International

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has described Israel's arrest of the Chairman of the Palestinian Parliament, twenty other Palestinian MPs and eight members of the Palestinian government as “unacceptable”.

Dutch Christian Democrat Senator and PACE Chairman René van der Linden today issued the demand for the immediate release of Aziz Dweik, Chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council, along with the rest of the parliamentarians and government ministers.

Speaking in support of the call, SP Senator and PACE member Tiny Kox said, “In January when I was an official observer of the Palestinian parliamentary elections for the Council of Europe I judged them to be well-organised and exceptionally democratically run. It is a scandal that Israel, in unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territories, is treating the immunity of lawfully elected members of parliament with utter contempt. Europe should be protesting against this, loudly and clearly. The Dutch government could take example from the Parliamentary Assembly's forthright language.”

The Council of Europe unites forty-six European countries. Entirely separate from the European Union, it is principally concerned with human rights issues.