Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-20-Speech-4-141"

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"Mr President, at the start of the sitting on Monday afternoon, I asked Parliament and the President to send the Governor of Texas a message in order to prevent an execution which was to take place this week. This is all the more reason why, and with much more forceful arguments, Parliament must now address the situation in China where the violation of human rights is reaching extremely high levels. Other speakers have already said all this and I can only agree with them. The real confirmation is that, in China, the human rights situation is deteriorating: while new economic processes are struggling to get underway, there is a terrible deterioration in human rights. Figures from Amnesty International tell of around 700 prisoners condemned to death; another source reports that as many as 1 400 executions were carried out last year. Whatever the true figure, this is clearly a terrible revelation. The problem, then, is how the Union and Parliament can respond to this situation. The first thing to do, in my opinion, is concentrate our efforts on the forthcoming meeting of the UN Committee on 20 March in Geneva where this will be the first item on the agenda. Now, I wonder, and would ask the House, whether we can request that the Union, or even Parliament, be represented at this meeting. Above all, however, and this has already been said, it is important for the Union to not only speak out on this issue, but to manage to obtain a strong and determined common position of the individual countries as well. People were right to say that major positions taken by the Union are undermined if individual countries contradict them out of economic or commercial interests. On this point, one issue should be considered: China’s request to join the World Trade Organisation. I realise that there are very positive aspects to this, and that, indirectly, it could be advantageous, but the request must not be linked with the UN’s global position nor, in this regard, with China’s firm request to make progress. In this way, maybe we will be able to move on from making appeals, which are necessary but insufficient, to practical action."@en1

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