[quote]All that is required for evil to prevail is that good men to do nothing. ~ Edmund Burke[/quote]
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Council of Europe(CoE)[1] had a meeting on April 12 2011 in Istanbul and elaborated an egregiously misandric document called “Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence” also known as the Istanbul Convention[2]. On May 11 2011, the document has been opened for signature to all the member countries and collaborators[3]. The member countries of the Council of Europe are all countries geographically located in Europe with the notable exception of Belarus and the Holy See (the Vatican) which is a collaborating state alongside with the USA, Japan, Mexico and Canada.
The Council of Europe is not an institution of the EU per se, but it is intimately connected to the EU. The most important connection is that the president of the European Council (which is an institution of the EU) and the president of the Council of Europe is the same person – Mr. Herman van Rompuy, a man whom Nigel Farage of the UKIP rightfully called “the silent assassin of democracy” and a man who has previously ruined Belgium’s democracy as a prime minister of that country.
After reading this document, the second most important connection between the Council of Europe and the European Union in general is the obedient adherence to Marxist-Feminist ideology. One should not forget that the European Commission is lead by Jose Manuel Barroso (a Maoist) and the justice department of the EU is lead by Viviane Reding, a Marxist-feminist crusader.
The treaty has thus far been signed by 27 nations. It used to be 26 but Croatia was signing it whilst I was talking about this document on A Voice for Men News and Activism program[4].
The list of nations that signed it is lengthy: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxemburg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
In order for it to be in force, the document needs to be ratified by 10 member states. The ratification process takes a bit longer than just simply signing it. So far, Turkey is the only country that fully ratified it (so this is already the law in Turkey) and in a few months, Italy will finalize its ratification process as the anti-feminist organization “Centri Antiviolenza & Femminismo” (The Centre Against Violence and Feminism) announces[5].
What’s interesting is that the mainstream media is extremely silent on this subject, even in Italy and Turkey — countries that already have this law adopted. Also, countries that signed this document that are in incipient phases of ratification (Ukraine, Poland, Norway or France) are also silent about it.
There is little or no mention of this document in the mainstream media and if the general public that doesn’t check the CoE and the EU website has no idea what’s coming.
There is one country that any MRA that is aware of the European issues would have expected to see on the list of countries that signed this document: Denmark.
Considering that Denmark is culturally close to Norway and, most notably, Sweden, one would have expected that the gender ideologues from the Danish government would secure the perks that this document brings to the feminist organizations and the liberty that this document gives to the ideologues to make misandry the new state policy.
As of September 2012, the gender ideologues from the Council of Europe are pressuring the Maoists and the feminists from the European Commission to ratify this document for the European Union[6]. If this happens, and it will due to aforementioned intimate connections between the two bodies, the EU countries that refuse this treaty can and will be forced to abide by it regardless of whether they want to. There are several EU countries that said “no” so far besides Denmark: Ireland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
But what does the document say?
The gender ideologue’s worldview is visible from the very title of the document and the comparison with the recently defunct VAWA is a correct one. In the preamble of the document it says the following[7]:
Recalling the basic principles of international humanitarian law, and especially the Geneva Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (1949) and the Additional Protocols I and II (1977) thereto;
Condemning all forms of violence against women and domestic violence;
Recognizing that the realization of de jure and de facto equality between women and men is a key element in the prevention of violence against women;
Recognizing that violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between women and men, which have led to domination over, and discrimination against, women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women;
First of all, aiming for the de facto equality between women and men was already tried by the Soviet Union and the Marxist governments that ruled over Eastern Europe until 1989. The Romanian Communist dictator Nicolae Ceau?escu passed “the parity law” in the 1970s[8] and the Soviets had it even earlier. As history proved, that did not work out well.
Second, “recognizing” that “it is men’s fault” is just feminist ideology – not a fact.
So there you go, from the first two paragraphs of the preamble we have Marxist concepts in the first one and feminist ideology in the second one.
And CoE is also “recognizing” some other aspects of the gender hate-ideology:
Recognizing the structural nature of violence against women as gender?based violence, and that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men;
There are no further clarifications throughout the document so the CoE is fine with the blatantly misandric double standard that the violence against men is not gender-based violence even though this organization itself exists following the deaths of millions upon millions of men and virtually only men in the World War II.
