Urszula Gacek, author. − Mr President, every Thursday afternoon during our plenary sessions in Strasbourg we learn of yet new tragedies, vile crimes, atrocities and grave injustices. The competition for the three places allocated to urgency debates is the best indication of man’s continued inhumanity to man.

Against this dismal backdrop it is hard to imagine that any case could still manage to shock us. We may say we have heard it all. Yet every once in a while we deal with a case so utterly repugnant that we are proved wrong. The stoning to death of a 13-year-old girl child in Somalia is just such a case: first the victim of a mass rape, subsequently found guilty of adultery while the perpetrators of the rape go free, and finally sentenced to the most horrible of deaths. As colleagues have already mentioned, 50 men stoned her to death, with a crowd of a thousand bystanders watching the horror unfold.

To their credit, some of the gathered crowd tried to save the petrified child. However, militia opened fire on those who had the decency to try to protect this victim of an inhuman and bigoted practice. One young boy paid with his life, the victim of militia gunshots.

In the face of this horrific crime, what can we possibly do to right the wrong? We must give every support to the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, as only by reasserting some control and rule of law in areas of the country controlled by the radical opposition groups can there be any prospect of avoiding a repetition of this and other atrocities.

The Somali Government should restore the honour of the victim, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, posthumously. This Chamber expresses its sincere condolences to Aisha’s family.

It was I that proposed Aisha’s case be placed on today’s agenda. Thank you for supporting that request. May we never have to debate a similar instance in this Chamber again.