What David spoke about.

I have supported progressive forces that want peace throughout this term of office. I have said throughout the period that UNRWA feeds hatred, feeds anti-Semitism. What schoolbooks do you think the terrorists who attacked everyone in Israel read before they went in and committed the terrible acts? What more cables under the ground, what tunnels? How much must be done with UNRWA for this to end? So

Mr President, Commissioner and Mr Borrell, I do hope for your swift recovery and I want to address you online since you’re not here – because today I wanted to talk to you about trust. Because without trust, there can be no ceasefire and no lasting peace. Yesterday in Geneva, I met the mother of a young Israeli man murdered by Hamas on 7 October, a young man whose corpse was then taken hostage to

Mr President, High Representative, as I said here in November, Europe’s most serious long-term threat is the Chinese communist regime, which seeks systemic global supremacy, and they have a plan to achieve it. They are a threat to democracy and human rights, to rule of law, and a level playing field, to free and fair trade, to the rules-based order. China is a global power with huge responsibility

Mr President, High Representative, I call again: from the river to the sea, all hostages must be free. Three weeks ago, I proclaimed in this house the urgent need to free all hostages, Israeli as well as Palestinians brutalised by Hamas, terrorists who oppress the people of Gaza, terrorists who want to wipe Jews from the land, who choose tyranny and war over peace. Thankfully, some of the Israeli

Madam President, Commissioner, yet again, we address the dire human rights situation in Iran. Johan Floderus, a Swedish citizen and EU official, remains captive to the regime’s twisted hostage diplomacy. So too does Swedish citizen Ahmadreza Djalali. Yet again, we demand their immediate release and, yet again, we condemn the regime’s unabating brutality. In September last year, 22-year-old Jina Ma

Mr President, Commissioner, Europe’s biggest long-term threat remains the Chinese communist regime, which seeks systemic global supremacy, and they have a plan to achieve it. Tiananmen, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong. In 2019, Hong Kongers stood and sang for freedom. Thousands, including children, were arrested and jailed. And in 2020 came the infamous National Security Law, which continues to strangl

Mr President, commissioners, I want to talk about hostages. I want to talk about the over 200 Israeli women, children and men whom Hamas kidnapped on 7 October. And I want to talk about the Palestinians in Gaza whom Hamas has taken hostage too. And while I welcome the positive news about a possible deal, it is still vital to stress that Hamas must release all hostages – all hostages. The vicious t

Madam President, Armenian genocide, Holodomor in Ukraine, Holocaust, deportation and gulag, Srebrenica, Bucha: never again. Right now in Nagorno-Karabakh, against ethnic Armenians, hunger is again being used as a weapon of ethnic cleansing. Attacked and outlawed, tens of thousands are being forced to discard their identity or else desert their homeland. Words have not worked. Our Union must act. H

Trade is one of our strongest EU tools for influence and partnership, and the EU has tried to cooperate with the People’s Republic of China, now we need to confront. On trade the Chinese Communist Party does not play fair and at the same time, both at home and abroad, it increasingly undermines democratic values and represses human rights. And I love free trade. But the Chinese regime has not earn

Madam President, thank you very much. Commissioner Schinas! Antisemitism – it's not just about occasional idiots or a statement from time to time. It's not just crazy tweets by Kanye West or some meme that people laugh at in secret. No, the anti-Semites have a very conscious and systematic strategy that plagues our entire society. When I tell people that EU aid is being used for anti-Semitic schoo

Mr President, High Representative, Jina Mahsa Amini dared to defy the Iranian regime by showing her hair in public, and for this she paid the ultimate price. And one year ago, she was murdered. The protests which followed showed the brutality of a regime which uses its morality police to force political submission, a regime which supports Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorists, which seeks death to

Madam President, Commissioner Várhelyi, dear colleagues, last year, the EU finally opened the accession talks with Albania, which constitutes one step towards EU membership and a new face in the EU-Albania relations. Becoming a member of the EU is not and should not be a quick or an easy process. The road towards EU membership is one of requirements aimed at guaranteeing democratisation, modernisa

