Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-05-Speech-4-127"
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"en.20010705.6.4-127"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to salute the initiators of the first World Congress against the Death Penalty, which I consider the crowning achievement of abolitionists the world over. Very important work was accomplished during those three days and I also salute the personal commitment of our President who, with her counterpart from the Council of Europe, called on the governments to establish a world moratorium on executions. That moratorium was signed by the 40 countries present, here, in this very Chamber.
Fighting for the abolition of the death penalty – as has been said here – means fighting to strengthen human dignity and extend human rights. I think the European Union is doing that and it must continue its efforts, but I also think it is sometimes important, in an assembly like the United Nations, to put one’s own house in order first. By that I mean that countries like Turkey, Russia and Armenia, members of the Council of Europe and applicants to join the European Union, must eliminate the death penalty from their respective criminal codes. That, in my opinion, is a
of whether or not they become members and a guarantee that this fundamental principle of human rights is respected within the European Union.
Then, as Robert Badinter has underlined, the debate has moved forward enormously. One hundred countries have already abolished the death penalty. Even in the United States, where 80% of people were in favour of the death penalty five or six years ago, that figure is down to 66% today. That means that the struggle is making progress, and so much the better.
However, that has not prevented the existence of another highly symbolic case in the battle against the death penalty: the case of Moumia Abou Jamal. From amongst the 3 700 people who are still on death row in the United States, Moumia Abou Jamal stands out as a symbol because he is in prison and on death row for being black, and in that respect his case reminds me a little of the struggle of Nelson Mandela. He is in prison for being an intellectual writer, and in that he reminds me a little of Solzhenitsyn, and because he dared to write at a time when no one was writing against the atrocities of the Philadelphia police. And finally he was a militant, an activist as they say in English.
He now finds himself on death row for these three reasons and I think it would be a marvellous signal if a country like the United States, which claims to be the greatest democracy in the world, were to abolish the death penalty and free Moumia Abou Jamal. Imagine the weight that would carry for countries like China and the other countries that continue this barbaric practice!
I am counting massively on the Belgian Presidency to move this idea forward with the full support of all of us here."@en1
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