Written declarations on subtitling all public-service TV programmes and murder of human rights activist Munir Said adopted

 

The written declaration was put forward by Lidia Joanna GERINGER DE OEDENBERG (PES, PL) and currently 427 (out of 785) have signed it.

 

The declaration calls on the Commission to put forward a legislative proposal requiring public-service television broadcasters in the EU to subtitle all of their programmes.

 

MEPs consider subtitling of all public-service television programmes in the EU to be essential with a view to ensuring that all viewers, including deaf and hard-of-hearing persons, have full access to them; takes the view that this would also help with foreign-language learning.

 

MEPs point out that partial or complete loss of hearing is a condition that affects more than 83 million people in the European Union and given the ageing of the European population, this problem will continue to grow.

 

The declaration points out that universal access to television in Europe and to the fact that public-service television has a public-service mission consisting of, among other things, informing and educating viewers,

 

Finally, MEP recall that today's technology enables television programmes (including live programmes) to be subtitled as they go out, one example of this being the BBC, which has undertaken to subtitle all of its programmes from April 2008.

 

 

The written declaration was put forward by Raül ROMEVA I RUEDA (Greens/EFA, ES), Eija-Riitta KORHOLA (EPP-ED, FI), Jules MAATEN (ALDE, NL), Glyn FORD (PES, UK) and Ana Maria GOMES (PES, PT) and so far 412 out of 785 MEPs have signed it.

 

EP President Hans-Gert Pöttering announced the adoption of a written declaration on the murder of the human rights activist Munir Said Thalib given over half of all MEPs have signed it. The declaration calls on the Indonesian authorities to take all necessary action to ensure that those responsible for the murder at all levels are brought to trial and justice is delivered as quickly as possible.

 

In September 2004 leading Indonesian human rights activist Munir Said Thalib, founder of human rights organisations, died from arsenic poisoning on Garuda flight GA974 from Singapore to Amsterdam.  The report by an independent fact-finding team into the Munir case, ordered by the Indonesian President, has never been made public.  The only person to have been prosecuted in connection with the case, former Garuda co-pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, had his conviction overturned by the Indonesian Supreme Court in October 2006.

 

The written declaration calls on the Commission and the Council to monitor the investigation into the murder of Munir, including the ongoing trials of former Garuda executives Indra Setiawan and Rohainil Aini, as well as the case review of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Pollycarpus case.