Speeches

Mr President, thirteen years ago, in this Parliament, the Sakharov Prize for the Arab Spring was awarded, among others, to Mohamed Buazizi, the young street vendor who, after immolating himself, initiated a historic change in Tunisia and the Arab world. However, the country where the democratic revolution triumphed has become the country where politicians, journalists, activists are arrested, freedom of expression is restricted, civil organizations are censored, and candidates from historic political parties are denied the right to political participation. 72% of the population who decided not to vote on 6 October deserves to have real alternatives; It's a clear message. We have learned that Tunisian security forces have been implicated in serious abuses, such as torture or rape against migrants. We have also known the dramatic situation they live in the camp of El Amra. However, I have not seen to the right of this Parliament concern that any euro of the 105 million invested by the European Union in the framework of its border agreement with Tunisia is to finance these abuses. His job, since the beginning of the legislature, has been to systematically question the funding of the European Union to reputed organizations on unfounded accusations. Isn't it a bit hypocritical that now that the evidence is real, it's quiet? We call on the Commission to ensure respect for human rights in Tunisia, within the framework of the European Union's Memorandum of Understanding. The migration solution must not go through the "anything goes".

Madam President, we are concerned about the recent events related to the explosions in Stockholm and Copenhagen. This is not new: We have been saying for some time that doing things right in the Middle East means not having security problems. When we talk about disarming Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, we have already seen and experienced the Iranian regime's involvement in the Syrian war, in which hundreds of thousands of Arabs – human beings – were killed, also with the help of Hezbollah. We agree that the actions of the Revolutionary Guard must be condemned and sanctioned. The Iranian Islamist regime, dressed as a revolutionary, has done nothing but oppress its people and the most affected have been women. We saw what happened to Mahsa Amini, dead in police custody, or murdered, rather. Last year, this Parliament awarded him the Sakharov Prize. We cannot give awards and forget about the people who continue to suffer. We must continue to denounce an expansionist regime. We have seen it in countries that today are suffering from constant interference, such as Lebanon, which violates human rights and has a reactionary social vision. Similarly, just as we call for measures with Iran, we must not have double standards and we must apply them to other countries in the region that do not comply with international law. The policies of prevention of violent radicalization to combat the narratives of the Iranian Republic are very relevant.

Madam President, the Netanyahu government has killed more than 600 people in Lebanon, in addition to the 42,000 killed in Gaza and the West Bank. The situation is very serious. Israel has bombed the capital of a sovereign state and launched a ground military invasion. We need to strengthen Resolution 1701 in Lebanon. The Lebanese are very, very unhappy with Hezbollah's Islamist movement, but it is no excuse for killing civilians. The war already involves six Middle Eastern countries and Israel remains unpunished. Right now, as the High Representative said, 20% of the Lebanese population is displaced. Forced displacement is considered a war crime. Imagine for a moment that this same situation was happening anywhere else in the world: That the 1.9 million displaced were on eleven occasions European, that the Israeli attacks were against Germany's largest hospital, that Paris was being bombed, that the villages of southern Italy had been sprayed with white phosphorus or that far-right ministers used religion to justify the occupation of their neighborhood houses. Would you still be quiet? And please stop saying this is all against Jews. We love them and we respect them. It's like saying we are all against Muslims because Netanyahu has killed almost 42,000. Come on. We need joint action by the European Union right now. Inaction has exposed us to the world and we suffer international discredit for defending that only some deserve to live in peace. We want peace for Lebanese, Israelis and Palestinians: a ceasefire. And don't be fooled...

