Speeches

Mr. President, dear human beings, if a person is imprisoned anywhere in the world for their commitment to democracy, that is an attack on every democracy in the world. If we want to defend our democracy here in Europe, then we have to defend José Daniel Ferrer. I would therefore ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to vote in favour of a resolution that makes it very clear what Europe stands for: to speak for freedom, for freedom of thought, to defend the freedom of one's ideas for a better future.

Madam President, dear colleagues, I want to thank you all for the unity in this House regarding this question. I also want to say thank you to the two people in the visitor area for still being with us at this late time. I would like to stress one last time what we are talking about here. You can see the evil of every regime when it comes to the most evil things it does – when it's killing people. So I just want to tell you this story. What happens when you are sentenced to death in Belarus? When you are sentenced to death in Belarus by Lukashenka's regime, you will be put in front of a shooting squad and then they will bury your body without telling anyone, even your relatives, where they will bury you. So the last thing that you see are a bunch of guns and then you are never seen again. So let's stand together. Let's fight together and bring this dictatorship down!

Mr President, honourable House! I dedicate my speech to Mr Froelich, who had the Bravado, in a debate on the rights of Afghan women and their oppression, to call for the deportation of these women to Afghanistan. I myself have been going to the same hairdresser in Cologne-Kalk for eight years, to an Afghan family business. The mother of this family, the boss of this shop, did her master's degree in Kabul in the 1990s and had to flee shortly thereafter, so she was forced to come to us in Germany, to build a new life there, to give birth to children, to pay taxes, and recently asked me if she had to flee again from Germany – but only on the sidelines to you. I would like to tell you: Let us all work together to ensure that an Afghan woman who wants to build an existence for herself never has to flee again!

Mr President, a German tells Europe something about Schengen – maybe not the best timing, but I am not Nancy Faeser. So, dear people of Europe, dear Prime Minister Orbán, we are in fact in a state of hybrid warfare, and it hurts me to say this here, as I am a pacifist, but I am a militant pacifist. So in that state of hybrid warfare, I call out to our misled Hungarian allies and fellow Europeans, and I ask them: do you really want to open the door for the spies and the saboteurs of the enemy? Now the people on my left – and for the people watching from the outside, I am referring to people from the right political spectrum – will say, 'Migrants! Double standards!' So I have a question for you too: who shall we fear more? The single digit percent of migrants who commit crimes? Or a nation that already wages a war to our neighbours?

Mr President, dear people of Europe, you might not know me. My name is Lukas Sieper. I'm 27 years old. Therefore, I'm one of the very, very few digital natives in this room. I grew up in both worlds, in the digital and the analogue one. I illegally downloaded movies and music when I was a child. I was scammed by online shops. I am watching democracy and the rights of all of us being targeted by fake news and hate speech. I understand all of this, but I have no idea about the technical details. With all due respect, dear colleagues, I think most of the people in this room have even less of an idea regarding the digital realm, regarding the technical details. So here's my plea: listen to the people who know. Listen to the experts and don't play political games while shaping this digital world of ours.

Mr President, dear people of Europe, dear Members of Parliament, given the special responsibility of my people regarding this topic, I will speak in German. For just a moment: Imagine that you belong to a faith whose followers have been persecuted since time immemorial and who are now again subjected to increased hatred and hatred. Imagine that you have a sexual orientation that is still defamed as sin or perversion. Imagine that you have a physical or mental limitation and have to fight for the respect of society to this day. Imagine that I am the one who sees every day how people like himself are the originators of hatred and incitement, whereas one actually only desires progress for oneself. And now, dear fellow human beings, imagine a world without hatred and incitement, in which every human being can be as he is, can do what he wants, as long as he only leaves the other. Imagine that. Be kind to each other!