BERLIN, July 7. /TASS/. Deputy Speaker of the State Duma (Russia’s lower house of parliament) Pyotr Tolstoy, the head of the Russian delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PA), has called on the PA lawmakers not to consider three anti-Russian draft resolutions at the annual session in Berlin.
The draft resolutions are about human rights in Crimea, criticism of the Russian judicial system and the 10th anniversary of the events in South Ossetia in August 2008.
"The Russian Federation suggests that this session should not consider these three resolutions so that their authors could come to the Russian Federation themselves and see with their own eyes the real state of affairs, in order not to put the Assembly in a situation when we pass the decisions which are evidently far from reality," Tolstoy said in his address to a meeting of the OSCE PA Standing Committee on Saturday.
"Therefore, Russia’s proposal is that these three resolutions should not be considered at this session but be postponed for a later date," he underscored.
"In our view, they are of biased and confrontational nature, while our organization is committed to enhancing cooperation," the head of the Russian delegation said. "Mostly, those draft resolutions are based not on facts but on allegations and so-called fake news."
"Nobody has the right to teach Russia lessons"
Addressing the author of one of the resolutions, OSCE PA member Margareta Cederfelt (Sweden), Tolstoy assured her that he was for "the freedom of expression and, of course, for the freedom of discussions." He said that "due to a confrontational stance against Russia, the Russian delegation does not take part in debates on documents of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe."
"Now, PACE is struggling to find a way out of this situation," the politician noted.
"Provided that we in our organization want to repeat confrontational points, which have nothing to do with reality and which rely on several non-governmental organizations’ conclusions, I would like to say that Russia categorically opposes such an approach," he said.
"Nobody has the right to teach Russia lessons," Tolstoy concluded.
Draft resolutions
One the above-mentioned resolutions was drafted by the Ukrainian delegation and is devoted to alleged human rights violations in Crimea. The document consists of 17 demands. They urge Russia to stop uprooting instruction in the Ukrainian language in Crimea and to terminate the decision recognizing Mejlis of the Crimean Tatars as an extremist organization. The authors demanded that "favorable conditions" be created for independent work of journalists, human rights activists and lawyers on the Black Sea peninsula.
The Swedish delegation submitted a draft resolution urging Russia to adopt laws against hate crimes and to ensure fair court trials in line with the European Convention on Human Rights. OSCE PA member Margareta Cederfelt, who has drafted the resolution, asks Russia to release anyone who has been detained for peaceful manifestations of their right to expression and rallies.
Georgia drafted the third resolution timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of events in South Ossetia. Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee Sofio Katsarava, the author of the document, calls for a peaceful solution to the conflict in line with the international law and the Helsinki principles and for full implementation of the ceasefire of August 12, 2008.