EU: A European Parliament report on human rights will tomorrow call on the EU to keep its arms embargo on China and to ensure that all new measures undertaken to counter terrorism should safeguard individual rights. The report's author, Fine Gael MEP Simon Coveney, said that a number of governments had made concessions on human rights in recent weeks rather than risk censure in the report.
"The fact that they know that the European Parliament is monitoring what they are doing while at the same time negotiating trade deals means that they have to take note," he said.
The report recommends EU action to improve matters, focusing on issues common to a number of regions. These include the impact of armed conflict on women and children, the rights of children, the use of the death penalty and the place of human rights in the fight against terrorism.
It criticises the United States for its adherence to the death penalty, for its failure to sign an international convention on the rights of children and for its detention without trial of alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay.
"The continued use of the death penalty in the US is not consistent with the image of a country endeavouring to instill standards of human rights, freedom and justice throughout the world," the report states.
MEPs have voted twice against lifting the EU arms ban on China and Mr Coveney said that EU governments were wrong to press ahead with attempts to end it. "We must use that to try to change their attitude to human rights. One of the levers we have is the arms embargo. I'm not convinced that if we were to sell arms to China they would not be used to abuse human rights," he said.
Mr Coveney pointed to China's "appalling record" on the use of the death penalty. "China still executes more people than the rest of the world put together. There are an estimated 5,000 people executed throughout the world each year [ and] 4,000 of them are in China," he said.
Mr Coveney made last-minute changes to the report's section on Iran after Tehran agreed to a moratorium on stoning people found guilty of adultery, the execution of minors and punishment by amputation. The report says, however, that the European Parliament "is concerned at the large number of arrests, particularly of women and young people, on the basis of unclear or minor charges; expresses its deepest concern that a minor was recently executed for sexual misconduct; condemns Iran's abject policy of arrests and imprisonment of journalists and cyber-dissidents and the stifling of press and media freedom; and calls on Iran to cease support for terrorist organisations".