Madam President, thank you very much. On the table is the worst recommendation made by the Committee on Foreign Affairs during my time in the European Parliament. But I am not surprised when Swedish Social Democrats hold the pen. The task was to draft a recommendation for the EU's relationship with the Palestinian Authority, but the text focuses much more on Israel than on the Palestinian Authorit

Madam President, High Representative Borrell, the Cuban people deserve an explanation. When signing the EU—Cuba deal in 2016, it was under the premise that the new agreement would oblige the Cuban Government to uphold and improve human rights, and no one in their right mind could claim that the Cuban regime either upheld or improved human rights since then. The PDCA provides for the suspension of

Mr President, this topic is very serious. The Taliban have banned girls from returning to secondary schools and universities, depriving an entire generation of proper education. Today, we are pointing out the Taliban’s unkept promise that girls and women’s access to education would be restored. Afghanistan is now the only country in the world which refuses to allow women and girls to be educated b

Mr President, Commissioner, ever since the beginning of the war, more than 16 000 Ukrainian children have been abducted and forcibly transferred to Russian institutions. The aim is to get children Russified and prepared to be adopted by Russian families. This attempt of forced Russification is indeed part of a wider plan of Putin that aims to erase Ukrainian identity and amounts to a full-scale wa

Mr President, dear colleagues, thousands, thousands of school girls in Iran have been poisoned, many of whom have been hospitalised. And we don’t know for sure who is behind the attacks or what the purpose of them is. But what we do know for sure is that girls have been hurt, that girls have been prevented from attending their education, and that this has hindered both young girls and their parent

Mr President, I am known to be a friend of Israel, but in this context, I would like to highlight this: true friends are honest with each other, and true friends can also discuss uncomfortable issues. And while I stand by Israel, the Middle East's only democracy, and its indisputable right to defend its territory and people, I do have an uncomfortable issue to address. The draft legislation on the

Madam President, thank you very much. Commissioner Johansson! Protecting the EU budget and economic interests is fundamental to citizens' trust. We must ensure that taxpayers' money is spent correctly and effectively. Corruption, fraud, fraud, crime – this breeds anger and disappointment, but also suspicion and worry. It must therefore be crystal clear that the European Parliament has zero toleran

Madam President, Mr Borrell, we promised never again. The European Union is founded on the values of human dignity, freedom, equality and human rights. I took the floor to remind the High Representative about the situation in Xinjiang: persecution, detention and forced labour, torture, rape and systematic sexual abuse, mass forced sterilisation and forced abortions. So I would like to remind Mr Bo

Mr President, we have come to the point of no return in our relationship with the Iranian regime. The Islamic regime in Iran is barbaric and brutal. It despises everything that we defend. The Iranian people ask for freedom. They ask for respect and dignity. The Iranian people ask for their fundamental human rights to be recognised, but the Islamic regime would go to any length to crush the people’

Madam President, Commissioner, there is no free Ukraine without a free Belarus, and vice versa. The destinies of Ukraine, Europe and Belarus are interconnected, and therefore it is equally important to enforce the support of Ukraine’s defence and, at the same time, enforce the support to the democratic movement in Belarus, because Belarussians don’t support the war. Yet, Belarus is participating i

Mr President, High Representative, I say to the Iranian women – the changemakers in Iran – we support you. I want to be crystal clear that we wholeheartedly support the aspirations of the Iranian people who want to live in a free, stable, inclusive and democratic country. And we strongly condemn the compulsory hijab law. We condemn the morality police. And we condemn the brutal repression and viol

Madam President, the Xinjiang police files is yet again confirming the heinous crimes committed by the Chinese regime in Xinjiang. And now I present to you the European Parliament’s political response to the evidence that we have received. And the European Parliament, for the first time, recognises that the Chinese regime is committing crimes against humanity and the serious risk of genocide in Xi

Madam President, I do have a point of order. As we are now to adopt this part-session’s urgency resolutions, I would like to update this House on a case we have discussed many times before. Media now report that the Swedish-Iranian national, Ahmad Reza Jalali, who is sentenced to death in Iran, will be executed by 21 May. So I would like to remind the President and my colleagues that we have, on s