Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-20-Speech-4-312-000"
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"en.20110120.18.4-312-000"2
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"Mr President, I would like to open this speech by saying that I read with much interest the joint resolution on Pakistan and, in particular, on the assassination of Governor Taseer. It offers a strange contrast to the resolution which was adopted this morning on Christian minorities.
All of us here are committed, or so I hope, to protecting freedom of expression, conscience and religion. What we should be equally preoccupied with are all those who fall victim to persecution because of their religious choices, including when they decide to change religion and also when they do not believe in God.
If we want to combat fundamentalism, of whatever kind that may be, then we must treat all victims of this fundamentalism in the same way. No religion is, or ever was, invulnerable to what I will call intolerable deviations. Just let us remind ourselves of the mass murder of American Indians, particularly in the Caribbean and in Latin America. Let us remind ourselves of the sorrowful period of the Crusades, the Inquisition or the wars of religion between Catholics and Protestants. Let us remember the anti-Semitism which had such devastating effects during the 20th century and which lives on more or less latently in a number of EU countries.
Every religion has its own form of fundamentalism and the first victims of such fundamentalism are often the religious moderates of those same religions. From this perspective, the assassination of the Governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer, is a classic example. This man was murdered because he was a model of tolerance and because he dared to condemn the blasphemy laws in force in his country and the abusive usage of these by certain extremist groups in cases such as that of Asia Bibi, a Christian sentenced to death for blasphemy under the Pakistan Penal Code.
What is even more unacceptable is the praising of his murderer by fanatical groups. Let us not forget that the blasphemy law is applied primarily to Muslims, that it affects all religious minorities, and, in particular, women, but also trade-union activists, journalists and lawyers, and that people from all of these groups are also frequently deprived of their fundamental freedoms, if not obliged to go into hiding.
It is therefore time that the Commission and the External Action Service changed their policy, and I would like you, Commissioner, to provide an accurate assessment of the agreement with Tunisia and the agreement with Pakistan on democracy and human rights, and I would like Tunisia to be a lesson to us, to be a lesson to you."@en1
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