51³Ô¹ÏÍø

Launch of the 2006 Annual Report on Human Rights: Margaret Beckett speech; ENGLAND: London: Foreign and Commonwealth OfficeINTUnidentified woman introducing Margaret Beckett MP (Foreign Secretary) SOT / Margaret Beckett MP (Foreign Secretary) speech SOT - Good morning and welcome to the Foreign Office / Before the General Election in 1997, one of our manifesto commitments was that a Labour government would produce an Annual Report on Human Rights / This report would set down what we were doing to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms around the world and would be something by which the public, the NGO community and the media could hold us as a government to account / The first report came out in 1998, so this is the ninth, and as you will see it is thicker and more detailed, that's a reflection of the increasing breadth and complexity of the human rights work that is done in the Foreign Office does / In many cases we can only do that work with the help of the organisations and individuals who are here today, so thank you for that / The format of the report may have changed over the time, but its essence has stayed the same, because it's not just a report about policy and process, this is a report about people: men and women who are like you and me except in one way – they do not have the rights and freedoms which we take for granted / Some of their faces, eight, are on the front cover of this year's report / Oswaldo Paya organised a petition calling on the Cuban Government for fundamental rights and freedoms, he has suffered years of threats, harassment and intimidation, his family are constantly watched, his children have been victimised and members of his network beaten up and thrown into jail, the Cuban Government say he is a US puppet, but we judge that he is a proud Cuban who rejects any outside interference in Cuban affairs, last December we invited him to attend the EU's annual NGO forum in London, but he was denied an exit visa, but he did...