Amendment No. 3 | Doc. 12957 | 26 June 2012

The situation of human rights defenders in Council of Europe member States

Signatories: Ms Mailis REPS, Estonia, ALDE ; Mr Mevlüt ÇAVUŞOĞLU, Turkey, EDG ; Mr Serhii KIVALOV, Ukraine, EDG ; Mr Christoph STRÄSSER, Germany, SOC ; Mr Klaas de VRIES, Netherlands, SOC

Origin - 2012 - Third part-session

In the draft resolution, paragraph 5.6, after the words "foreign powers", replace the words "and subjecting them to administrative , fiscal and judicial harassment" by the following words:

"unless there exists compelling evidence to this effect".

Explanatory note

It is worth emphasising that any accusation of a human rights defender being an extremist or an agent of a foreign power should be supported by solid evidence and, in principle, ungrounded accusations should be avoided. Moreover, there is no need to repeat that states should put an end to the harassment of human rights defenders, as this idea has already been expressed in paragraph 5.2 of the draft resolution.