Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-04-Speech-3-193"
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"en.20010704.5.3-193"2
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"First of all, may I also commend Mr Wuori for his wide-ranging report and Mr Cornillet for his boldness and his vision in trying to fashion a new procedure for the annual report on Fundamental Rights in the EU, linked to the Charter.
In both reports, however, there is still cause for concern and alarm. The reality is that as we speak in this House, human rights abuses continue; human rights defenders disappear. In Vietnam, for example, religious persecution continues and Buddhist monks remain imprisoned and under repressive house arrest. Flung San Suu Kyi remains imprisoned in her home in Burma. The death penalty is still carried out in democracies such as the United States. In Belgrade, the police stand by and watch as hooligans attack lesbians and gay people at their gay pride celebration only days after millions of EU dollars were committed to that region and Milosevic was sent to The Hague. Egypt incarcerates 55 gay men who are still denied legal representation and now face up to eight years in prison because they are gay. Women are still genitally mutilated, human beings stoned to death, their limbs chopped off in the name of law. Homosexuals are stoned to death, there is religious persecution, and children are abducted into war, not to mention the obscenities of rape and terrorism, torture and false disappearances – a catalogue of almost unutterable suffering which grows year on year.
In the EU, our own record on fundamental rights needs closer examination. The treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers; discrimination sometimes state-induced, against homosexuals; racism and racist murders; and inequality before the law. The same applies to applicant countries. The message we should send is that human rights are non-negotiable. So long as one individual or one group suffers discrimination, we have all failed and we are all culpable.
A hierarchy of oppression is perpetuated by legislative inaction and democratic inaction. We defend some minorities but not others. When we name and shame countries, we are accused of imposing our standards. But the standards we aspire to and we set are international standards, standards by which we must all be judged. That is why we must be consistent in implementing human rights policy and systematically follow up human rights abuses.
I commend the Cotonou Agreement, as mentioned by Commissioner Patten. We need to work closely with the United Nations and with the special rapporteurs as well as the NGOs. We must develop our own in-house expertise and ensure that men, women and children born equal are afforded their natural human rights and civil liberties. Our most powerful weapon is our imagination. Imagine, that is you being tortured, mutilated, imprisoned, stoned to death because you are different or hold a different opinion. Imagine that it happens to your daughter, your son, your father, your mother, your brother, your sister. That is the reality and that is why we need a new approach. We need it now. We must not fail those who look to us to succeed."@en1
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