Nieuws van de afdeling

10 May 2013

Van Bommel: China denies oppression of Tibetans and Uighurs

SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel has expressed disappointment at the reactions which he has encountered in China in response to his concerns about the position of minorities there. ‘Reports from human rights organisations have shown time and again the serious abuses of rights, including those of the Tibetan and Uighur communities,’ says Van Bommel. ‘Political bigwigs in China tell me, however, that there’s nothing in these reports and that everything is going extraordinarily well. These reactions show clearly that when it comes to respect for the human rights of minorities in China there’s still a long way to go.’

7 May 2013

European Commission breaks rules on access for lobbyists

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong is to ask the European Commission for an explanation of contacts between Commission staff and tobacco lobbyists.

7 May 2013

Artist Ai Weiwei doesn’t expect greater freedom in China

On the second day of our visit to Beijing we met a number of creative people and political activists. Most striking was Ai Weiwei, the enfant terrible of the contemporary Chinese art scene. We met him in ‘art district 798’, named after one of the factories which once operated there. Nowadays it teems with art galleries and artists’ workshops.

6 May 2013

EU fails to tackle bank regulation

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong is not satisfied with recently adopted bank legislation. ‘Without further new legislation there remains a real risk of a renewed banking crisis in Europe,’ he says.

27 April 2013

EU must hold Hungary to its commitments

The European Union says that it wants to become a community of values, yet Hungary, a member states, isn’t taking the rule of law at all seriously, in the opinion of SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel.

26 April 2013

Council of Europe wants answers on abuses in Netherlands’ reception of asylum seekers

Has the Netherlands not listened to the Council of Europe’s warnings regarding the treatment of asylum seekers in detention centres? This question was put by Andreas Gross and the SP’s Tiny Kox, presidents respectively of the European Social Democrats and the European United Left in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to the Committee of Ministers of the pan-European treaty body, which monitors the protection of democracy, the rule of law and human rights in forty-seven member states.

International