Prima pagină Tatjana ŽDANOKA

. – I voted against this report, and the major reason for this is my belief that the global EU human rights sanctions mechanism may not be an ‘essential part of the EU’s human rights and foreign policy toolbox’ (see para 67). The only toolbox to strengthen the EU’s role as a ‘global human rights actor’ is substantial improvement of the human rights situation in the EU itself. Those who claim to be judges for others are themselves involved in the political persecution of their own citizens. In order to mention the names of all political prisoners in the European Union much more place than this file allows is needed. In my country, Latvia, people are prosecuted for their political opinion or even for the fact of working for certain media. In neighbouring Lithuania, former Member of Parliament, Algirdas Paleckis, is persecuted for his opinion, dissenting from the ‘official’ one. In Spain, my former colleagues MEPs Oriol Junqueras and Raül Romeva, as well as a number of other Catalan people, are imprisoned. The EU, as it is now, is not suitable for the role of a judge for third countries in human rights matters, since people have every right to ask the question: who are the judges?