An unknown man attempted to disrupt the Russian delegation's address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) during the debate on protests in Moscow and was escorted out of the chamber, head of the Russian lower house's International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky told journalists on Thursday
STRASBOURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd October, 2019) An unknown man attempted to disrupt the Russian delegation's address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) during the debate on protests in Moscow and was escorted out of the chamber, head of the Russian lower house's International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky told journalists on Thursday.The assembly held a regular debate on the protests that took place in the Russian capital earlier this year amid elections to the Moscow city legislature, in which several opposition candidates were not permitted to run due to their submission of insufficient numbers of valid signatures in their support.
"An unknown madman has intruded the balcony of the chamber for plenary sessions and attempted to disrupt the speech of the Russian delegation's head, Pyotr Tolstoy, by yelling things. It took the Palace of Europe's security forces mere minutes to subdue him. But it is yet another manifestation of the European community's erosion on the backdrop of anti-Russian hysteria," Slutsky said.
According to a Sputnik correspondent on location, Tolstoy began his speech by expressing gratitude that "Russia today had an opportunity to respond to accusations against it," when he was interrupted by yelling from the audience.
"Can you see what is happening in the cradle of democracy," Tolstoy appealed to the attendees.
The fall session of PACE began on Monday and will run till Friday in the French city of Strasbourg. Russia was temporarily absent from the debates between 2016 and 2019. In 2014, Moscow was stripped of its voting rights in PACE in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis and the aftermath of the Crimea referendum a decision that Russia considered discriminatory, and therefore stopped renewing its PACE credentials in 2016.
In June, Russia's voting rights in PACE were fully restored.
