would like to see more respect for the rule of law, basic freedoms, human rights and the role of democratic institutions. From this position, we consider that our partnership with the Council of Europe is one of the important guarantees for the protection and future development of our democracy. This is why we strongly support the draft resolution that has been put to the Assembly.

      The PRESIDENT* – Thank you. We now move on to the last speaker, Mr Küçükcan of Turkey.

      Mr KÜÇÜKCAN (Turkey) * – The Palestinian question is of primary importance if we are to solve the problems in our region and achieve a sustainable peace. If we do not succeed in solving this issue, our future will be very dark. The Parliamentary Assembly has given the Palestinian National Council the status of partnership. As the report says, the Palestinian delegation is reaching the highest levels of participation in the work of the Assembly.

      I congratulate Mr Xuclà on maintaining the two-State solution. We need to stress that Israel’s colonisation of territory in the Palestinian State is illegal. This is the essence of the solution and it is right that he should have stated these facts. As the rapporteur put it so clearly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe should be following very closely the process of political reform in Palestine and the Palestinian National Council. That is a very important responsibility for our Assembly. Moreover, the report stresses that the PNC is not able to work as a parliament or parliamentary assembly. Israel has stopped the process by arresting people, putting them in administrative detention and even condemning them to serious sentences.

      The report states that Hamas is not respecting the decisions taken to lead to conciliation. If conciliation is to be achieved, it is of course incumbent on the two parties to participate in the process. But it is only Hamas that has won an election, even though it has not been given the right to govern. Israel is undermining any attempt at an agreement. For instance, 154 hectares of arable land have been seized in the Jericho region. That is undermining all efforts to find a solution.

      The international community must put a stop to this colonisation. Moreover, in 1947, the United Nations decided on the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people and on their right to become a State with the capital of Jerusalem. That is not an option; it is a moral and legal necessity.

      The PRESIDENT – Thank you, Mr Küçükcan. I must now interrupt the list of speakers. The speeches of members on the list of speakers who have been present during the debate but have not been able to speak may be given to the Table Office for publication in the official report within four hours. As far as possible, that should be done electronically.

      I call Mr Xuclà to reply. You have just over four minutes.

      Mr XUCLÀ (Spain)* – I thank everyone for this very lively and interesting debate, which has been enriched by your considerations. We have not always agreed with one another. None the less, let me deal with three points of the many points made in the debate.

      Mr Vareikis said that we are specialists in reconciliation and that we are professors of democracy. Yes, we are indeed specialists in reconciliation. In 1948, after the Second World War, Europe was capable of reconciliation. In the Parliamentary Assembly today, we have together States, people and nationalities that are in confrontation, and our obligation is to seek and find reconciliation. We are one of the few international parliamentary forums to have a delegation from Palestine and one from Israel, despite what happened here in Europe and in Israel in May 1948 – the State of Israel – and reconciliation between the parties should be possible here. Of course that will require ending the occupation. I agree with those who say that the occupation is an element that questions the viability of democratic institutions in Palestine, but I also agree with those who say that Palestinian friends have their own obligations. They have their own capacity to develop the democratic functions that have been affected.

      Ms Durrieu, who is my platonic and political friend here in the Assembly, said something very interesting about the conception of democracy. She spoke about the elections in 2006. We the international community negated the result of the ballot box. We should recall the results of the elections in Algeria in the 1980s. Democratic power can be achieved through the ballot box. Democrats should respond peacefully and try to obtain reconciliation, although that might be a major challenge. Some results can question democracy.

      Mr Frécon mentioned something very important: new generations of young people in Palestine could become disillusioned. To prevent that from happening, they should assume responsibility and pick up the challenge, so that new blood and renewed energy are injected into the Palestinian National Authority.

      I address my final message especially to our friends in the Palestinian delegation: we do not want to leave you alone; we want to continue active co-operation with you. First, we should try to ensure that your government assists you. A representative from the Palestinian Parliament should be here in the front row accompanying you. For many years, you continued to work with us in this school of democracy. You should not be the exception in representing what is best about Palestine. All our mutual undertakings should be adopted tomorrow, so that two States – a democratic State without security and a people who do not have a State – can live together peacefully in a stable and democratic Middle East.

