Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-15-Speech-3-175"
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"en.20030115.10.3-175"2
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"Mr President, as other Members have pointed out: 17 000 families have no news of their loved ones, parts of the media have been banned, censored by the authorities, journalists have been arrested, the courts have been used for political ends, the intelligence services are ubiquitous, discriminatory measures have been taken against thousands of refugees, and Palestinians in particular, torture has been used despite the fact that Lebanon is a signatory to the Convention against torture, Syria has constantly interfered in the life of a third country, there has been discrimination against women; there is a long list of infringements of human rights as reported, in particular at the hearing held within the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
All the organisations fighting for democracy in this country, however, support the idea of this association agreement. This, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner and President-in-Office of the Council, goes to show the tremendous hope generated by this agreement, as well as the scale of the challenges we must accept in order to respond to these numerous expectations.
The resolution submitted to us on which we shall vote at the same time as the association agreement is a relatively comprehensive text – and I would congratulate the rapporteur on that, moreover – which addresses numerous problems that Lebanon must now face in order to play the role we expect it to play to ensure the stabilisation of the situation throughout the region.
The Verts/ALE Group has duly contributed to this and we, together with other Members, in fact, would like to add a few points that we feel are important today. First of all, we would like to invite, to call on the Lebanese Government to ensure respect for the rights of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers, who are present on Lebanese soil, and to cease all kinds of discriminatory measures in particular against Palestinian refugees. We would also like the Commission and the Council to ask Syria and Israel officially for information on Lebanese nationals who are being held in these states. According to the information provided to us by Solidar, whose spokesman, moreover, was invited to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Israel is allegedly holding 12 Lebanese nationals and 200 nationals of other countries are allegedly being held secretly in Syria. I believe the European institutions can help to shed light on this matter, which weighs heavily on relations within the region.
The Verts/ALE Group in the European Parliament would also like to draw the attention of the House to the pressure exerted on the Lebanese press. We call for strict respect for the freedom of the press, in all its forms, moreover, in particular for journalists or other media that criticise government policy. We call for this country to respect the right of the opposition, which we all know receives extremely poor treatment. Lastly, we call for the Members of the Lebanese Parliament to be associated with and play an active part in the work of the fora of the future Euro-Mediterranean assembly. That is clearly a condition if we understand that this agreement with Lebanon is even more important in stabilising the region and finding a solution to the problems in the Middle East.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, this association agreement constitutes a challenge, which we must meet. I believe that its effect would be greater if we were in possession of all the instruments necessary to monitor, follow, propose and assess, regularly and seriously, in particular the implementation of Article 2 of this association agreement."@en1
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