Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-24-Speech-4-171"
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"en.20070524.25.4-171"2
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".
Mr President, the Commission, together with Member States, is following the situation in Syria very closely.
Since our last debate at the June 2006 part-session there have been a few positive developments. I would like to point out that a human rights contact was appointed in January 2007 in the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We also consider it positive that the EU is granted regular access to trials at the High State Security Court, the Military Court and the Criminal Court.
However, we regret that none of the promises of political openness have been transformed into action – for instance, the relaxation of the emergency law, the adoption of a multi-party law, the granting of citizenship to stateless Kurds or the declaration of the National Council for Human Rights. We also deplore the disproportionate sentences pronounced against prominent civil society activists in recent weeks. We cannot accept that they are jailed only because they have expressed themselves freely.
We call again for the release of all political prisoners in Syria. To give an example, all our attempts to help Mr Anwar al-Bunni have led to a dead end. Today Mr al-Bunni was sentenced to five years in prison merely for denouncing torture and poor prison conditions in Syria and fined EUR 1500 for allegedly not respecting Syria’s law when setting up the training centre, also financed by European Funds.
For several years the Commission has been supporting the modernisation process in Syria through a range of activities. We have seen very encouraging results in the economic field. We sincerely hope that these will spread to the political sphere. We will continue to encourage Syria to respect this obligation and the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights and Torture. I am sure that the European Parliament will give its support to these efforts by the Commission."@en1
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