Around two thousand people marched in Warsaw on Friday to protest the government's withdrawal plan (AFP Photo/Wojtek RADWANSKI) |
Strasbourg (France) (AFP) - The EU and the Council of Europe on Sunday voiced regret and alarm over the Polish right-wing government's move to withdraw from a landmark international treaty combating violence against women.
The Council of Europe said it was "alarmed"
that Poland's right-wing government was moving to withdraw from a landmark
international treaty combating violence against women.
Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro said over the
weekend that on Monday he would begin preparing the formal process to withdraw
from the Istanbul Convention.
The treaty is the world's first binding instrument to
prevent and combat violence against women, from marital rape to female genital
mutilation.
Ziobro has in the past dismissed it as "an
invention, a feminist creation aimed at justifying gay ideology".
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, told
AFP in Brussels that it "regrets that such an important matter has been
distorted by misleading arguments in some member states".
The Commission added that it would "continue its
efforts to finalise the EU's accession" of the convention, which was
signed in 2017 but has not yet been ratified.
'Highly regrettable'
A previous centrist Polish government signed the
treaty in 2012 and it was ratified in 2015.
The treaty was spearheaded by the Council of Europe,
the continent's oldest human rights organisation, and its Secretary General
Marija Pejcinovic Buric condemned the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS)
government's plan to withdraw.
"Leaving the Istanbul Convention would be highly
regrettable and a major step backwards in the protection of women against
violence in Europe," she said in a statement on Sunday.
"If there are any misconceptions or
misunderstandings about the convention, we are ready to clarify them in a
constructive dialogue."
There is growing anger among women in Turkey at the
growing number of
murders of women there (AFP Photo/Yasin AKGUL)
|
Around two thousand people marched in the Polish
capital Warsaw on Friday to protest the government's withdrawal plan, some
shouting "stop violence against women".
There was also outrage from several members of the
European Parliament, with Iratxe Garcia Perez, the Spanish leader of the
Socialist group, calling the decision "disgraceful".
"I stand with Polish citizens taking (to) the
streets to demand respect for women's rights," he tweeted.
The leader of the EU parliament's Renew Europe group,
Romania's former prime minister Dacian Ciolos, tweeted: "Using the fight
against the Istanbul Convention as an instrument to display its conservatism is
a new pitiful and pathetic move by some within the PiS government".
Other countries rejecting treaty
Irish centre-right MEP Frances Fitzgerald said it was
now essential for the whole of the EU to ratify the convention "so that no
woman is left unprotected and vulnerable to violence".
The Council of Europe stressed that the Istanbul
Convention's "sole objective" was to combat violence against women
and domestic violence.
Although the treaty does not explicitly mention gay
marriage, that has not stopped the backlash to it in Poland, Hungary and
Slovakia.
In Slovakia, the parliament rejected the treaty insisting
-- without proof -- that it was at odds with the country's constitutional
definition of marriage as a heterosexual union.
The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, which is
separate from the European Union, has no binding powers but brings together 47
member states to make recommendations on rights and democracy.
Warsaw has already clashed with the EU Commission over
reforms to its judicial system, championed by recently re-elected President
Andrzej Duda.
Turkey is also mulling a possible withdrawal from the
treaty, and on Sunday, women marched in several cities there to express support
for the treaty.
The demonstrations also reflect rising anger in Turkey
at the growing number of women killed, including the murder of university
student Pinar Gultekin this month.
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