Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-21-Speech-3-293"
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"en.20040421.12.3-293"2
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"Mr President, my report deals with four topics which I shall summarise briefly. First topic: the legislature’s record where human rights are concerned. This is a mixed picture. Of course, the report welcomes the cooperation established with the Council and emphasises the influence Parliament has been able to exert in the struggle against all forms of discrimination and against the death penalty and in favour of women’s rights and of freedom of religion and conscience. It regrets, however, that too many of these resolutions are yet to be followed up and that the dialogue on human rights is, in some countries, without substance and of no effect.
Just one example: the tragic case of Leyla Zana, the Sakharov prize-winner, whose conviction was confirmed today by the Turkish courts in an iniquitous ruling. It may perhaps in the future be necessary to build proper control over human rights in partnership with the country in question, a partnership which respects the country’s culture but which has specific objectives and timescales, as recently initiated in Bangladesh and as may be possible in the future in Morocco and Vietnam.
Second topic: terrorism. The report unequivocally condemns all forms of terrorism. It stresses the need to organise the fight against this curse. It also states, however, that this struggle must remain within the bounds of international and humanitarian law. The report refers to infringements of this law which could, owing to the feelings of injustice and despair they engender, produce an even more fertile breeding ground for terrorism.
Third topic: reproductive health. This is a little known area of health. In the last century, of course, the talk was of shameful diseases and, in anatomy, the term shameful nerve was used to describe the nerve which passes through the genital areas. What is shameful today is not that nerve, but the fact that, in the twenty-first century, men and women throughout the world are still deprived of sex education, access to information and effective means of contraception enabling them to choose and schedule the number of children they have according to their own wishes and to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS.
Looking at the terrifying spread of AIDS in Africa, in Asia, Eastern Europe and even, as you are aware, some of the candidate countries at the very gates of the Union, the urgent need for a response is clear. Anyone who sees up close, as I myself have done, the sexual devastation in the camps for refugees and displaced persons – remember that there are now 37 million displaced persons throughout the world, 65% of whom are women and young girls, that these women and girls are frequently raped, infected with AIDS and compelled to sell their bodies for food and that many of them lose their lives undergoing back-street abortions – will appreciate – and, in this regard, I appeal to Mr Gahler, representing the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats – that contraception is a vital instrument for survival.
In fighting for reproductive health, I am not fighting against any spiritual leaders, whose right to lead their faithful I quite accept. I am fighting against certain blinkered policies, such as that of President Bush, which, by slashing funds for the reproductive health programme, including contraception by means of condoms, is going to kill thousands and thousands of people. I am in fact fighting for the right to life and human dignity.
Fourth topic: the rights of disabled people. These people are trying to live full lives and their rights, as we know, are still being flouted in the countries of the Union. What, however, is to be said, then, about the exclusion of disabled people beyond the frontiers of the Union, their marginalisation and, sometimes, even their confinement in institutions under inhumane conditions?
The PPE-DE Group, represented by Mr Gahler, has accused me of doing too much on this subject and of going into too much detail. Is the fact that handicapped people represent 10% of the world’s population and that this proportion is increasing alarmingly in the developing countries under the cumulative effect of destitution and armed conflicts a detail, Mr Gahler? A detail, when the PPE-DE Group wishes to delete paragraphs 71, 72, 73, 77, 78, 79 and 80? Are the rights to education, mobility and accessibility and the right quite simply to establish a family mere details? Is it a detail, supporting programmes for the care of children suffering from mental problems during conflicts? Is the fact that paragraph 78 is to be crossed out with a stroke of the pen a detail? These are details which will doubtless be fully understood by disabled people and the people defending them.
This report is characterised by conviction and is not designed to provoke. It presents a broad view, I accept, of human rights throughout the world. It is, however, a view bringing hope in a world torn apart. I should not like to finish without thanking all the groups which, apart from the PPE-DE Group, have supported me in putting forward this vision."@en1
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