EU resolution to condemn homophobia
European politicians will vote on a joint draft resolution addressing an increase in racist and homophobic violence on the continent.
The House will call on the members to reinforce criminal law measures aimed at the approximation of the penalties for such offences throughout the EU.
Parliament will deplore the fact that the Council has been unable to adopt the 2001 Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia, and will urgently call on the future Finnish Presidency of the Council to the restart the work on it and on the Council to reach an agreement on explicitly extending it to homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and other types of offences motivated by phobia or hatred based on ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, religion or other irrational grounds.
MEPs will urge all the members to effectively implement the anti-discrimination directives and the European Commission to bring before the Court of Justice those member states which fail.
The House will strongly condemn attacks on the lesbian, gay, bisxeual and transgender (LGBT) community including the murder of Gisberta, a transsexual living in the Portuguese city of Oporto, in February 2006, and declarations by a leading member of the League of Polish Families inciting violence against LGBT people with a view to the march for tolerance and equality;
MEPs will call on the EU representatives at the upcoming G8 Summit to raise the issue of human rights with Russia as a matter of urgency, in particular the right to demonstrate peacefully, after the 2006 Moscow Gay Pride event was banned last month.
The House will also call on the institutions of the European Union, the Member States and all European democratic political parties to condemn all acts of intolerance and of incitement to racial hatred, as well as all acts of harassment or racist violence.
Of particular concern to the European Union is Poland, where gay bars are being closed and groups being banned along with an increased homophobic rhetoric amongst politicians.
