“Television coverage reveals the methods used to `maintain order`  during the run-up to the Muscovite local government elections to be out of all proportion to any threat to public order. The brutality with which batons used by men who may or may not have been regular police officers is clearly staggeringly unacceptable in any civilised society.

 

The Russian Federation is in breach of the Convention on Human Rights and the reaction to peaceful demonstration demonstrates clearly why the overwhelming majority of Parliamentary Members of the UK delegation, of all parties, have continued to oppose the restoration of rights to the Russian delegation and supported maintenance of sanctions until such time as the Russian Federation is ready, willing and able to recognise and respect the terms of the Convention.

 

It is only a matter of weeks since the PACE voted to restore rights to the Federation and it is already clear that Russia has no intention of honouring its undertakings and the pledge to conform to PACE standards.  I would hope that the Committee of Ministers will address this issue when it meets in September and we shall need to return to it when the Parliamentary Assembly meets for its final plenary session at the beginning of October.  The scenes that we have witnessed are unacceptable and outrageous”.

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