Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-17-Speech-1-025"
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"en.20031117.4.1-025"2
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"Mr President, on 8 November 2003 I was in The Hague participating in a demonstration in favour of the release of Slobodan Milosevic. I am not going to speak about Mr Milosevic now, since I have done so on a number of occasions in the past. I should like instead to refer to the fact that the demonstrators in The Hague, most of them Serb immigrants, were not allowed to write slogans in their own language. Speaking to the police I found out that there is a general rule against slogans written in languages that the police do not understand. This is apparently so that the police can control their content.
It is obvious that the Netherlands, so tolerant on many things as we all know, will not tolerate uncensored political expression.
Another incident occurred last Saturday at the airport in Paris when I was going through a security check on my way to Athens. The staff insisted that I take off my jacket, although I had removed from it all metal objects and had gone through the metal detector. Upon my refusal, the police were called and the next minute Mr 466294 and Mr 485684 – they would not give me their names – appeared and tried to convince me that this was the rule and nobody was supposed to contest it.
Behind this unacceptable behaviour I see a clear effort to terrorise people by having them obey stupid orders. I also see the presumption of guilt of terrorism for any person going through a security check. Moreover, if a Member of the European Parliament can be subjected to such embarrassing and humiliating treatment, I wonder what would happen to others, in particular those whose complexion is a bit darker than average.
These two incidents show signs of a police state being gradually built up in the European Union, in line with the wish of the ruling class to exercise full control upon their subjects. I look forward to your reactions, Mr President."@en1
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