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James Debono
Nationalist MEPs David Casa and Simon Busuttil were among 102 MEPs who abstained on a strongly worded resolution condemning racism and homophobia.
Labour MEPs Joseph Muscat, John Attard Montalto and Louis Grech voted in favour of the resolution.
On Friday the European Parliament adopted the joint resolution sponsored by socialists, liberals, greens and leftists, with 301 MEPs voting in favour, 161 against and 102 abstentions.
Both Casa and Busuttil, who voted in favour of several paragraphs condemning racism and homophobia, insist they had to abstain because the resolution went too far in its references to particular countries. Busuttil also claims that the motion was originally intended to condemn racism and not homophobia.
The two Nationalist MEPs abstained on the part of resolution which lambasted the participation of a far right party in the Polish centre-right government.
The MEPs expressed concern on the general rise in racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic intolerance in Poland, fuelled by religious platforms such as ultra-conservative Catholic Radio Maryja
The resolution calls on the EU to take appropriate measures to express its concerns on the participation in the Polish government of the League of Polish Families, whose “leaders incite people to hatred and violence.”
The resolution also envisions possible sanctions in the event of non-compliance. Most EPP MEPs voted against or abstained on this part of the resolution.
The European Parliament also deplored the fact that the Council has been unable to adopt the 2001 Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia.
MEPs urgently called on the future Finnish Presidency of the Council to extend this policy to combating homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and other types of offences motivated by phobia or hatred based on ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion or other irrational grounds.
The European Parliament also strongly condemned all racist attacks, and expressed its solidarity with all victims of such attacks and their families.
Casa and Busuttil voted alongside the absolute majority of MEPs to condemn racist and homophobic violence.
Parliament expressed its indignation at various incidents of racism and homophobia including the rape, torture and assassination of Ilan Halimi in February 2006 in France by a gang of 22 persons of different origins, the assassination of Chaïb Zehaf in March 2006 in France due to his ethnic origin, the brutal assault on a German citizen of Ethiopian origin and the horrific torture and murder of Gisberta, a transsexual living in the Portuguese city of Oporto by a group of adolescent and pre-adolescent minors, urging the Portuguese authorities to do everything in their power to punish those responsible and fight the climate of impunity with respect to this and other hate crimes.
The MEPs called on the EU representatives at the upcoming G8 Summit to raise the issue of human rights with Russia as a matter of urgency, after a gay pride march was violently repressed by the police last month.
The parliament also stressed the need to support anti-racist and anti-xenophobic initiatives in relation to the current World Cup in Germany, and asked authorities to closely monitor, prosecute and condemn those responsible for racist acts.
Nationalists justify
Busuttil has shifted responsibility for abstaining on the position adopted by the European People Party’s parliamentary group. “The group position did not include an option to vote in favour of this resolution,” says Busuttil.
Still despite the group’s position, 20 EPP MEPs joined their leftist and liberal colleagues in supporting this resolution. Busuttil cites a series of reasons for the group’s decision not to support the resolution. According to Busuttil the original motion should only have been about racism and not homophobia.
He also argues that references to specific countries went too far. But Busuttil also points out that both he and his colleague David Casa voted in favour of specific paragraphs condemning homophobia “However, since the paragraphs to which we objected were nevertheless carried, we opted to abstain in the final vote rather than associate ourselves with the objectionable paragraphs.”
Nationalist MEP David Casa told MaltaToday that he agreed with the general content of the resolution and he had voted for most of the paragraphs included in the resolution.
Still Casa chose to abstain on the resolution because the European People’s Party disagreed with identifying particular countries like Poland with racism. “Our group would have preferred a more general resolution condemning discrimination and violence against minorities,” says Casa.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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