Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-12-17-Speech-4-274"
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"en.20091217.22.4-274"2
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"Mr President, following the first European elections in 1979, I had the honour of working with Otto von Habsburg, who is now seriously ill, to establish the human rights tradition of the European Parliament, including these topical and urgent debates on a Thursday afternoon. I was elected to the European Parliament in 1994 and I had the honour of working with Mr Schulz and others to further develop this human rights tradition, which we are rightly proud of. For this reason I was shocked when Mr Provera said with reference to Mr Schulz, who did not deserve this, that the case should not be taken up and almost repeated the threats made by the regime in Azerbaijan to civil rights activists in the country by saying that they will have to put up with it.
The human rights prize has already been mentioned today. I remember well that when we expressed our support for Andrei Sakharov, Vytautas Landsbergis and other campaigners for civil rights, people said at the time: Please do not get involved. We will make use of the diplomatic channels and you are causing more harm than good. Now we know that it was decisive for these people that Parliament spoke out clearly on their behalf. Therefore, Mr Schulz, ladies and gentlemen, let us continue our tradition of independence on a Thursday afternoon. I would like to ask the group chairs to give us some freedom to act.
This has nothing to do with party politics. During the last session, one Member said that as we were just about to hold meetings with China, we could not talk about China. Today it was a different subject, the Western Sahara. Perhaps this is justified in individual cases, but I am seriously concerned about our human rights work. Ladies and gentlemen, the case of Azerbaijan demonstrates how important it is to be discerning here. The country was a Soviet satellite state. Monocultures were established, the country was destroyed and subjected to a brutal regime. Now it is slowly beginning to become more democratic. As a member of the Council of Europe, it has committed to human rights and we must help it to continue along this route."@en1
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