Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards

“The major social, political and legal challenge is our democracies’ ability to respond to the COVID-19 sanitary crisis effectively, without undermining Europe’s founding values of Democracy, Human Rights and Rule of Law. The Council of Europe, through its statutory organs and all its competent bodies and mechanisms will ensure that measures taken have a legal basis and remain proportional to the threat posed by the spread of the virus and limited in time“, said Christos Giakoumopoulos, Council of Europe Director General of Human Rights and Rule of Law, at a digital meeting organised by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

The topic of the meeting was the fight against COVID-19 and its impact on democracy: the participants aimed at contributing to the global conversation about the risk of the COVID-19 response leading to, or being used as a pretext for, undue restrictions on human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

Christos Giakoumopoulos took part in the meeting with the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Ann Linde and Minister for International Development Cooperation Peter Eriksson, as well as with other three representatives of key intergovernmental organisations: Michelle Bachelet, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Eamon Gilmore, EU Special Representative for Human Rights and Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.