Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-01-Speech-3-110"
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"en.19991201.9.3-110"2
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"There is no doubt, Mr President, that with the tabling of this report, too, the public’s awareness of the importance of the topic of civil and human rights shows that we have taken another step forwards. We have been considering, over the course of recent months and years, Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the reaffirmation of the importance and role in the European Union of the principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights, and also the creation of the International Criminal Court and the need we all feel to give greater authority to Article 7 of the UN Charter in order to guarantee respect for human rights, eliminating any humanitarian intervention from rationales which are not based purely and simply on respect for these rights: all of this tells us that a great deal of progress has been made.
Nevertheless, fifty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we know that no rights are won all in one go and once and for all: I am thinking of Tibet, Burma, Timor and Asian countries where child and women workers are exploited; I am thinking of Kosovo, Chechnya and Africa, a continent that is too often far away and forgotten; I am thinking of the 790 million people in the world who are suffering from hunger or the 300 million children who have to work; I am thinking of the 1625 executions carried out last year in the 72 countries whose legal systems still provide for capital punishment. Finally, I am also thinking of the fate of the Kurdish leader, Mr Öçalan, whose life has to be saved, I truly believe, through all of our efforts.
The very fact that capital punishment is so widespread is one of the most intolerable breaches of each individual’s dignity and right to life: a breach which we feel deeply and which we want to fight, for example, by pointing out that the actual enlargement process of the Union is proving to be not just a factor of peace and security for the continent, but also the way to make applicant states overcome such barbarity. We know that it will be a long and difficult process; this was shown by the UN’s failure to debate the European Union resolution on the moratorium on capital punishment. It was a serious and painful setback, and it is up to us, Members of Parliament, and the Commission, not to let this commitment lie: on the contrary, we must take it up with renewed vigour.
Mr President, at the moment, in the United States, in Virginia, the life of a young Italo-American who has been condemned to die but continues to declare his innocence is just one of the many lives which must be saved. I am taking this opportunity to ask you, the President of Parliament, the President of the Council and the Commission, to take urgent action in making an appeal to the United States to suspend the execution of Derek Rocco Barnabei, because the battle against capital punishment is a battle for civilisation which must be fought every time it is necessary and in every way possible."@en1
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