Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-07-Speech-3-011"
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"en.20050907.2.3-011"2
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".
Mr President, no civilised person could excuse the indiscriminate barbarity which claimed the lives of 52 innocent civilians in London on the morning of 7 July, a city which had only the previous day celebrated the plurality, diversity and tolerance which had won the admiration of the International Olympic Committee and helped award it the 2012 Olympic Games.
The nub of our dilemma is that the State is the main protector of both our security and our liberty. If the European Union is to provide security against supranational threats, it must guarantee liberty supranationally too.
President-in-Office, Commissioner, if you are prepared to work with Parliament in that kind of dialogue, you will have the full support of Liberals and Democrats in this serious issue of tackling terror.
Following the terror attacks in Istanbul and Madrid, nobody can deny that terrorism today is a serious challenge for Europe. My Group welcomes the commitment of the UK Presidency and of the Commission to improve policies to strengthen security across the European Union. We are concerned, however, that these policies should be measured, proportionate and value-driven. We do not agree with the President-in-Office when he said in London that the human rights of the victims were more important than the human rights of the terrorists. Human rights are indivisible; freedom and security are not alternatives: they go hand in hand, one enabling the other. As Thomas Paine warned: 'He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself'.
Much as the public may dislike it, suspected terrorists have rights. They have the right to a fair trial. They have the right to be interrogated, not tortured, by the police. They have the right to legal counsel and to representation in a court of law. And, if convicted, they have the right to be imprisoned in a European jail.
There should be no exception for third-country nationals. There is a worrying tendency in Member States to deport people considered to be threatening public order, national security or the rule of law, to countries where they may face torture or worse. It is deeply troubling when the tools of justice and public order themselves violate the European Charter of Human Rights and well-defined international standards. To suspend those values and invoke a form of summary justice would, in the words of the lawyer Cherie Booth 'cheapen our right to call ourselves a civilised society'.
The language of the war on terror leads too easily to the justice of Wyatt Earp and 'High Noon', a point illustrated by the tragic death of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes at the hands of the UK authorities on 22 July.
Governments have been all too eager to exploit the fear factor in this matter. In Italy, stop-and-search powers have been given to the armed forces. In Germany, police surveillance in public places has been stepped up. In France, CCTV cameras cover the public transport system. Any of these measures in themselves may be justifiable but, in a climate of fear without proper democratic oversight and control, they foster insecurity. No wonder that faith-hate crime has risen across the European Union and many Muslims feel they are being criminalised.
It would be particularly ill fitting for those of us who were teenagers in democracies in the 1960s – sometimes called the 'freedom generation' – to deny our children the standards of justice for which our colleagues from central, eastern and parts of southern Europe fought so bravely.
Liberals and Democrats agree with the UK Presidency that anti-terrorism measures need to be implemented fully and rapidly. Why are 7 of 24 instruments considered by Justice and Home Affairs ministers on 24 May still not implemented in all Member States? Why are six unratified EU conventions still occupying ministerial time, when framework decisions could be more easily implemented and enforced? Why have Europol and Eurojust not been given the capacity to operate? Why has the EU's antiterrorism coordinator not been allowed the cooperation he deserves from national capitals?
The Council sometimes laments Parliament's objections to security measures that it wants to introduce. But the European Parliament would feel far more comfortable in agreeing to urgent measures if it was satisfied that the Council was operating in the normal framework of democracy. A framework decision on data protection to accompany data retention measures, for example, would overcome the understandable fears of many colleagues that rights are being eroded. A commitment to legislation in the first pillar, with transparent policy-making and guaranteed rights, would enhance the moral standing of Europe's response to terror. A serious commitment to sharing criminal intelligence information – perhaps the biggest challenge – would be welcomed and supported by this House."@en1
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