      The PRESIDENT* – Thank you very much, Mr Xuclà. Does the chairperson of the committee wish to speak?

      Mr Mogens JENSEN (Denmark) – On behalf of the committee, I want to thank Mr Xuclà for this well-prepared report – something that is also due to the work of secretariat. I visited the Palestinian territories just three weeks ago, and I know how difficult conditions are there. As many people have said, this is a partnership and partnerships involve commitments on both sides. The report and the debate are signs that we will live up to our commitments, as will our Palestinian colleagues, and I look forward to further co-operation and a good partnership between us. Thank you for a very good debate.

      The PRESIDENT* – Thank you, Mr Jensen. The Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy has presented a draft resolution, Document 14002, to which four amendments have been tabled.

      I understand that the Chairperson of the Political Affairs Committee wishes to propose to the Assembly that Amendments 1, 2 and 4 to the draft resolution, which were unanimously adopted by the committee, should be declared as adopted by the Assembly. The committee also wishes to accept Amendment 2, as amended by a sub-amendment that has been proposed. Given the sub-amendment, we must take this amendment separately, according to the usual procedures. Therefore, we will submit only Amendments 1 and 4 to the unanimous procedure. Is that correct, Mr Jensen.

      Mr Mogens JENSEN (Denmark) – Yes.

      The PRESIDENT* – Does anyone object?

      There is no objection, so I declare that Amendments 1 and 4 to the draft resolution have been adopted.

      We now have to discuss the other amendments. I remind colleagues that speaking time on each amendment is 30 seconds.

      I call Mr Dişli to support Amendment 2 on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee. You have 30 seconds.

      Mr DİŞLİ (Turkey) – We want to reiterate our council’s strong opposition to the death penalty.

      The PRESIDENT* – I call Mr Xuclà to support the sub-amendment on behalf of the Political Affairs Committee.

      Mr XUCLÀ (Spain) – The sub-amendment would delete the word “authorities” after Hamas. We do not consider Hamas to have authorities.

       The PRESIDENT* – Does anyone wish to speak against the sub-amendment?       That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the mover of the main amendment?

      Mr DİŞLİ (Turkey) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT* – What is the opinion of the committee on the sub-amendment?

      Mr Mogens JENSEN (Denmark) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT* – The vote is open.

      The sub-amendment is adopted.

      Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment, as amended?

      That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee on the amendment, as amended?

       Mr Mogens JENSEN (Denmark) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT* – The vote is open.

      I call Mr Dişli to support Amendment 3 on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee. You have 30 seconds.

      Mr DİŞLİ (Turkey) – The amendment is self-explanatory. We would like to tell the Israeli authorities that the detained Palestinian MPs should be released.

      The PRESIDENT* – Does anyone wish to speak against the amendment? That is not the case.

      What is the opinion of the committee?

      Mr Mogens JENSEN (Denmark) – In favour.

      The PRESIDENT* – The vote is open.

      We will now proceed to vote on the whole of the draft resolution contained in Document 14002, as amended. A simple majority is required.

      The vote is open.

9. Next public business

      The PRESIDENT* – The Assembly will hold its next public sitting tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. with the agenda that was agreed yesterday.

      The sitting is closed.

      (The sitting was closed at 8.05 p.m.)

CONTENTS

1. Election of a judge to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Slovenia

2. Rules of procedure

3. Changes in the membership of committees

4. Questions to Mr Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

Questions: Mr Ghiletchi, Mr Le Borgn’, Ms Lundgren, Mr Wold, Mr Kox, Mr Rochebloine, Mr Zourabian,

Mr Herkel, Mr Kandemir, Mr Omtzigt.

5. Europe Prize

6. Joint debate: Preventing the radicalisation of children by fighting the root causes and Towards a framework of competences for democratic citizenship

Presentation by Ms Fataliyeva of the report of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development, Document 14010 and addendum.

