Cashman (PSE). – Mr President, I welcome this report, which is wonderfully comprehensive. The sad thing is that we have to have it at all. If only we lived in a world where we did not perpetually have to stand up and condemn the human rights abuses that occur throughout the world.

Let me mention what is happening in Zanzibar, with its criminalisation and arrests of homosexuals, and where the EU has a mechanism through which it can act - the Cotonou Agreement - but does not seem to have the political will to do so. Similarly, when there have been breakdowns of the human rights clauses in our EU Association agreements and we have called for action, those calls have been ignored.

Let me also mention Egypt, where there is continuing arrest, entrapment and imprisonment of homosexuals. I praise the Irish Presidency for its work at the UN in supporting the Brazilian motion on human rights and sexual orientation. Sadly, this motion has once again been suspended, due primarily to lobbying by Egypt and Pakistan, the Vatican and the Conference of Islamic States.

We are talking here about human beings, about the destruction of individual freedom, individual hope and individual lives. The dignity of any society is based on respect for the dignity of those individuals.

Finally, this report sends out a powerful message that what happens in another part of the world is as important to this House and the Member States as if it were happening in Europe. Human rights abuses against another individual are human rights abuses against us all.