Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-10-21-Speech-4-331"
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"en.20101021.25.4-331"2
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"−
Mr President, I should like to take advantage of this speech to ask for us together to think about what purpose the Sakharov Prize serves.
I should like to begin by thanking my colleagues, and Mrs Hautala in particular, for having responded to my request concerning the situation of Mr Orlov. Indeed, Mr Orlov is one of the three people in charge of Memorial, the association to which we awarded the Sakharov Prize last year.
By handing over this prize, we rewarded the commitment of those who still dare to denounce the situation in Chechnya. It was symbolic because it came a few months after the murder of Natalia Estemirova, a murder that Mr Orlov strongly condemned. We knew that the Chechen President was suing Mr Orlov for his hatred, that he had pressed charges against him. In January 2010 Mr Orlov and Memorial were found guilty, and we did not say a thing. On 6 July Mr Orlov was charged once again, and he is now facing a three-year prison term.
When we award the Sakharov Prize, we aim to raise the profile of the work of men and women who fight for democracy and human rights and, in awarding them the prize, we place them under our protection.
However, what have we done for Mr Orlov and for all those who defend human rights in Russia and in Chechnya? In what way have we developed the EU’s dialogue to ensure that human rights are at last respected in the North Caucasus? Can we tolerate, without saying anything, the fact that no legal action has been taken more than a year after Mrs Estemirova’s murder? Can we tolerate human rights defenders being kidnapped, mistreated and disappearing without any reaction by the courts?
I almost feel like saying, what purpose do we serve if, part-session after part-session, we denounce a number of human rights violations without it stopping the Commission from pursuing its supposedly constructive dialogues and from telling us that progress is being made, but just not in the fields of human rights and justice? When will we stop renouncing these supposedly fundamental values for the benefit of the economic and political interests of certain Member States? We might be more credible, ladies and gentlemen, if our sittings were not pushed back to last thing on Thursday afternoon, and if there were a few more of us here to follow these debates."@en1
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