Sos Avetisyan, member of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, addressed the PACE winter session.
“Today we are discussing another important report about the restrictions of the NGO’s in different member countries. A cursory look at those countries will draw another map, a map of countries, which have problems with democracy, the hate speech and xenophobia is state-supported, the independent media is shut down, they usually refuse to implement the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in another words, the civic space is curbed.
In this context, I must mention, that alongside with different state institutions the international civil society organizations and independent international media have been raising questions, that different states have been silent about for this or that reason. During the 44-day war, when Azerbaijan and Turkey jointly launched an aggression against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, international human rights organizations, as well as independent international media, have covered and documented important facts that if everything was right or logical in this world, it should have been discussed in this very hemicycle. The human rights organizations as well as international media ignored the issues of barbarism committed, the use of phosphorus and cluster bombs prohibited by international law, they also reported about the mercenary-terrorists pimped into the conflict by Turkey, however, these entire documentations met the wall of silence and neutrality.
All the questions discussed in this hemicycle maybe are relevant or important; however, none of them entails such an urgency as the issue of returning the Armenian POWs and other captives, which again, if we had a slightly more humanitarian orientation in this chamber would have been taken place immediately.
The PACE has an institutional cooperation with the civil society organizations, however, often this protection of rights requires more actions from the states and obviously less is expected from the civil society organizations in creating public good. I think, at times we need to learn from the courage of those civil society organizations, which voice their frank opinion even knowing well that it might not be very pragmatic for them.
As a conclusion, it becomes more than clear, that when people’s right to live independently and with dignity is denied and is not condemned, it will surely bring similar situation elsewhere, where the dignity of other people is harmed. In this context, I want to drive your attention one more time for your parliaments and capitals alike, that seeds of negligence will not bring good fruit.
The protection of vibrant civil society across the borders is certainly a way of ensuring protection of human dignity when it is often denied by any member state”, said Sos Avetisyan.