And they continue by saying:
Recognising the ongoing human rights violations during armed conflicts that affect the civilian population, especially women in the form of widespread or systematic rape and sexual violence[…]
The ongoing human rights violations during armed conflicts that affect the civilian population are overwhelmingly aimed at men and boys — in the form of death. In the last armed conflict that took place in Europe, the Bosnian war, 85 to 90% of the civilian Bosnian casualties were men and boys[9]. In July 1995, more than 8,000 men and boys (and only men and boys) were rounded up and shot in the head in what is known as the Srebrenica Massacre[10].
So, the CoE’s claim that the human rights violations during armed conflicts affect “especially women,” is patently false. Yes, rape is sometimes used as a weapon of war, however, that too also happens to men. And yes, it is traumatic, but saying that this is worse than being rounded up and shot in the head in mass executions[11] on the basis of your sex is simply disregarding reality, and the preponderance of actual victims.
The further you get into this document the more misandric it gets. In Article 2.2 and 2.3 the document says the following:
2 Parties are encouraged to apply this Convention to all victims of domestic violence. Parties shall pay particular attention to women victims of gender?based violence in implementing the provisions of this Convention.
3 This Convention shall apply in times of peace and in situations of armed conflict.
In other words – men don’t matter. If this document would have been in force during the Bosnian war, a few hundreds of thousands men would not have survived – just as happens in African countries right now where help for the victims of armed conflicts is disproportionately granted to women. The men there are left to die.
This document also makes the pussy pass the official policy through the provisions of the Article 5 that states the following:
1 Parties shall refrain from engaging in any act of violence against women and ensure that State authorities, officials, agents, institutions and other actors acting on behalf of the State act in conformity with this obligation.
2 Parties shall take the necessary legislative and other measures to exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, punish and provide reparation for acts of violence covered by the scope of this Convention that are perpetrated by non?State actors.
By “Parties” this document refers to the states that sign and ratify this document. By “the scope of this Convention” they mean the feminist definition of domestic violence and other so-called “gender-based violence.” So, basically, under the provisions of Article 5 from the Istanbul Convention, if a woman pulls a weapon on a police officer, the police officer is not allowed to defend himself because it would mean that the police officer is “an actor acting on behalf of the state engaging in an act of violence against a woman”.
The Romanian Criminal Procedure Code that was in force during the Communist dictatorship also had this provision of protecting female criminals under the same reasoning.
The document then continues with the provisions of the article 8 and 9 which can essentially be translated as “Give money to the feminists.” And we’re talking about big money – at least 1.5 billion euros (2 billion US dollars) per year in the EU alone, which means that the total amount is in fact higher since part of the treaty are also non-EU countries.
In the Article 12, point 4, the document states once again that men are the problem:
Parties shall take the necessary measures to encourage all members of society, especially men and boys, to contribute actively to preventing all forms of violence covered by the scope of this Convention.
This basically will be translated into classes of “compulsory feminism” (just like it happened in Australia and Croatia) being taught to 10 year old children. So we’re looking at Pan-European plan to raise boys in a climate where masculinity itself is regarded as a disease.
Starting with Chapter IV, the Istanbul Convention goes full force against due process and other provisions that have so far protected individuals from false allegations and government interventionism.
From Article 18:
[…]3 Parties shall ensure that measures taken pursuant to this chapter shall:
– be based on a gendered understanding of violence against women and domestic violence and shall focus on the human rights and safety of the victim;
– be based on an integrated approach which takes into account the relationship between victims, perpetrators, children and their wider social environment; – aim at avoiding secondary victimization;
– aim at the empowerment and economic independence of women victims of violence;
– allow, where appropriate, for a range of protection and support services to be located on the same premises;
– address the specific needs of vulnerable persons, including child victims, and be made available to them.
4 The provision of services shall not depend on the victim’s willingness to press charges or testify against any perpetrator.[…]
Is there anything about economic empowering of men? Of course not. So basically, it’s enough for a feminist organization to assume that a man might abuse his wife and the entire mechanism starts. In the U.S.A. we’ve seen VAWA cases of men being thrown out of their home even though the alleged “victim” testified that she had never been abused. One should not expect less when this document is in force.
