Debate contributions by Rima HASSAN

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the beginning of 2016 the lack of credibility of the European Union's external policy on the defence of human rights and democracy was over. Added to the complicity with the genocide in Gaza is the inability of the European Union to strongly condemn the kidnapping and illegal imprisonment of the Venezuelan president by the United States of Trump. Washington has a long tradition of imperialist intervention under the guise of defending democracy. But this time, the goal is clearly displayed and assumed: plundering the Venezuelan people of their oil resources. After threatening Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Donald Trump is now attacking European states, brandishing the threat of a trade war if they oppose his plan to annex Greenland. We are witnessing a real collapse of the international order, which is accompanied by a dislocation of the West and at the expense of Europeans. This new diplomatic humiliation and the destructive alignment of Europeans with US imperialism poses a major danger to the sovereignty and freedom of peoples, both in Europe and elsewhere. The reality is unambiguous. The United States' obsession with preserving its dominance is now a threat to human rights and democracy. No foreign intervention has ever liberated a people, quite the contrary. They often reinforce the regimes they claim to fight when they do not ravage entire societies for decades, such as in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. The cynical instrumentalisation of human rights and democracy for the purposes of imperialist domination must stop. We must urgently refuse to submit to the interests of imperialist states, whatever their agenda, and take our share of responsibility for the state of the world and remedy it. Non-alignment is the only way to an international order based on equality, justice and solidarity among peoples.

Madam President, in a colonial context, peace always describes the tranquility of the colonizer, never justice for the colonized. Behind the mask of peacemakers, there is also the face of the architects of genocide and colonialism, for whom Palestine is first and foremost the ground for political, ideological and economic expansion. Since its entry into force, the ceasefire has been violated more than 80 times by Israel, killing 97 Palestinians. On Sunday alone, 153 tons of bombs were dropped on Gaza. The threat of trade sanctions announced last month by the European Union is currently being dropped. The European Union never misses an opportunity to whitewash Israel for its crimes, which continue to this day in Gaza and the West Bank. From the Balfour Declaration to the present day, Western states have systematically made the mistake of thinking about the future of Palestine without the Palestinians. With one hand, they sign the peace agreements, with the other hand, they deliver the weapons to the state that practises genocide. Since the Nakba, Palestinians have never really known what the free and civilized world calls peace, because the first quest of the colonized is their liberation from the colonial yoke. Nothing, absolutely nothing in this agreement embraces this quest for the Palestinian people who are under international tutelage. Peace in Palestine can only result in an end to Israel's impunity, an end to Western complicity in these crimes of colonization, occupation, apartheid and genocide. In other words, no peace without justice. The peace imposed by imperialism is an invisible war, a war that has no name, but is present in every gesture of domination. If Edward Said were alive, he would add to his own quote: This agreement is yet another gesture of Western domination over the East.

Madam President, I say this to the descendants of settlers here, who will recognize themselves: Algeria is no longer a colony. The relationship with Algeria, like the relationship with the African continent, must change its tone and posture. Despite one hundred and thirty-two years of colonisation and the ‘black decade’, Algeria is standing by the strength of its people, whose demands for justice and freedom have bubbling throughout the Hirak. It is in this post-colonial transition that Algeria finds itself, like so many other countries that have been destabilised, looted, damaged in their flesh by colonialism, whose crimes remain silent, when they are not denied. Europe and France must reconnect with multilateralism in order to chart a path of fraternity between the peoples that history has linked. The cases of Boualem Sansal, Christophe Gleizes, but even more so Algerian activists, of whom no one is concerned here, must encourage us to act, not against a background of humiliation and interference, but in a genuine and disinterested desire to uphold human dignity. The diplomatic divide fuelled by the French government will continue to cause collateral damage of this type. Algeria, for its part, would be honoured to rise above France’s lowliness by pardoning prisoners of conscience and embracing the demands of its own people. May Algeria remain true to its history (some inaudible words) revolutionaries and liberties!

