"Sixty-one years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Europe has not yet got rid of racism, anti-Semitism, prejudice against Roms and homophobia. On the contrary, it has added to this shameful list new forms of intolerance, such as Islam-phobia". Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, addressed a message on the occasion of the International Day of the Memory of the Holocaust. "The fight against any form of discrimination is one of the key priorities of the Council of Europe added Davis from the Palais de l’Europe in Strasbourg -. Our legal instruments, the monitoring systems and the awareness-raising campaigns, are useful to tackle all forms of such evil". "Now, we need facts he concludes -, not just words". The Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE closes its works today, after one week of sessions. Last Wednesday, the delegates of the 46 member states of the organisation had condemned "the massive breaches of human rights committed by the totalitarian Communist regimes", paying tribute to the victims of such crimes. The Assembly invited the Communist or post-Communist parties of the member states, if they have not done it yet, to "review the history of Communism and their past" and to "condemn it outright".
