Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-06-12-Speech-2-384-000"
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"en.20120612.18.2-384-000"2
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"Madam President, Baroness Ashton, the Council’s Annual Report on Human Rights in the World can only be considered to be a step in the right direction in the context of the previous reports on this issue. Finally, after many years of pressure from Members of this House, as well as from many Member States, the Council’s attention has been drawn to the urgent issue of breaches of religious freedom in almost every part of the world. I very much appreciate the role that the High Representative has played in this regard.
Religious freedom is currently the most frequently breached human right in the world, with extremely serious consequences. Seventy-five per cent of such cases – from restrictions on access to schools to dramatic cases of murder on religious grounds – affect Christians. Despite this, the Council’s report avoids naming victims and instead surrenders to a false sense of political correctness. A refusal to name the victims is, in effect, yet another blow, another form of discrimination against people who are already suffering. To hide the fact that today it is Christians who are the most frequently attacked religious group weakens our position and it is a continuation of the former policy of turning a blind eye to the undermining of religious freedom.
The report rightly refers to the conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Council in February 2011. Why then is it taking a step back with regard to Christianity? Has someone forgotten that even then, some Member States did not agree with this shameful practice of deleting victims’ names? The formulation adopted at the time, stating that, I quote: ‘a growing number of acts of religious intolerance and discrimination as epitomised by recent violence and acts of terror in various countries against Christians and their places of worship, Muslim pilgrims and other religious communities’ was a good compromise. Why is this compromise being rejected today? The Council’s conclusions were adopted immediately following the bomb attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria in which 23 people died and 97 were injured. Does our solidarity with persecuted Christians last only a few weeks from the date of a tragedy?"@en1
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