PACE Delegates against the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression of Will

• 01.24.2016, 14:47
•  Europe,  Armenia,  NKR

The Council of Europe as an international organization has an announced goal to protect basic human rights, among them the right to freedom of speech and expression of will. If we view the two draft resolutions on Karabakh conflict that are on the agenda of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in the context of the CoE defined goals, then we are to state that the draft resolutions are not only anti-Armenian in their nature, but also contradict the very goals of the CoE and the European values in general, Panorama.am writes.

Throughout the whole process of the preparation of the reports the opinion of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) was not taken into consideration (NKR representatives had no participation in the preparation of the reports) in spite of the fact that the reports directly refer to their fate. In this context it is important also to mention that neither of the authors of the two reports (neither R. Walter, nor M. Markovic) visited Nagorno-Karabakh Republic while preparing the reports. The reality becomes more illogical if we take into consideration that in case of other unrecognized or partly recognized republics, the same PACE gave them an opportunity to be represented in the institution. For example, in case of Kosovo in 2013 PACE decided to allow two representatives of the Kosovo Assembly (one representing the majority and one the opposition) to participate in PACE committee meetings. Besides, in the resolution adopted by PACE on Kosovo on June 20, 2010 (the situation in Kosovo* and the role of the Council of Europe) Parliamentary Assembly called the parties to establish political dialogue with the authorities of Kosovo. In case of Northern Cyprus still in 2004 PACE decided to integrate representatives of Northern Cyprus into the Cypriot delegation. Thus if we summarize the above mentioned, we are to state that the draft resolutions adopted by the PACE not only contradict the mission of PACE (PACE has never had experience of mediating in political settlement of conflicts) but also the previous experience of PACE and the European values – by voting in favor of the resolutions some PACE parliamentarians oppose the European values, give way to double standards and demonstrate discriminatory attitude depriving the NKR people of their right to freedom of speech and expression of will.