Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-22-Speech-3-156"

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"en.20031022.7.3-156"2
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"Mr President—in-Office of the Council, I do believe that it is essential that the Italian Presidency, on behalf of the European Union and its Member States of course, presents a motion for a resolution to the United Nations General Assembly calling for the adoption of a universal moratorium on death penalties. What is more, I also believe we have the obligation to present such a motion. Prudence cannot be allowed to make us forget our commitment to defend the right to life or our responsibility to work to increase international cooperation with a view to achieving the complete abolition of the death penalty in the world, because the death penalty is a violation of the fundamental right to life, and what is worse – as Amnesty International says – is that this violation is not only not hidden or denied, but is actually enshrined in the laws of the country which applies it. Furthermore, if a country does not respect the most fundamental of rights, with what authority will it demand from citizens respect for other rights and on what foundations will that country base its democracy and Rule of Law if its law allows the most important and most fundamental of rights to be violated: the right to life? For the European Union, therefore, the fight to abolish the death penalty and the fight for democracy and respect for human rights are and must be one and the same. It is true that progress has been made in this regard and that today far fewer countries maintain the death penalty in their legislation, but we are still far from its total abolition, as the statistics so cruelly demonstrate. The European Union, therefore, in order to be coherent in terms of the values on which it is founded, must make fighting the death penalty a priority, not only before the United Nations General Assembly, but also in its relations with third countries which have yet to abolish it, whatever links the Union may have with these countries or their strategic or commercial importance, because nobody must be given the power to decide on the life or death of a human being."@en1

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