Throughout the document the CoE talks about “women and their children” because, as we all know from practicality, children belong to women and the State and fathers are, at best, walking ATM machines. Her body, her choice. His wallet? Her choice. Now this is the law.
Moreover, Article 27 sets the obligation for the State to encourage people to report anything if they think an act of violence, against women, “may be committed or that further acts of violence are to be expected” – which basically means that it will no longer be a crime (as it is now) for someone to call the police because the neighbors are talking too loud and the caller “feels” that an act of violence is to be expected. At this point, calling the police because you “feel” that a husband might beat his wife because you heard them talking loud, even though you never heard what they were saying and did not see them, is considered “false reporting” and the police might ask you to pay for the expenses of them coming there for nothing.
Article 28 reads as follows:
Parties shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the confidentiality rules imposed by internal law on certain professionals do not constitute an obstacle to the possibility, under appropriate conditions, of their reporting to the competent organizations or authorities if they have reasonable grounds to believe that a serious act of violence covered by the scope of this Convention, has been committed and further serious acts of violence are to be expected.
Therefore, make sure that the shrink or therapist you are seeing is not a gender ideologue. Otherwise, she might think that you abused your wife because you told her to stop wasting your money. I wish this was a joke, but it’s not. Telling your wife to stop wasting your money is considered “financial abuse” and it’s already considered as such in many countries (Sweden, Romania, Hungary, UK, France and Spain) and it’s also covered by the provisions of the Istanbul Convention.
The document goes on with Article 31, which essentially makes sure that fathers rarely see their children if the state mechanism legalized by this document enters into his life and the continues with Article 38 condemning female genital mutilation while saying nothing about male genital mutilation.
Let’s be clear: Female circumcision is not an issue in Europe. There are some activists claiming that 500,000 women are circumcised in Europe annually but if this were to be true, then any resident of the UK, Germany or France would know at least one circumcised female within his or her own proximity. Moreover, Turkey alone (who ratified this document) has over 39 million circumcised male residents[12], Ukraine has roughly 250,000 and France has almost 4.5 million. Putting this into perspective, it’s massive denigration of male suffering to say that female circumcision is a much more important issue. And to put it into a wider perspective, circumcision in general is not an issue in Europe in comparison with the United States of America where this barbaric procedure is routinely performed on two week old boys.
Article 55 of the document is actually scary:
[…]proceedings may continue even if the victim withdraws her or his statement or complaint.
Parties shall take the necessary legislative or other measures to ensure, in accordance with the conditions provided for by their internal law, the possibility for governmental and non?governmental organizations and domestic violence counselors to assist and/or support victims, at their request, during investigations and judicial proceedings concerning the offenses established in accordance with this Convention.
This basically means that we’re looking at a Europe where feminist organizations are both prosecutors and judges and the State rubber stamps their “discoveries” regardless of whether the alleged victim might come clean and admit that it was all a lie.
This document is filled with anti-male bias and twisted understandings of reality promoted by the hate ideology commonly referred as “feminism” in combination with totalitarian Marxist provisions that Eastern Europe hasn’t yet forgotten. This might be the reason why most of the countries that said “No” are Eastern European countries.
The main concern of any European MRA (especially those living in EU countries) should be at this point finding solutions to prevent this document from being ratified EU-wide, and prevent ratification in individual countries.
This document will eventually be voted upon in the European Parliament, unless we start applying pressure, because the “community method” through which Herman van Rompuy and the other Eurocrats pressure decisions is a machine that has worked so far quite well.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Europe
[2] http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/convention-violence/texts/Convention_en.pdf – Istanbul Convention Full Text
[3] http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=210&CM=1&CL=ENG
[4] http://www.blogtalkradio.com/avoiceformen/2013/01/23/avfm-news-and-activism-lucian-valsan-returns
[6] http://www.neurope.eu/article/coe-hopes-eu-signs-istanbul-convention
[7] op cit Full Text page 5
[8] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSZ5pblxLME
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#Casualties
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_genocide
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_genocide#Mass_executions