Madam President, from the Sykes-Picot agreements to the present day, the Palestinian people are being ethnically cleansed. The colonial transition between the British Empire and the Zionist movement has the same objective: to dispossess the Palestinians of Palestine. For almost two years, this dispossession has become a veritable enterprise of extermination. I have two minutes of speaking time today. Know that I would need more than 3,000, if only to name the Palestinians murdered by Israel since October 2023. Gaza, 100,000 tons of bombs dropped on 2 million civilians subjected to forced displacement, more than 55,000 dead, including 70 per cent women and children, 130,000 wounded, more than 200 journalists and 300 humanitarians murdered, 90 per cent of schools and 100 per cent of universities razed. West Bank, more than 1,000 dead, including 200 children, 800,000 armed settlers supported by the Israeli regime, more than 10,000 Palestinians languishing in Israeli colonial jails. History will remember those who stood up and those who, like you, Mrs Kallas, let it happen. As early as October 2024, however, an internal report was submitted to you, concluding that Israel had committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide. What did you do with it? I repeat to you here, you are what you do, you are what you endorse. People who listen to us need to know three things. First, through the Horizon Europe programme, the European Union directly finances Israel's military industry. Secondly, the countries of the European Union account for almost half of arms exports to Israel. Thirdly, with the Association Agreement still not suspended, the European Union remains Israel's largest trading partner. Millions of European citizens are waiting for you at the turn. Israel's impunity must end. Complicity with the Israeli colonial and criminal state will not be done on our behalf, Mrs Kallas, to protect your petty interests. Nothing, absolutely nothing will stifle the cry that demands justice and dignity for the Palestinian people and, through it, that of the peoples that the capitalist and neocolonial order tramples and drags towards the abyss. Long live free Palestine!

Madam President, on 1 June, I was kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli army while on board a humanitarian ship en route to Gaza. There were twelve of us on board the ship, including ten European citizens. We have all been abducted, forcibly deported by Israel, and then illegally detained for several days in the deafening silence of this Parliament. No conviction, no call for unconditional release. I was handcuffed, searched bare, handcuffed to my hands and feet, put in solitary confinement for writing "Free Palestine" in my cell. I would like to point out, beyond our political divisions, ladies and gentlemen, that the action of the flotilla is perfectly legal. It was supported by ten UN Special Rapporteurs, millions of European citizens, hundreds of parliamentarians and international NGOs. Not only does Gaza have the right to receive humanitarian aid, but states and politicians have a moral and legal duty to end the famine and genocide there. This silence, Madam President, is a serious political mistake. It fuels Israel's impunity and undermines the credibility of this institution. As long as this Parliament is silent, Europe will no longer be a voice for human rights, but an echo of its own complicity and political cowardice.

Mr MEP, you talked about Israel's right to defend itself: this right does not exist in international law. On the other hand, there is a right that applies to an occupying Power, which is the right to preserve, precisely, the civilian population. With regard to Hamas, I would like to hear from you about the revelations made by the Israeli press about Netanyahu's support for Hamas. He said Hamas was precisely a tool to be able to divide the Palestinian population and politically fragment it between the Authority, which is in the West Bank, and Hamas, which is in Gaza. What do you have to say about Netanyahu's support for Hamas?

