Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-20-Speech-3-068"
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"en.20000920.6.3-068"2
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"Mr President, today’s debate has its pitfalls inasmuch as we are being asked to amend, or to refuse to amend, a system, namely the Eurodac system, which our group has comprehensively rejected.
The Eurodac system is part and parcel of a general tendency to criminalise and penalise immigrants and those who are being persecuted the world over. It reveals the true face of liberal Europe, which is setting itself up as a besieged fortress. How can anyone imagine that it is by means of repressive laws that the starving of the earth are to be prevented from coming to Europe, even at the risk of their lives, as has been seen recently at Dover and in Gibraltar.
On the contrary, it is, as we all know, these combined weapons of criminalisation which force thousands of foreigners to become illegal immigrants who then fall victim to smugglers, slave merchants or unscrupulous bosses who grossly exploit them. Regularising the status of illegal immigrants en masse is the way to put a spoke in the wheels of all these dealers in human misery.
It is these combined weapons of criminalisation which will erode our own freedoms, as witness the French Presidency’s plan, which we shall have to express our opinion on. This plan is aimed at cracking down on anyone who comes to the aid of an immigrant without the proper papers. It is because of these weapons and because of this strategy that, today in France, a boy of Tamil origin is imprisoned with his mother in the Aranc detention centre waiting for a judgement from the Minister of the Interior and, in all likelihood, his expulsion from the country.
Recording people’s fingerprints on computer is an attack on individual freedom. It systematically treats asylum seekers as suspects and puts a question mark over the confidentiality of the documents held by the bodies responsible for examining their applications. It infringes the legal protection due to refugees in being applied even to 14-year-olds. It contravenes the International Declaration on the Rights of the Child and, in particular, Article 10 of this. Who, among you here, would dare take the fingerprints of a young lad of 14? The Eurodac project makes criminals of immigrants without proper papers, often deprived of legal status because of the differences in the laws between one European country and another.
It fundamentally violates all the international conventions protecting human rights. With this project, Fortress Europe is guilty of failing to assist refugees who are in danger. This is hardly a surprise coming from a liberal Europe which equips the Ankara dictatorship with combat helicopters at the same time as rejecting Kurdish refugees.
At a time when a wave of racism and xenophobia is forming across Europe and when consideration is being given to drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights, you ought to reject Eurodac, with or without amendments. It is our own freedoms that are at stake."@en1
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