Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-07-15-Speech-3-172"
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"en.20090715.11.3-172"2
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"Mr President, today’s debate proves once again that the Council is the weak point of the EU. This House has adopted a very clear position on human rights and Lady Ashton has given an impressively clear speech on behalf of the Commission. However, from the Council I have heard only that they condemn both sides for the violence.
Of course violence by the Uighurs should be condemned too. But can we really compare it to what a communist dictatorship that has learnt nothing from the massacre in Tiananmen Square is doing in suppressing an entire people in a brutal and bloody fashion and threatening this people with ethnocide by means of a targeted settlement policy? Can we compare this to incidents which are quite simply an expression of Chinese propaganda and which are not being investigated by anyone at an international level? I do not think so.
The Uighurs are currently being accused of separatism. However, is it separatism if a house is on fire and I try to escape from this house? Is it separatism if I am wrongfully imprisoned and I try to escape? That is not separatism, that is an expression of the will to live. If the Uighurs in China were given space to live in their homeland in freedom and with dignity and independence there would be no more separatism. That is the only way to prevent separatism.
The Uighurs are not a minority, they are a people just like the Swedes, who happen to be smaller in number than the Han Chinese. However, is a people in the wrong simply because it is smaller in number? Do we have to bow to a power simply because it is larger? I do not think so. We, as the European Union, therefore have an important obligation.
I represent Munich, and the headquarters of the World Uighur Congress is in Munich. Radio Liberty and Radio Free Europe were also previously based in Munich. We are still proud to have been the voice of freedom at that time. I am sure that one day we will be just as proud to have been the centre for the free Uighurs and I hope that one day all Uighurs will enjoy this freedom."@en1
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