Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-13-Speech-4-136"
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"en.20050113.11.4-136"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since this House’s last debate on this subject, in October of last year, there has been some discernible progress, but also a number of reverses.
I am relieved to learn that the United Kingdom, Germany and France have managed to press on with the negotiations on the atomic energy programme. Above all, I am glad that – as we have just heard – there have been positive responses when we have raised individual cases of grave violations of human rights in Iran. We are evidently being listened to after all, and can hope that our intervention in the human rights sphere can meet with success.
In this process the European Commission is a partner in negotiation and dialogue, and so it is to them, in the first instance, that I appeal that human rights should not be treated as a secondary issue, but put centre stage in exactly the same way as economic relations with Iran or the issue of how to prevent it acquiring nuclear weapons. I also want to make it clear to our Iranian friends that dialogue and negotiation mean critical dialogue; Iran must listen when we criticise some of the things that go on there and that we cannot accept and never will, such as the maltreatment and oppression of women, the stonings and the executions. I do not see last December’s United Nations resolution as an interruption to this dialogue, but rather as a component of our policy and an admonition to us. It is also, unfortunately, evidence that our concerns about the human rights situation, the restrictions on the freedom of the press and the persecution of journalists are more than justified.
Let me once again appeal, as a matter of urgency, to the Iranian authorities to do something more than make announcements and instead cancel the stonings, give women real rights in practice, and offer more than lip-service to what this dialogue is about. We are also very concerned about the accusations levelled at the Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. I believe that not only all Members of this House, but also the Commission’s and Council’s representatives, are making it plain that we expect her good work not to be hampered in any way.
Although my group will be voting in favour of the resolution, we will be asking for item 9 to be deleted, as this debate is not the place for it."@en1
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