Madam President, 77 years ago, my family experienced the Nakba, the destruction of more than 500 villages, the massacre of thousands of civilians and the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians. What few say here is that the Palestinians in Gaza are overwhelmingly children of this Nakba, and what they are experiencing today is a continuous Nakba. At the same time as we are debating the annexation of Gaza, 14,000 babies are at risk of dying because of the blockage of humanitarian aid. What exactly should we be debating? Of the 50,000 dead and 120,000 wounded? Of the 100,000 tons of bombs dropped on a civilian population that Netanyahu wants to deport? Of the 90% of schools and hospitals that were deliberately targeted? Or the 221 journalists murdered? What discussion remains to be conducted within a European Union whose leaders have sided with complicity? To all those who embark us on a world that consents to genocide, I say to you forcefully: We are no longer interested in your speeches! You are what you do, only your actions count. I will end with the call of the doctor Raphaël Pitti, who operated in Rafah: In the face of the genocide in Gaza, the only possible response is civil disobedience.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Cameroon is a country rich in its media landscape: 600 newspapers, 200 radio stations and more than 60 television channels. However, it is in 138th place out of 170 in the ranking of Reporters Without Borders. Due to a triple colonization of Germany, France and the United Kingdom, tensions between Francophones and Anglophones are at the heart of the repression of Cameroonian journalists. Paul Biya, the oldest elected leader in office in the world, is now using the anti-terrorist legal architecture to silence criticism – a crude instrumentalisation, which unfortunately knows no borders. In addition to repression and arbitrary arrests, attempts have been made to corrupt the journalistic body into a propaganda tool. Solutions are available to all those who, like the Parliament, claim to act for change. One: Revise anti-terrorism laws. Two: abolish procedures for the trial of civilians before military courts. Three: defend the holding of a UN mission on human rights violations already voted here in Parliament in 2021. There is an urgent need for action, as for some it is already too late. Jean-Jacques Ola Bébé, Samuel Wazizi or Martinez Zogo are all already dead. The press must remain the platform of the people. Censorship is the weapon of those who have already lost everything.

I must say that your interventions are a bit up to your political mediocrity on this subject. The issues you raise are in fact already dealt with by international courts. They are already covered by hundreds of UN resolutions. Colonisation, illegal occupation, appartheid, genocide: all this is documented by everything you claim to be defending here, namely the international order. With regard to Hamas, I do not hear you condemn the alliances and rapprochement with the Netanyahu regime – Netanyahu’s minister Bezalel Smotrich has specifically said that Hamas is an asset and that the Palestinian Authority, which has embraced diplomatic channels, is a burden. So if you are here to denounce Hamas, denounce all those who feed it, who feed it, to harm the Palestinian project, which is a project of liberation and independence.

Mr. Speaker, in 2019, Sudanese women bravely took to the streets to make the revolution. Today, they commit suicide for fear of rape. Since April 2023, the war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has already left tens of thousands dead, three million refugees and nine million internally displaced. The war has caused a famine, which is likely to worsen since Trump froze USAID funds. The same Trump is sanctioning the ICC as it investigates crimes against humanity and acts of genocide perpetrated in Sudan. The European Union also bears a huge responsibility: By outsourcing its borders, it finances authorities that are guilty of serious human rights violations. Sudanese flee war; On the road to exile, they find torture. Since Amnesty International's investigations, we also know that French weapons systems are used by the Rapid Support Forces, although an arms embargo is decreed by the United Nations. It is time for the European Union to support Sudan's fierce civil society materially, financially and politically. I will end with the slogan of their confiscated revolution. (The speaker concluded her statement in a non-official language.)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, undermining international law is a losing bet for the entire international community. Trump's recent statements, applauded by his fascist international allies, have the merit of exposing their hypocrisy. The United States has never been a true ally in the defence of international justice. Historically, they have used human rights and democracy as a pretext for interventionist and imperialist purposes. Ask Chileans, Iraqis, Afghans or Palestinians what they think of the great American democracy. A crime is a crime, whoever committed it. Today, we are reduced to having to defend within the European institutions this basic principle, which is denied on a daily basis. No one is fooled by the macabre goal at the heart of Trump's alliance with the Israeli genocidal regime: destroy international courts to pursue with impunity their project of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. All this is part of a global offensive against human rights and the actors who defend them. Trump went so far as to raise yesterday the possibility that Ukraine will one day become Russian. The European Union is now facing its destiny and its responsibilities. This will be witnessed by all European citizens. Either we defend international law at any cost, or we participate directly in its destruction. There will be no turning back.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, since the beginning of this mandate, our group has consistently called for urgent resolutions on the great tragedies of our time to be put on the agenda: war motivated by the plundering of resources in the DRC, ethnic cleansing in Sudan or genocide in Palestine. For this plenary, it is the alliance of the right and the extreme right that has put on the agenda a subject that is nevertheless Franco-Algerian, against the backdrop of diplomatic tensions between France and several formerly colonised African countries, which it struggles to consider as equals without them having to say thank you. A graduate of the École Polytechnique d’Alger and a former high-ranking official of the Ministry of Industry, the controversial writer Boualem Sansal is presented here as a man of the Enlightenment. In fact, he defends far-right identity theories and has not been noticed for his support for the popular and democratic Hirak movement, which has mobilized millions of Algerians. Boualem Sansal was not arrested for his works as a writer, but for his comments on Algerian colonisation. Mr Sansal's fundamental rights must, of course, be guaranteed. But how can we justify calling into question the EU-Algeria agreement called for by this resolution when nothing has been done for the EU-Israel Association Agreement?

