PACE is looking in the wrong place for the corruption virus enveloping its body

STRASBOURG

The 5-day Spring session meetings of PACE ended yesterday. The reports prepared by the decisions of the committees first took their final shape in committee and were then finally debated on the General Assembly agenda and voted on.

At this stage of the process there is in fact not much to be done. The reports that come to the General Assembly stage are generally decided finally in line with the rapporteur's opinion. Things are no different at the committee stage. The result is in fact decided at the stage where it is determined which subject will be reported on and who the rapporteur will be. This stage is one at which, as might be assumed, there is no need for the accusation that the committees are necessarily biased and that their decisions are known in advance.

Generally those who are members of committees act on behalf of a group and themselves aspire to a subject. Who aspires to which subject is entirely a matter of political rancor or initiative. At this stage, if a better activity is put forth, the reports can well be influenced to conclude more objectively. Otherwise the reports generally remain in the hands of marginal groups with greater political motivations and rancor. And they can easily fill their sails with the ideological currents prevalent in Europe.

Perhaps not the only ideology, but anti-Turkey, anti-Erdoğan and anti-Islam sentiment is currently a prevalent ideological current in Europe, and it is possible to feel it strongly among the preferences of PACE members. In reports about Turkey or reports in which Turkey also figures, the rapporteurs meet with groups in Turkey that are entirely affiliated with terrorist organizations and write their reports. By what connections, and how they can remain so attached to these people's views, in fact need to be investigated separately.

A report debated and voted on yesterday was in fact a good opportunity to confront the marginal, ideological, prejudiced obsessions that have infected the reporting process within PACE. The Independent Investigation Body would for the first time bring onto the agenda the corruption involved in lobbying activities within PACE and investigate it. The report is said to have focused on the ethical dimensions of the lobbying activities that some Assembly members carried out with rapporteurs, particularly to influence reporting processes, and to have drawn attention to the drawbacks of excessive intimacies that would influence the report.

In fact, during this period in which this report was being debated, the most appropriate example that could be dwelt on for typical corruption under the roof of PACE could have been the Salih Muslim case. That this member of a terrorist organization, who is wanted on the charge of organizing a suicide attack in Turkey in which 29 innocent civilians lost their lives, enjoyed protection under the roof of PACE and was able to make speeches was in itself an example of integrated corruption.

There could be no better example for the corruption in which PACE members are involved. Which connections, which lobbying activities can turn a terrorist organization leader under the roof of PACE into an innocent hero of civil struggle? Although he is wanted by Interpol with a red notice, for which PACE deputy, by providing what benefits, can such a figure obtain this opportunity?

Moreover, Salih Muslim is only the latest example. Before him too, the PKK terrorist organization had been able to carry on a great many of its activities under this roof with the protections it enjoyed with PACE members of parliament.

Likewise, if one dwelt on the process of the award given to Murat Arslan, the former President of YARSAV, who was deemed worthy of the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize but is being tried on the grounds of being a member of the FETÖ structure, such dirty laundry under the roof of PACE would be spilled out. In any case, no one ever understood by what human rights struggle or by what activity Arslan had distinguished himself and been deemed worthy of this prize. The only explanation for such an award being deemed deserved by someone whom no one knows or recognizes, who has no distinct activity, whose only distinct activity or characteristic is bearing the accusation of being a member of the coup-plotting, human-rights-hostile FETÖ, could be none other than the bribery and corruption wheel that has infected PACE members.

Despite this, the Investigation Body's report on corruption allegations involving members within PACE did not even dwell on such examples. Instead, a zealousness has been displayed that tries to lay all the sin of corruption on Azerbaijan, over the meetings in particular Azerbaijani deputies held with rapporteurs for a report about their own country. The report focuses only on one country and on selected accusations concerning only one member state, Azerbaijan, in a way that gives the impression that the aim is to tarnish the reputation of a particular country. That the Investigation Body focused on such a narrow point also strongly gives the impression of an initiative aimed at causing Azerbaijan trouble in its relations with the Council of Europe. Even so, that this report too passed by majority vote meant nothing other than the manifestation of the incorrigible prejudice of PACE members against Azerbaijan, which they identify with anti-Armenianism.

Likewise, when it comes to the TRNC, nearly all PACE members close their ears in favor of the Greek Cypriots, just as when it comes to Turkey they close their ears in favor of Greece, the Armenians and the PKK...

In fact such partisanships too are typical examples of corruption, in that they very easily lead to favoritism and nepotism in reports. Instead of focusing on these, one of the honorary members who carried out the most legitimate lobbying activity in Turkey's favor was presented in the report as a great example of corruption because he allegedly did this with the honorary member entry card he used when entering PACE, and this was accepted.

The matter is absolutely not so; on the contrary, although the person concerned proved that he made all his entries with a normal member card after he began his legitimate lobbying activity in Turkey's favor, this matter continued to be inflated.

Never mind that; looking at this example you would think that this is how the biggest corruption in PACE occurs. Yet PACE has already become a degenerate organization afflicted from top to bottom with lies, corruption and partisanship. As they say, he died and nobody heard.