Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-01-Speech-3-105"
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"en.20060201.13.3-105"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have addressed this House on a number of occasions to warn of the suffering in Cuba, in particular that of people who continue to fight peacefully for democracy and human rights. Unfortunately, the sad reality dictates that we must issue fresh condemnations and protests. During the last plenary session of last year, we saw the levels of intolerance to which Fidel Castro’s regime had sunk. A group of women whose only crime has been to ask for freedom for their husbands and sons, political detainees since the crackdown of March 2003, were prevented from coming to Parliament to receive the Sakharov Prize, along with our suitable tributes and messages of respect from the people of Europe.
Regrettably, this decision and the attitude giving rise to it comes as no surprise. Oswaldo Payá, winner of the Sakharov Prize in 2002, has also repeatedly been banned from coming to Europe to tell us in his own voice what is actually happening in Cuba, and to discuss the situation with us. Parliament has therefore kept an open invitation for him to come here as soon as he is allowed to do so. We should now extend that invitation to the
and campaign for them to be able to come and receive our warm tributes and words of solidarity in person. It might be possible to award the prize in Havana, but that should not satisfy us. That should be our minimum requirement, but we should always seek more. We must not accept any fleeting or underhand gestures, and nor must we bow to the whims of the dictatorship.
Oswaldo Payá and the
must be given a public forum in which to express the message of their peaceful campaign for freedom and justice. The people of Europe, and especially the young, must be made aware of their story and their exemplary fight for human rights.
I hope that the outcome of this debate will be that nobody can be in any doubt when condemning a brutal dictatorship. Hopefully, the Council will finally acknowledge its mistake and stop deluding itself, which, as we have seen, only leads to tougher repression and greater injustice. We will continue to fight for Europe to act more firmly. Let nobody say that Parliament has wavered in its unequivocal condemnation of a dictatorial regime. This is my appeal, from democrats to democrats."@en1
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