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The use of the term "Chechen network" without any proven involvement of Chechens: question to the Commission and reply by Commissioner Vitorino Reply (E-0153/04FR) by Mr Vitorino on behalf of the Commission (10 March 2004) The Commission has no knowledge of the details of the case mentioned by the honourable member, and in any case is not competent to comment on the views and acts expressed by the judges of the Member States in the exercise of their duties. Nevertheless, the Commission shares the view of the honourable member in the sense that it is not right to identify the criminal conduct of particular persons with a whole people. The Commission believes that the investigation called for does not fall within the duties established by Regulation (EC) no. 1035/97 of the Council of 2 June 1997 on the creation of a European Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia.1 1 JO L 151, 10.6.1997 Written question E-0153/04 by Olivier Dupuis (NI) to the Commission Re: The use of the term "Chechen network" without any proven involvement of Chechens Increasingly often, judges from EU member countries are using terms that tend to give substance to the idea that Chechens are involved in terrorist networks active in the European Union. The French judge Bruguière, for example, has used the concept of "Chechen networks" to define everything remotely connected with international terrorism, although the use of the adjective "Chechen" is entirely unjustified. In actual fact the adjective "Chechen" serves only to define a place - generally hypothetical - where apprentice terrorists AND European citizens might have chosen to go, or to define a place - also generally hypothetical - where humanitarian aid might have been sent. What is the Commission's view of the use of the term 'Chechen network' by judges from EU member countries - and in particular by the French judge Bruguière - to define a criminal affair in which the only involvement of Chechens seems to be the fact that the EU citizens - and not Chechens - under accusation have referred to Chechens as the possible recipients of financial aid, or Chechnya as a place where they could carry out their plan for a holy war? Does the Commission not agree that by acting in this way the judges in question contribute, whether intentionally or not, to the dissemination of false information and to the undermining of the image and the reputation of a whole people, and that they could therefore be responsible for the growth among EU citizens of feelings of racial hatred, intolerance or even violence towards Chechen refugees living in member countries? Could the Commission ask the European Observatory on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna to carry out a thorough investigation into the extent of practices such as those outlined above, with regard both to the Chechen people and to other peoples, and into the political, legal and judicial implications that such practices could have? ===== ===== |