Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-12-Speech-2-081"
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"en.20061212.14.2-081"2
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"Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, it is a great pleasure for the European Parliament to receive the winner of the 2006 Sakharov Prize, Mr Milinkievitch, leader of the opposition United Democratic Forces in Belarus.
Mr Milinkievitch has had the courage to challenge the last dictatorship in Europe; he has managed to unite the democratic opposition forces in order to restore political rights and freedoms in his country.
He has headed mass demonstrations and has been arrested for urging his fellow countrymen to defend their fundamental rights.
Mr Milinkievitch, you have become a symbol of resistance to oppression and of hope for a democratic future.
We share your ambition that Belarusian society should obtain the right to elect its leaders democratically, the right to independent information, the right to create non-governmental organisations and the right to an independent and impartial judiciary.
That is something that the European Parliament has always defended. We have protested against the violence, the arbitrary arrests and the politically-motivated sentences by the Belarusian regime against people fighting for fundamental rights in that country.
The Prize that you are receiving today is a demonstration of our support for all of the people fighting alongside you.
This is not the first time that we have awarded this prize to people from Belarus. In 2004, this Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize to the Belarus Association of Journalists, to professionals who were risking their lives in order to discover the truth and to make it known.
Today, two years later, we are once again showing our full support for the fight for democracy in Belarus, because things have not improved since then.
The death penalty is still carried out regularly in that country. I wish to condemn the arrest and sentencing of Aleksander Kazulin, who is currently on hunger strike in prison, and I wish to tell you that we are convinced that Belarus's future lies in sharing in the freedom and prosperity of democratic Europe.
You are a scientist, Mr Milinkievitch, as was Andrei Sakharov himself. Both of you have shared the same opinions, the same values and the same education and you have experienced the same tragic consequences of confronting a totalitarian regime.
Please believe me, Mr Milinkievitch, when I say that we are particularly happy to have you here with us today.
Today, the prize bearing the name of the scientist Sakharov is being awarded to another scientist, but above all it is being awarded to the hope of a democratic Belarus and to all the people fighting alongside you to make it a reality.
You have the floor, Mr Milinkievitch.
There have been times when we thought that you would not be able to come. Our Sakharov Prize winners have often been unable to come here to receive the prize. Aung San Suu Kyi, Wei Jingsheng and the Women in White have regrettably been unable to attend this ceremony.
We should remember that we Europeans, at home in our consolidated democracies, often take human rights for granted, seeing them as something natural and indisputable, like the air we breathe. We enjoy our political and civil freedoms, sometimes forgetting what it costs to obtain them and accustomed to exercising them. We become accustomed to good things very quickly, and even countries that have obtained freedom later enjoy it as if they have always had it and as if everybody had it.
We must remember, however, that billions of people on our planet lack the freedom that we enjoy.
Our Union is based on respect for human rights, and defending them and promoting them around the world is part of our raison d’être. Not just for moral reasons, but also in our own interest. In terms of Europe’s interests, it is a priority that our freedom should be exercised by the whole of humanity.
The Sakharov Prize is therefore an expression of the European Union’s defence of and commitment to human rights, and this year it is being awarded to a person who is dedicating his life to the fight for freedom in his country.
Everybody knows that the presidential elections in Belarus in March were neither free nor fair and that the European Union was not able to send its observers, their access to the country being denied."@en1
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"(The President awarded the Sakharov Prize)"1
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