Presentation by Mr Legendre of the report of the Committee on Committee on Science, Education and Media, Document 13992.

Presentation by Sir Roger Gale of the opinion of the Committee on Science, Education and Media, Document 14025.

Presentation by Ms Heinrich of the opinion of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination, Document 14024.

Speakers: Mr Küçükcan, Mr Kürkçü, Ms Dalloz, Ms Bonet, Ms Gambaro, Ms Zimmermann, Mr Rouquet,

Ms Hoffmann, Ms Quéré, Mr Heer, Mr Howell, Ms Santerini, Mr Salmond, Ms Åberg, Mr Byrne, Ms Durrieu, Mr Hamidine, Mr Eseyan, Mr Ghiletchi, Ms Antičević Marinović, Ms Johnsen, Baroness Massey, Mr Nissinen.

Draft resolution in Document 14010, as amended, adopted.

Draft resolution in Document 139927 adopted.

Draft resolution in Document 13992 adopted.

7. Election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Slovenia

8. Evaluation of the partnership for democracy in respect of the Palestinian National Council

Presentation by Mr Xucla of the report of the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy, Document 14002.

Presentation by Mr Disli of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Document 14021.

Presentation by Ms Centemero of the opinion of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination, Document 14022.

Speakers: Mr Kox, Mr Feist, Mr Corsini, Ms Lundgren, Mr Sabella, Mr Vareikis, Ms Durrieu, Mr Forer, Mr Frécon, Mr Heer, Mr Rochebloine, Mr Khader, Mr Küçükcan

Draft resolution in Document 14002, as amended, adopted.

9. Next public business

Appendix I

Representatives or Substitutes who signed the Attendance Register in accordance with Rule 11.2 of the Rules of Procedure. The names of Substitutes who replaced absent Representatives are printed in small letters. The names of those who were absent or apologised for absence are followed by an asterisk

