The European Parliament has adopted a report on human rights in the world in 2003 and on EU human rights policy. MEPs condemned terrorism as “one of the most serious challenges that the international community has to face”. But they also insisted that the struggle against it must be conducted in the framework of international law. This means asking, among other things, the US authorities “to put an immediate end to the current legal limbo to which the detainees in Guantánamo Bay have been relegated”. MEPs are also of the view that the questions linked to human rights should be discussed more openly and regularly in the framework of the meetings of Councils of association/cooperation and of EU summits with third countries. TURKEY. With reference to the same questions, the European Parliament has adopted a resolution on the outcome of the trial against Leyla Zana awarded the Sakharov Prize in 1995 and three other former Turkish parliamentarians in Ankara, which reconfirmed their sentence to 15 years detention, contrary to the indications furnished by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and in contravention of the legal reform begun by the Turkish government. PAKISTAN. The EP has also adopted a resolution concerning human rights abuses in Pakistan. While recognizing “the decisive even if unpopular measures adopted against Al Qaida and the return of the Taleban in Waziristan” and “the important role that Pakistan is playing in the reinforcement of global security”, the EP deplores the “grave and continuous violations of human rights” perpetrated against women, children, religious minorities (including the Ahmadi community and the Christian minority who have both suffered persecutions in the application of the laws on blasphemy) and journalists.
