Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-13-Speech-4-157"
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"en.20030313.8.4-157"2
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"Mr President, there are too many resolutions which have not been acted upon, and sometimes we too, as Members of Parliament, are guilty of thinking we have resolved a problem just by producing a resolution. I, however, am a woman, and among my role models are women who, because they had the courage to speak out or the desire to laugh or love, were barbarously tortured and burned alive in the name of God by the cruelty of pious, religious Christians.
Nonetheless, religious practices, cultures and traditions can be changed. I come from a country where the crime of honour continued to exist even after the war, a country which only recognised rape as a crime against the individual in the seventies, when the feminist movement was in its heyday. Today, we women are still the victims of discrimination in Europe, our sexuality is commoditised, but our right to exist has been won. However, the suffering and injustice suffered by women and people all over the world seem to scourge our bodies and rend our souls now as never before. Once again, in the name of a God who is presented as all-powerful and merciful, religions, traditions and cultures mutilate bodies, stone people to death, impose arranged marriages and mutilate the bodies of innocent children with infibulation.
We must prevent the killing of Amina Lawal, a woman who has dared to love and is condemned to being stoned to death for having a child out of wedlock. We must prevent religion, when it abuses human rights, whether the victim is a man or a woman, being used as a law, even a law which is secondary to the laws of the State. The Federal Republic of Nigeria has ratified the international human rights conventions. These conventions must have more than just theoretical significance: they must be observed and enforced in practice.
Nigeria has even adopted a Constitution which guarantees the right to freedom without torture or punishment. On a number of occasions, President Obasanjo has stated that he is opposed to the death penalty being applied on the basis of Sharia law, but he cannot keep up these double standards forever. It is true that the issues are complex, but now, the lives of many men and women are at stake – today, it is the life of Amina Lawal, yesterday, it was the life of Safiya Hussaini. Yet how many other women and how many men are lying in prison or are charged and hanged?
The European Union – and we personally – must make a total commitment not just to preventing Amina Lawal’s death but to ensuring that the international agreements are genuinely ratified. We must therefore compel the Nigerian Government to act on its undertaking and provide all possible assistance, prevent Amina’s death and guarantee that a similar sentence is never pronounced again.
I genuinely believe that it is extremely important for there not to be double standards. We must start from our basic principle, from the fact that it is essential for us too, here, to respect human rights – with regard to immigrants and many others – and so we must do everything possible to ensure that no more people die."@en1
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