Mr President, on 17 October 2023 I, along with others, sent a public letter demanding policies that they act for a horizon of justice. The release of the hostages had to go hand in hand with the liberation of the Palestinian people, hostage to Israeli colonialism. At that time, the number of Palestinian victims was 2,808. The ceasefire, which we have claimed with all our might, comes after the commission of the first genocide of our era, documented in 4K by its own victims. Millions of us are waking up and falling asleep, from our smartphones, with this martyred people. It rained oceans of tears on our cheeks. We will die with images of Palestinian bodies beheaded, shredded, burned and tortured. Nothing will be like before. This ceasefire has a bitter taste. He has a taste for Palestinian blood, which has flowed too much. It also smells of European complicity, of Europe having consented, armed and blinded itself. Justice is not about delivering humanitarian aid, it is about simply keeping the guns quiet. Justice for a colonised people with rage in their stomachs and burning chests to watch them disappear is their inalienable right to self-determination. Long live free Palestine!

Madam President, in Kivu, Sudan and elsewhere, women's bodies are being turned into battlefields, and rape is being used as a weapon of war. Wars of predation on resources and foreign interference have resulted in the massacre of 6 million people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with almost total indifference and impunity. In Sudan, women are also systematic targets of sexual violence, even as in 2019 they led the revolution that overthrew dictator Omar al-Bashir. In this country, for some women, being safe means being dead, as evidenced by the suicides of women who are raped or fear being raped. As weapons continue to flow, survivors are abandoned, stigmatised and denied justice. According to the UN, sexual violence increased by 50% in 2023 – a statistic that remains underestimated. These crimes, which aim to break communities, will not stop until the perpetrators are prosecuted. This unbearable culture of impunity must end, both in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Sudan and elsewhere. European states must put an end to the arms supplies that fuel these atrocities and hold to account those of their companies that are complicit in them. To those who survived we need not only reparation, but also a reason to hope. The future cannot be built without them.

Mr President, 8 December 2024 marked the end of the reign of the Assad family. From the Caesar report to the recent images of Syrian refugees planning to return for the first time, we continue to witness the scale of torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment perpetrated under Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian revolution was confiscated from its people by both regional and Western powers. Syrian territory has been the site of clashes, hegemonic tendencies and interventionism. We owe it to ourselves to support the Syrian people today in their aspiration for freedom, dignity and justice. With its diverse identities and faiths, it will be able to unite for its future, where many seek to divide it. But how can this future unfold serenely with an Israeli neighbor who has already bombed Syrian soil 600 times and continues its expansion of "Greater Israel"? How can this future come about when the States parties to the conflict think first of their interests? How to think about this future when several Western countries have rushed to set up what is their priority: prepare for the repatriation of Syrian refugees? All work in indignity, only one hero remains: the people. He is the one to whom our love and honours go.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have just returned from a mission to the Canary Islands, where the number of children travelling alone along one of the most dangerous migratory routes is constantly increasing. Reception centres, supposed to be temporary shelters, are saturated. Children stay there for years, crammed in unworthy conditions. This situation is once again a painful mirror of the European Union's use of the geographical position of its Member States to strengthen a strong migration policy, a xenophobic policy that tramples on the inalienable rights of children, forced to migrate alone. The humanitarian emergency is now a structural crisis. The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that the best interests of the child be the highest priority, regardless of origin, skin colour or religion. However, welcoming with dignity is not enough. We must address the root causes of exile by ending the extractivism and looting of African resources that fuel crises and inequalities. Europe bears a historic responsibility and must stop its neocolonial practices. How can the European Union sign leonine agreements with disastrous consequences in the countries of origin, while being outraged when the populations it has stripped seek to survive, even risking their lives by crossing deadly seas?

