Media

A “deplorable silence” about Lebanon

27th September 2006

Press release

Emma Nicholson deplores Europe’s silence on Lebanon

Emma Nicholson has criticised the EU’s silence during this summer’s Lebanon crisis, and inaction in the face of a ’slaughter of the innocents’.  During this evening’s meeting in the European Parliament in Strasbourg with Prime Minister Siniora of Lebanon, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne MEP said:

“Lebanon is the early home of Europe’s cultural values: tolerance, multi-ethnic and multi-faith. It is a harmony of, not a clash of civilisations.  Yet we Europeans stood silent when we should have shouted loudly; we stayed silent when we should have called a halt to the destruction.”

She added: “I visited while the conflict was still in process and revisited shortly afterwards […] The destruction was terrible: bomb upon bomb rained down night and day. Beautiful places were reduced to rubble and bodies were pulled out from under concrete blocks by family members in face masks: a veritable slaughter of innocents.”

She ended: “The Prime Minister indicated that we can help: dear colleagues we should have helped before; we must help now”.

Ends.