Debate at the plenary session of the European Parliament, Thursday 6 April 2006 - Strasbourg

Tobias Pflüger (GUE/NGL), author. – (DE) Mr President, according to the latest information, at least 14 000 prisoners are being held in Iraq without any definite charge being laid against them. Amnesty International does not mince its words when it says that the occupying powers – the USA and the United Kingdom – are, by keeping them prisoner, directly violating international law and that they have failed to learn any lessons from Abu Ghraib.

There is no doubt about it; these prisons in Iraq are part of the policy of occupation. It is the occupation of Iraq that is the real political problem, and we should not beat about the bush in saying so.

A whole array of EU Member States are, alas, directly involved in this occupation – the United Kingdom and Poland among them. The EU itself has a hand in what is going on in Iraq in the shape – among other things – of the Eurojust-Lex programme, which, I believe, needs to be reviewed, since, if the present legal system is to be judged by the vast number of people in jail, the programme can hardly be effective in any real sense.

We must, then, demand in clear terms that the occupation of Iraq and the human rights violations in its prisons be brought to an end, and it is the European Parliament that must make that demand, and in very, very clear language.