Madam President, for some, the feminist struggle consists in making the plight of certain women, such as Palestinian women, invisible and treating the plight of other women selectively and ideologically. This is especially true for Iranian women. The left has always fought for the right of women to freely dispose of their bodies, to choose their way of life and to guarantee their fundamental rights. But in the face of this, the far right and the right are now trying to appropriate the feminist struggle against a background of Islamophobic ideological obsession. We're not fools. European hypocrisy cares very little about the courageous and inspiring struggle of Iranian women who are betrayed by those who instrumentalize their struggle. This fight must be waged beyond opportunistic political recoveries. We must demand the immediate release of all women incarcerated for refusing to wear the veil, without attacking those who wear it by choice. We must support all true allies in this fight for freedoms, all freedoms, and welcome Iranian refugees persecuted for their commitment. The European Union is constantly losing its political and diplomatic credibility by deviating from double standards. "Woman, Life, Freedom" for all oppressed women!

Mr President, what value do the commitments of States parties to international instruments really have if their implementation depends solely on the will of the Heads of State? The statements by Germany and Hungary expressing refusal to cooperate with the ICC, since it issued arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, have serious consequences for the credibility of the international justice system. States parties to the Rome Statute have a legal obligation to cooperate fully with the International Criminal Court and to execute its arrest warrants, as recalled by Mr. Borrell. These arrest warrants are a historic step forward for international justice and the rights of the Palestinian people, but they are not enough. Palestinians can no longer wait. EU Member States must introduce a full arms embargo on Israel and immediately suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement. The political credibility of the European institutions is at stake. I want to end with a call for solidarity with the oldest political prisoner in Europe, unjustly detained for 41 years by France, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. I join all calls for his immediate release.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this summer, after the knife attack in Southport, we witnessed the eruption of violent racist riots triggered by rumours about the identity of the aggressor, falsely referred to as a Muslim. What must attract our attention is not only the violence of these riots, but also the speed at which they spread, which reveals a latent racism that fractures our societies and mainly targets Jewish and Muslim communities. In France, Islamophobic acts surged by 57% between 2022 and 2023. In Germany, there are on average three Islamophobic attacks per day. These figures reflect only part of the reality. This rise in Islamophobia is primarily the responsibility of the extreme right and its racist theories, such as that of the great replacement. Their ideology has even normalized in the public debate, with the complacency, even sometimes the complicity, of some media. Today we are witnessing a real institutionalization of Islamophobia, which is reflected in discriminatory policies. This racism represents the remnants of European colonialism, which still tarnishes the dignity of many of our fellow citizens today. Within four days of the October 7 attacks, the number of Islamophobic posts increased 43-fold on YouTube's platform alone. In the same way that we must not essentialize European Jewish communities to the abuses committed by the Israeli regime, we must raise the alert on hate speech essentializing Muslims in Europe. Islamophobia, like all forms of racism, must be fought with the utmost firmness. As James Baldwin reminded us, Islamophobia is not a matter of one community, but of society as a whole.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament cannot take on board the language or even propaganda of the Israeli regime regarding the mandate of UNRWA, the UN organisation responsible for assisting Palestinian refugees. Two bills presented to the Knesset are intended, I quote, to put an end once and for all to UNRWA, which is described as a terrorist organization. UNRWA is a bandage created for a wound generated by Israeli politics, the Nakba. Six million Palestinian refugees are registered in the occupied territories, but also in neighbouring countries, which still do not enjoy the right of return to Palestine. I'm one of them. Born in the Palestinian camp of Neirab in Syria, I benefited from the services of UNRWA during my childhood. Who here took the trouble to visit one of UNRWA's 58 refugee camps to see first-hand the breadth of its mandate? The European Union's support for UNRWA is therefore an imperative, a moral and political obligation. Let's send a clear message to the Israeli regime: Deleting UNRWA will not erase the Palestinians' right of return. Begin by indignant at the billions you give to the Israeli genocidal regime.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1959 Iraq passed a progressive law for women's rights, the Personal Status Act. This law, considered one of the most progressive in the Middle East, marked significant advances in gender equality at the time. By transferring jurisdiction over family matters to the State, it set, for example, the legal age of marriage at 18 years. Decades of war later, including more than eight years of US invasion that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, have weakened and fractured all these societal advances. The 1959 law is now threatened by a proposed amendment that could reduce the age of marriage to only 9 years for young girls, with the risk of increasing the deprivation of access to education, endangering the health of young girls and a deep regression of their place in society. The work of Iraqi civil society actors must be encouraged. The solution comes from them, including the NGOs OLFI and Alliance 188. The progressive legacy of Iraqi society is present and our responsibility here is to amplify its voices and support its struggles.