Pedro AGRAMUNT

Tasmina AHMED-SHEIKH

Brigitte ALLAIN*

Jean-Charles ALLAVENA*

Werner AMON/Eduard Köck

Luise AMTSBERG/Annette Groth

Lord Donald ANDERSON

Paride ANDREOLI/Augusto Michelotti

Ingrid ANTIČEVIĆ MARINOVIĆ

Sirkka-Liisa ANTTILA

Ben-Oni ARDELEAN*

Iwona ARENT

Volodymyr ARIEV

Anna ASCANI/Tamara Blazina

Mehmet BABAOĞLU*

Theodora BAKOYANNIS*

David BAKRADZE/Chiora Taktakishvili

Gérard BAPT/Jean-Claude Frécon

Doris BARNETT/ Mechthild Rawert

José Manuel BARREIRO*

Meritxell BATET/ Soraya Rodríguez Ramos

Deniz BAYKAL

Guto BEBB/Kelly Tolhurst

Marieluise BECK

Ondřej BENEŠIK/Gabriela Pecková

Levan BERDZENISHVILI*

Deborah BERGAMINI*

Sali BERISHA/Oerd Bylykbashi

Włodzimierz BERNACKI

Anna Maria BERNINI/Claudio Fazzone

Maria Teresa BERTUZZI/ Francesco Maria Amoruso

Andris BĒRZINŠ/Nellija Kleinberga

Jokin BILDARRATZ

Gülsün BİLGEHAN

Tobias BILLSTRÖM

Oleksandr BILOVOL

Ľuboš BLAHA*

Philippe BLANCHART*

Maryvonne BLONDIN

Tilde BORK*

Mladen BOSIĆ*

Anne BRASSEUR/Martine Mergen

Piet De BRUYN*/

Margareta BUDNER

Valentina BULIGA

Dawn BUTLER*

Nunzia CATALFO*

Elena CENTEMERO*

José CEPEDA

Irakli CHIKOVANI*

Vannino CHITI*

Anastasia CHRISTODOULOPOULOU

Lise CHRISTOFFERSEN

Paolo CORSINI

David CRAUSBY*

Yves CRUCHTEN*

Zsolt CSENGER-ZALÁN*

Katalin CSÖBÖR*

Geraint DAVIES/Liam Byrne

Joseph DEBONO GRECH*

Renata DESKOSKA*

Alain DESTEXHE

Manlio DI STEFANO

Şaban DİŞLİ

Sergio DIVINA

Aleksandra DJUROVIĆ*

Namik DOKLE

Francesc Xavier DOMENECH/ Ángela Ballester

Jeffrey DONALDSON

Elvira DROBINSKI-WEIß*

Daphné DUMERY/Petra De Sutter

Alexander [The Earl of] DUNDEE*

Nicole DURANTON/Jacques Legendre

Josette DURRIEU

Mustafa DZHEMILIEV/Andrii Lopushanskyi

Mikuláš DZURINDA*

Lady Diana ECCLES*

Franz Leonhard EẞL

Markar ESEYAN

Nigel EVANS

Samvel FARMANYAN*

Joseph FENECH ADAMI*

Cătălin Daniel FENECHIU*

Doris FIALA

Daniela FILIPIOVÁ/Marek Černoch

Ute FINCKH-KRÄMER

Axel E. FISCHER

Bernard FOURNIER*

Béatrice FRESKO-ROLFO*

Pierre-Alain FRIDEZ

Martin FRONC*

Sahiba GAFAROVA

Sir Roger GALE

Adele GAMBARO

Xavier GARCÍA ALBIOL

José Ramón GARCÍA HERNÁNDEZ*

Karl GARÐARSSON*

Iryna GERASHCHENKO*

Tina GHASEMI/Boriana Åberg

Valeriu GHILETCHI

Mihai GHIMPU/Alina Zotea

Francesco Maria GIRO

Pavol GOGA*

Carlos Alberto GONÇALVES

Oleksii GONCHARENKO

Rainer GOPP

Alina Ștefania GORGHIU/Maria Grecea

Sylvie GOY-CHAVENT/Marie-Christine Dalloz

François GROSDIDIER*

Dzhema GROZDANOVA

Gergely GULYÁS*

Emine Nur GÜNAY

Valgerður GUNNARSDÓTTIR*

Jonas GUNNARSSON*

Antonio GUTIÉRREZ

Maria GUZENINA

Márton GYÖNGYÖSI*

Sabir HAJIYEV

Andrzej HALICKI/Tomasz Cimoszewicz

Hamid HAMID*

Alfred HEER

Gabriela HEINRICH*

Michael HENNRICH/ Thomas Feist

Martin HENRIKSEN/Christian Langballe

Françoise HETTO-GAASCH

John HOWELL

Anette HÜBINGER*

Johannes HÜBNER*

Andrej HUNKO

Rafael HUSEYNOV

Ekmeleddin Mehmet İHSANOĞLU

Florin IORDACHE*

Denis JACQUAT

Gediminas JAKAVONIS

Sandra JAKELIĆ/Josip Bilaver

Gordan JANDROKOVIĆ

Tedo JAPARIDZE*

Andrzej JAWORSKI/Daniel Milewski

Michael Aastrup JENSEN

Mogens JENSEN

Frank J. JENSSEN/Hans Fredrik Grøvan

Florina-Ruxandra JIPA*

Ögmundur JÓNASSON

Aleksandar JOVIČIĆ*

Anne KALMARI/Petri Honkonen

Erkan KANDEMIR

Marietta KARAMANLI*

Niklas KARLSSON/Eva-Lena Jansson

Nina KASIMATI

Vasiliki KATRIVANOU

Ioanneta KAVVADIA

Filiz KERESTECİOĞLU DEMİR

İlhan KESİCİ

Danail KIRILOV*

Bogdan KLICH/Aleksander Pociej

Manana KOBAKHIDZE*

Haluk KOÇ

Željko KOMŠIĆ/Saša Magazinović

Ksenija KORENJAK KRAMAR

Attila KORODI

Alev KORUN/Nikolaus Scherak

Rom KOSTŘICA*

Elvira KOVÁCS*

Tiny KOX

Borjana KRIŠTO

Florian KRONBICHLER*

Eerik-Niiles KROSS/Andres Herkel

Talip KÜÇÜKCAN

Ertuğrul KÜRKÇÜ

Athina KYRIAKIDOU/Stella Kyriakides

Yuliya L OVOCHKINA/Dmytro Shpenov

Inese LAIZĀNE*

Pierre-Yves LE BORGN’

