Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-07-Speech-3-150"
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"en.20080507.15.3-150"2
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Thank you, Mr President. I think that, whilst a number of aspects of the voluminous Cappato report are open to criticism, the report, to its credit, places discrimination against minority religions in a number of third countries expressly on the agenda – something that was much needed.
We should simply have the courage to state a few things more clearly and, without beating about the bush, to denounce first and foremost the fanatical totalitarianism of Islamic states. The fact is that, whereas in Europe Islam is recognised and treated as a religion of equal standing and Muslims are of course recognised and treated as equal citizens, and in my country Islam is recognised and subsidised by the government, in the Islamic world, Christians and non-believers are openly regarded as second-class citizens and discriminated against as a result.
To give just one example, in supposedly ‘modern’ Algeria, a five-year prison sentence and sky-high fines are envisaged for anyone attempting to convert a Muslim. In other Islamic countries, too, discrimination and oppression of non-Islamic minorities is simply official policy. Consequently, it is time for firm European action.
I note that, whereas the Organisation of the Islamic Conference is constantly talking about the discrimination against Muslims that is supposedly taking place here and there, the European Union is utterly silent about the most unreasonable, systematic, officially organised persecution of adherents of other faiths in Muslim countries. This tends to give the impression that the official human rights dialogues and clauses have become just a kind of moral wrapping paper. Mind you, how credible can the European Union be if it itself opens the door wide to a country such as Turkey, where it is a known fact that torture is carried out on a massive scale by police?
What lessons can the European Union give about freedom of expression and freedom of the press when it itself has for years been secretly and openly conducting accession negotiations with a country such as Turkey, described by Reporters Without Borders as one of the worst violators of freedom of expression? Also, what lessons can the Union give about freedom of religion when it embraces a country such as Turkey, which has massacred or driven out all its former minority religions and openly discriminates against the few that remain?
If, however, we look past the official rhetoric and the official declarations and clauses, we often see a European human rights policy of double standards, and an enormous gulf between word and deed.
Incidentally, a perfect symbol of this equivocal European policy is the present European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel. When he was still Belgian Foreign Minister, he appeared as a kind of global conscience with his European
against Austria, whilst soft-soaping the villainous dictator Fidel Castro. A few months ago this European Commissioner once more advocated a massive improvement in relations with Cuba, even though all human rights organisations affirm that the Cuban state apparatus is lastingly geared towards curtailing the rights and freedoms of Cubans.
Such people, such European Commissioners, are ill-suited to carry out human rights policy. A further consideration is that one thing totally absent from this report is an urgently needed plea for the restoration of the right to freedom of expression in a number of our own European countries, including Belgium. In Belgium, the opposition party is conspicuously besieged with submissions and proceedings, and numerous acts have been tightened up in order to render freedom of expression on the immigration problem impossible. It is time we had the courage to see the plank in our own eye."@en1
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