Madam President, High Representative, thank you for your intervention. Today marks one year since the Hamas terrorist attack, which took the lives of 1,200 people in Israel and captured hundreds of hostages. We condemned him a year ago, we condemned him today and we will condemn him tomorrow. The hostages must return home unconditionally. We're with the families. However, today is also the year of the terrible offensive by the Government of Israel, which has killed 42,000 people and killed 186,000 people by starvation and disease. To those who are watching us, who will be wondering what the European Union is doing, I would like to say that the right and the extreme right in this Parliament have agreed to remove the word 'Gaza' from the debates on the war. So much so that we have had to ask ourselves for a minute of silence for all the victims. We must talk about the war crimes in Palestine, the children and journalists killed and maimed, the forced displacements, the reprehensible conduct of soldiers, the attack on sovereign countries such as Lebanon. No Lebanese agrees with Hezbollah, nor with its attacks, nor with its intervention in the Syrian war. But now hundreds of civilians are being killed in Lebanon. We don't need double standards; We need a ceasefire. We need absolute respect for international law that protects us all, including you. We need a two-state solution and an end to occupation. We will continue to denounce the humanitarian tragedy. We will keep saying, 'Bring them back home'. Selective empathy must be abandoned. The world is waiting for a unanimous response from us. And, if we do not stop this with diplomacy and with a viable peace proposal, the children of indignation will react and not necessarily in a positive way. Remember that ISIS was born after the invasion of Iraq.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I address you with a concern that challenges us all as human rights defenders that we should be: The recent law on promoting virtue and preventing vice in Afghanistan is a brutal new blow against the most fundamental freedoms of Afghan women and girls. This legislation imposes severe restrictions on their mobility, clothing, presence in public life... and also perpetuates patriarchy and the system of control and violence that relegates them to the shadows and erases their voice. This law denies human dignity to half the population in Afghanistan. Since coming to power in 2021, the Taliban regime has systematically violated women's rights in contravention of international and human rights standards. This law again attacks the principles further promoted by the Istanbul Convention, in which we committed to preventing and combating violence against women and girls. We cannot remain on the sidelines ignoring this suffering. Our inaction is condemning millions of people to a life of oppression. The European Union cannot afford to be a mere observer, and so far the response has not been sufficient. Create a strategy with other influential actors in the region; promote that the embassies and consulates of the Member States of the European Union can handle asylum applications for Afghan women; increase funding and support for Afghan and international civil society organisations on the ground; support the international efforts being made to consider the codification of the apartheid gender as a crime against humanity; create safe and accessible digital tools that give women the possibility to connect, foster education and find emotional refuge; Let's support Afghan activists in exile. And for those who want to feed the hate narrative and incentivize Islamophobia: The problem here is not religion, but those who manipulate it to justify their control and power over women. Debates in Parliament on urgent cases were created to defend human rights, and those of Afghan women are violated on a daily basis: Let us not forget that women's rights are human rights. The European Union must be a determined actor and not a passive actor. I would also like to make one final reference to what MEP Isabel Serra Sánchez said earlier: Interventionism never solved anything, but made it worse.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am appearing for the first time in plenary, in this House, and I want to do so on behalf of all those people who do not have the opportunity to speak out in this rostrum. In October, we condemned Hamas's shocking terrorist attack in Israel. To this day, we continue to do so and call for the release of the hostages. We stand with the Israeli families who are suffering, but today I would like to ask for the same unanimous condemnation of the disproportionate response and violation of international humanitarian law in Palestine by the Government of Israel. More than 41,000 killed, 94,000 injured and 10,000 missing, most of them children and women. Right now, nine out of ten people are displaced in the Gaza Strip. Forced displacement is considered a war crime. The killing of civilians, journalists and humanitarian personnel has not stopped. We have normalized attacks on schools and even seen how the death toll was counted through the weight of human remains found in the rubble. How much does indifference weigh? This Parliament – the largest in the world – must be committed to rights and freedoms and has a duty to defend peace. Otherwise he would be lacking himself and his citizenship, setting an irreversible precedent. In other cases, we do not hesitate to condemn other leaders, but we are not able to do so with Netanyahu. The double measuring rod is not understood. War crimes, the blockade of humanitarian aid, human rights violations and the rise of hate speech must not be allowed. We must denounce the occupation of the Palestinian territories and illegal settlements, contrary to the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. We must recognize the Palestinian State within the framework of the two-State solution. We must not stigmatize United Nations agencies. We must review the EU-Israel Association Agreement. And not: It is not anti-Semitism to denounce what is happening in Palestine. If it were, we would be committing it against the Palestinians as well, since they are Semites, like the Israelis. We call for a ceasefire as hundreds of thousands of people around the world and in Israel do. Palestine is not a contested territory, as was said before; it is an occupied land. Or are you going to say against also the resolutions of the United Nations? Come on, who's going to respect us like this?