Madam President, before speaking on the situation of Uyghur political prisoners, I would like to point out that this Parliament systematically refuses to put the situation in Gaza and Lebanon on the agenda. While genocide has been ongoing for a year, the European Union is ruling on all human rights violations worldwide, with the exception of those committed by the Israeli regime. The reason is simple: The European Union is now complicit in genocide and war crimes in Palestine and Lebanon. Parenthesis closed. Ilham Tohti and Gulshan Abbas are both glaring examples of the ongoing persecution of Uighurs, arbitrarily arrested for separatism and terrorism, respectively. UN reports have documented the existence of internment camps under the pretext of fighting terrorism, a misguided legal prism giving rise to human rights violations targeting in particular Muslim populations. Although the products of Uyghur forced labour have already been the subject of a clear position by the European Parliament, much remains to be done. Nearly a million Uyghurs would still be interned, let us not forget them. At the same time, let us not be fooled by the selective indignation of the European Union over the necessary defence of human rights.

Mr. Bellamy, your inculture of the subject is one of the sources that prevents us from moving forward on this issue. The question you ask is who the aggressor is and who the aggressor is. The question is what time dimension you are in. This conflict did not begin with the attacks of Hamas and Hezbollah. This conflict began in 1948 and it is precisely because here you have left Israel and abandoned Israelis and Palestinians since the Oslo Accords that we face this chaos today. So the issue is the sharing of responsibilities between all actors in the region. But they must be placed in a historical context, dating back to 1948.

Madam President, Commissioner Borrell, I am addressing you, Mr Borrell, as a Member of the European Parliament, but also as a child of the Nakba. I hope you realize that Israel's impunity began as early as 1948. "Lebanon must not become a new Gaza." These words are those of the UN Secretary-General, declared undesirable on Israeli soil. 2,000 people killed, including 150 children, more than 10,000 injured, more than 1,200,000 displaced, including 350,000 children, according to UNICEF. The Israeli regime is now strengthened by the silence of the Western powers. It is the lack of clear condemnation of European countries, and therefore of the European Union, that allows Israel to act as it does. In Gaza, where genocide is taking place, as in Lebanon, we are being watched. The military incursion into the south of the country is also being carried out in defiance of all international conventions. The excuse of Hezbollah and Hamas is being used today as a pretext by Netanyahu. Israel was already invading Lebanon in 1978, four years before Hezbollah was born. Israel colonized and occupied the Palestinian territories long before the creation of Hamas. The European Union does not give itself the means to achieve coherence or political credibility in foreign policy. We owe this demand for justice to all those who trust our institutions, to all those whom we sacrifice and betray...