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Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

Recommendation No. 2085 (2016) Previous revision

Strengthening the protection and role of human rights defenders in the member states of the Council of Europe

Parliamentary Assembly

1. Referring to its Resolution 2095 (2016) on strengthening the protection and role of human rights defenders in the member states of the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly recommends to the Committee of Ministers:

1.1. to intensify the dialogue with human rights defenders, in particular by conducting regular exchanges of views with them within the framework of the work of the bodies subordinate to it;

1.2. coordinate their work on this issue with the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, the Conference of International Non-Governmental Organisations and the Assembly, and to regularly exchange information with the Secretariat of the European Court of Human Rights on the issue of repression against lawyers;

1.3. create a platform for the protection of human rights defenders, similar to that built for journalists;

1.4. Report publicly and regularly and at least once a year to the Assembly on cases of intimidation of human rights defenders cooperating with Council of Europe bodies, in particular lawyers representing applicants to the European Court of Human Rights and representatives of civil society cooperating with the supervisory bodies of the Council of Europe and the Commissioner for Rights human;

1.5. develop other ways and means of strengthening the protection of human rights defenders against acts of intimidation and repression by state and non-state actors;

1.6. step up its cooperation on the protection of human rights defenders with other international organisations, in particular the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations;

1.7. consider revising the mandate of the Commissioner for Human Rights, which will empower him to deal with individual cases of persecution of human rights defenders in the Member States, thereby transforming this mandate into a fully functional regional mechanism for the protection of human rights defenders in Europe;

1.8. carry out a comprehensive assessment of the implementation by Member States of the Declaration on the Council of Europe's actions to improve the protection and promotion of human rights defenders (adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 6 February 2008), involving human rights NGOs in this process.