Jean-Yves LE DÉAUT*

Luís LEITE RAMOS

Valentina LESKAJ*

Terry LEYDEN*

Inese LĪBIŅA-EGNERE

Ian LIDDELL-GRAINGER*

Georgii LOGVYNSKYI

Filippo LOMBARDI

François LONCLE/Catherine Quéré

George LOUCAIDES*

Philippe MAHOUX*

Marit MAIJ*

Muslum MAMMADOV*

Thierry MARIANI

Soňa MARKOVÁ/Pavel Holík

Milica MARKOVIĆ*

Duarte MARQUES

Alberto MARTINS

Meritxell MATEU/Carles Jordana

Liliane MAURY PASQUIER

Michael McNAMARA/Seán Crowe

Sir Alan MEALE/Phil Wilson

Ermira MEHMETI DEVAJA*

Evangelos MEIMARAKIS

Ana Catarina MENDES*

Jasen MESIĆ

Attila MESTERHÁZY*

Jean-Claude MIGNON

Marianne MIKKO

Anouchka van MILTENBURG/ Pieter Omtzigt

Orhan MİROĞLU

Olivia MITCHELL*

Arkadiusz MULARCZYK

Thomas MÜLLER/Roland Rino Büchel

Oľga NACHTMANNOVÁ*

Hermine NAGHDALYAN/Naira Karapetyan

Marian NEACȘU*

Andrei NEGUTA

Zsolt NÉMETH

Miroslav NENUTIL

Michele NICOLETTI

Aleksandar NIKOLOSKI*

Johan NISSINEN

Julia OBERMEIER/Volker Ullrich

Marija OBRADOVIĆ*

Žarko OBRADOVIĆ*

Judith OEHRI*

Carina OHLSSON

Suat ÖNAL

Ria OOMEN-RUIJTEN

Joseph O’REILLY*

Tom PACKALÉN*

Judith PALLARÉS

Ganira PASHAYEVA

Florin Costin PÂSLARU*

Jaana PELKONEN/Anne Louhelainen

Agnieszka POMASKA

Cezar Florin PREDA

John PRESCOTT/Baroness Doreen Massey

Mark PRITCHARD*

Lia QUARTAPELLE PROCOPIO*

Carmen QUINTANILLA*

Kerstin RADOMSKI*

Mailis REPS*

Andrea RIGONI

François ROCHEBLOINE

Melisa RODRÍGUEZ HERNÁNDEZ

Helena ROSETA*

René ROUQUET

Alex SALMOND

Vincenzo SANTANGELO/Giuseppe Galati

Milena SANTERINI

Nadiia SAVCHENKO*

Deborah SCHEMBRI*

Stefan SCHENNACH

Paul SCHNABEL

Ingjerd SCHOU

Koos SCHOUWENAAR

Nico SCHRIJVER*

Frank SCHWABE

Predrag SEKULIĆ*

Aleksandar SENIĆ*

Senad ŠEPIĆ

Samad SEYIDOV*

Paula SHERRIFF*

Bernd SIEBERT

Adão SILVA

Valeri SIMEONOV*

Andrej ŠIRCELJ

Arturas SKARDŽIUS/Egidijus Vareikis

Jan ŠKOBERNE*

Serhiy SOBOLEV

Olena SOTNYK

Lorella STEFANELLI

Yanaki STOILOV/Valeri Jablianov

Karin STRENZ*

Ionuț-Marian STROE*

Dominik TARCZYŃSKI*

Damien THIÉRY

Antoni TRENCHEV*

Krzysztof TRUSKOLASKI

Goran TUPONJA/Snežana Jonica

İbrahim Mustafa TURHAN/Burhanettin Uysal

Nada TURINA-ĐURIĆ*

Konstantinos TZAVARAS/Liana Kanelli

Leyla Şahin USTA

Dana VÁHALOVÁ

Snorre Serigstad VALEN/Kristin Ørmen Johnsen

