Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-03-Speech-3-165"
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"en.20030903.7.3-165"2
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"Mr President, I should like to praise the rapporteur most warmly for his excellent work, which is also very interesting from the point of view both of principles and of practice. He is trying to lift Parliament’s efforts above the level of positive testimonies. After all, if we speak our minds, then we will also need to do the follow-up. Too often, we do not take heed of our own criticism and we lack the tools to find out what has become of our indictments. We should finally do something about this follow-up, even though I fully understand the objections – some of them practical – that the Commissioner mentioned. This certainly applies to the support to which the winners of our Sakharov prize are entitled. After all, they are in many cases the heroes of civil liberties. This very week, timely support has once again been shown – and rightly so – to Aung San Suu Kyi, and so it is odd to notice that Mrs Leyla Zana is always receiving so little attention from us. Is it not so convenient politically speaking? If this is the reason, then the criticism levelled by the rapporteur at the Commission and the Council also applies to us. Upholding human rights is not all that simple. Defending people with whom you see eye to eye is not difficult. It is only when the rights of people with whom you do not agree are upheld, that campaigning for human rights becomes an issue. This also holds for freedom of conscience. To my surprise, some of my fellow-MEPs get along better with that concept than with freedom of religion. I find this a bit worrying, to be honest. I should, however, like to ask for attention to be given to my amendment on freedom of conscience, which I tabled immediately, of course. After all, very positive things can be mentioned in this area too. In the amendment, reference is made to the wide range of conscientious objections, with which we do, or do not, agree. After all, in the framework of respect for conscience, the latter is not at all interesting. I therefore hope for wide support from this House. In my view, the rapporteur has handled the topic of religious freedom in his articles very proficiently. It is all the sadder that plain prejudice on the part of the press has often led to only this 1% of the text that deals with violence in religion being given so much attention. I hope that the rapporteur will not give this too much of a hearing and simply continues unstintingly along the path that his report has mapped out."@en1
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