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Sarah's speech in the European Parliament on an 'Urgency resolution' for Pakistan
October 25, 2007 4:00 PM
By Sarah Ludford MEP in European Parliament
By Sarah Ludford MEP in European Parliament
Sarah Ludford, on behalf of the ALDE Group. - Mr President, the Pakistani people do not deserve military dictatorship, violence and lawlessness. Therefore, one of key articles in this resolution is the one which reaffirms our solidarity with the people of Pakistan, who share the objectives of democratic governance and transparent, accountable rule, and who act with courage and determination in the face of terrorist and criminal violence.
That is, of course, why we put the stress on the need for a return to democracy and civilian government with free and fair elections in January as being the only way to answer the challenges of Pakistani society.
At the same time, we also stress the need to remove the militarisation of Pakistani society and deplore the failure of President Musharraf to stand down as army chief, as he promised he would. The rule of law is extremely uneven in Pakistan. There have been some encouraging developments at times, but these are also accompanied by some very repressive judgments. This falls particularly hard on minorities, religious and otherwise, as well as on women. We rightly call for improvement in that area.
This as well, of course, as deploring the suicide bombing and the 140 victims and 500 injured last week. I fear that these could become a pretext for restricting political activity, because already there has been an announcement by the Government that political parties will only be allowed to hold meetings in well-secured parks and public grounds rather than organise processions. One could see how that might be made a pretext.
Finally, one of the more close-to-home reasons for my wanting Pakistan to fight both extremism and militarisation, and to return to the rule of law, is the impact on British people of Pakistani origin, with the calls, for instance, for profiling or for visa requirements for the United States. It would remove that threat to people like my constituents if Pakistan were to be a democratic society
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