Petrit VASILI

Imre VEJKEY/Rózsa Hoffmann

Stefaan VERCAMER*

Birutė VĖSAITĖ

Nikolaj VILLUMSEN/Rasmus Nordqvist

Vladimir VORONIN/Liliana Palihovici

Viktor VOVK

Nataša VUČKOVIĆ*

Draginja VUKSANOVIĆ*

Karl-Georg WELLMANN*

Katrin WERNER*

Jacek WILK

Andrzej WOJTYŁA

Morten WOLD

Gisela WURM

Jordi XUCLÀ

Serap YAŞAR

Leonid YEMETS

Tobias ZECH*

Kristýna ZELIENKOVÁ

Marie-Jo ZIMMERMANN

Emanuelis ZINGERIS*

Naira ZOHRABYAN

Levon ZOURABIAN

Vacant Seat, Cyprus*

ALSO PRESENT

Representatives and Substitutes not authorised to vote

Sílvia Eloïsa BONET

Kerstin LUNDGREN

Barbara ROSENKRANZ

Observers

Oded FORER

Héctor LARIOS CÓRDOVA

Armando LUNA CANALES

Ulises RAMÍREZ NÚÑEZ

Partners for democracy

Hanane ABOULFATH

Mohammed AMEUR

Hassan ARIF

Nezha EL OUAFI

El Mokhtar GHAMBOU

Abdelali HAMIDINE

Qais KHADER

Abdesselam LEBBAR

Bernard SABELLA

Mohamed YATIM

Appendix II

Representatives or Substitutes who took part in the ballot for the election of the judge to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Slovenia

Lord Donald ANDERSON

Paride ANDREOLI/Augusto Michelotti

Sirkka-Liisa ANTTILA

Volodymyr ARIEV

Mehmet BABAOĞLU

Doris BARNETT/ Mechthild Rawert

Deniz BAYKAL

Tobias BILLSTRÖM

Margareta BUDNER

Paolo CORSINI

Geraint DAVIES/Liam Byrne

Şaban DİŞLİ

Francesc Xavier DOMENECH/Ángela Ballester

Markar ESEYAN

Nigel EVANS

Doris FIALA

Sir Roger GALE

Valeriu GHILETCHI

Carlos Alberto GONÇALVES

Dzhema GROZDANOVA

Emine Nur GÜNAY

Sabir HAJIYEV

Andrzej HALICKI/Tomasz Cimoszewicz

Martin HENRIKSEN/Christian Langballe

Françoise HETTO-GAASCH

Andrej HUNKO

Ekmeleddin Mehmet İHSANOĞLU

Erkan KANDEMIR

Nina KASIMATI

Vasiliki KATRIVANOU

Ioanneta KAVVADIA

İlhan KESİCİ

Bogdan KLICH/Aleksander Pociej

Talip KÜÇÜKCAN

Filippo LOMBARDI

Duarte MARQUES

Alberto MARTINS

Sir Alan MEALE/Phil Wilson

Evangelos MEIMARAKIS

Orhan MİROĞLU

Ria OOMEN-RUIJTEN

Agnieszka POMASKA

John PRESCOTT/Baroness Doreen Massey

René ROUQUET

Koos SCHOUWENAAR

Frank SCHWABE

Adão SILVA

Lorella STEFANELLI

Yanaki STOILOV/Valeri Jablianov

Krzysztof TRUSKOLASKI

İbrahim Mustafa TURHAN/Burhanettin Uysal

Leyla Şahin USTA

Jacek WILK

Jordi XUCLÀ

Serap YAŞAR