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On January 27, the Member of the RA NA Delegation to PACE, the deputy of the NA Civil Contract Faction Sona Ghazaryan delivered a speech on the Role of the Universities and Scientific Community in Defence of Democracy on behalf of ALDE Political Group at PACE Winter Session

The deputy noted in her speech:

“Thank you, rapporteur for your report with all the highlights and messages.

This is an essential and timely report. What we have to deal with nowadays is the rise of populism and nationalism that continuously create social conflicts and challenge the realisation of human rights in all European societies.

We as a group agree that universities should be the human rights and democracy incubators and education itself crucial role in safeguarding rule of law. The role of academia should also be noted with its strong potential to promote core principles on the European Convention on Human Rights.

Hence, the strong cooperation between the Council of Europe and the academia can help to overcome the challenges we face, in practice assist the governments of the member states along with the legislative bodies in better domestic implementation of conventions. Here I would like to emphasize the role of the Building the Open Council of Europe Academic Networks (OCEAN) in improvement of co-operation of the member states on the specific subjects such as fight against corruption or gender based violence.

I see the Council of Europe Academic Networks project as an additional tool to facilitate and raise the visibility of the CoE and the tremendous work it undertakes to improve the lives of citizens.

We need to push forward the non-governmental organisations (NGOs), local authorities, schools and universities to work together as only together we can make a real difference in a society in which human rights and democracy prevail. A multifaceted approach, a thorough joint perspective will help us to build defences of peace in the minds of younger generation.

The OCEAN is an important initiative for providing knowledge and information from the Council of Europe that can be used in education, training and research. It surely brings our organization with its conventions to our homes, families, cities and states.

So what do we need to do now in the national level? First of all, we all should raise the awareness among the universities about this initiative. As suggested in the report we can organize parliamentary hearings to encourage the creation of national academic network under the Ocean umbrella.

Thanks to the Group for trusting me.”