Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-16-Speech-4-206"
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"en.20061116.25.4-206"2
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"Mr President, the Commission welcomes and supports the thrust of the draft resolutions concerning the Human Rights situation in Iran. Our assessment is that serious violations of human rights have continued to occur in the country during 2006. In fact, there has been no progress in the EU’s main areas of concern, and in many respects the situation has worsened.
The list of examples is long and grim: an increased use of the death penalty and the occurrence of juvenile executions continue to be of grave concern; ethnic and religious minorities continue to suffer from discrimination; the status of women remains poor; freedom of expression has been further curtailed; and the closure of newspapers, intimidation and prosecution of journalists and the clampdown on bloggers have all continued.
The European Union has raised these concerns with the Iranian authorities during the past year, through both démarches and public statements. Unfortunately, as has been said in this House, it seems that the Iranian authorities are less willing than they have been in the past to take our requests into serious consideration or to make any tangible efforts to improve the situation. That said, some elements within the body politic, such as the Chief Judiciary, do appear somewhat committed to the cause of reform. However, given the overall deteriorating situation, the EU has decided to co-sponsor the Canadian resolution on the human rights situation in Iran in the UN Third Committee later this month.
Since Tehran maintains that the bilateral human rights dialogue and UN-type resolutions are mutually exclusive, it has signalled that it would consider calling off the session of the EU-Iran dialogue on human rights, scheduled for December. We, of course, firmly reject any such link. We still aim to resume the dialogue shortly. We remain convinced that constructive dialogue, accompanied by cooperative projects both bilaterally and through UN agencies is the most realistic means to engage in the field of human rights.
Mrs Prets has suggested that the Union should sponsor radio or television programmes. I am not competent to give an affirmative response to that, but as regards people-to-people contacts it is worth noting that one million Iranians visited Turkey in 2005. They went there in order to breathe some fresh air, watch ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ and check out the benchmark of democracy in that troubled region.
The crux of the matter in our relations with Iran is that, irrespective of positive or negative developments on the nuclear issue, which is extremely important, without a systematic improvement of the human rights situation in Iran, our relations with that country cannot develop properly, no matter how much potential our relationship might otherwise have in terms of economic and energy cooperation.
I wish to conclude by expressing my appreciation for the work undertaken by the Delegation for relations with Iran, chaired by Mrs Beer. I welcome your efforts to develop contacts with your interlocutors from the Majlis, as well as with the widest possible spectrum of Iranian society. The recent visit to this House by Mr Akbar Ganji – whose liberation we all worked tirelessly for – is an important case in point."@en1
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