Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-07-03-Speech-4-184"
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"en.20030703.12.4-184"2
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"Mr President, we have just been informed by Reuters that the Laos Government is prepared to pardon the two journalists and the American interpreter who were arrested on 4 June and sentenced, on 30 June, to fifteen years in prison for unproven acts, which caused widespread indignation. I have here the
dated 1.30.p.m: ‘the Laotian Minister for Foreign Affaires awaits a request from the governments of the countries from which the three men come: Belgium, France and the United States, for their pardon’ – which will of course be granted if this has not already been done. We can only welcome the effective role played by our Ministers for Foreign Affairs and by the diplomats in the area, a role which, without a shadow of a doubt, has led to the prisoners’ imminent release.
Although we rejoice in the outcome of these actions, we remain extremely concerned at the fate of the four Laotians who were accompanying Thierry Falise and Vincent Reynaud and who, we are told, could face a sentence of twenty years in prison. We also appeal to the clemency of the Laotian Government. Too many journalists have paid with their lives or have been given stiff prison sentences for having done their job, which is to inform people.
We recall that freedom of expression is a fundamental right. We expect the Commission and the Council to support the actions of our diplomats and we hope that our European office in the region will intervene to ensure that the four Laotian citizens are also released. We wish to state, Mr President, before this House, all our solidarity with the journalists and with their families, who have been through such a hard time and assure them that the European Parliament, the guardian of freedom, will relentlessly defend the right to a free press, the right to free information and, more than ever, human rights, whatever regime is in power."@en1
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