EU's rights homilies under cloud as MPs arrested for bribery

New Delhi, December 17

The European Union’s homilies on human rights have come under a cloud after members of its parliament (MEPs) and a trade union boss were arrested by the Belgian authorities for “taking cash and favours” from Qatar and Morocco to soft-pedal labour issues.

Doha’s role under the scanner

• Belgian prosecutors investigating charges that Qatar tried to influence EU policy
• Two rights groups — No Peace Without Justice and Fight Impunity — linked to scandal
• Qatar, which is hosting the soccer World Cup, has rejected allegations

Two campaign groups are linked to the scandal. No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), a pro-human rights and democracy organisation, and Fight Impunity, which seeks to bring rights abusers to book, share the same address in Brussels. The heads of the two organisations are among four persons charged since December 9 with corruption, participation in a criminal group and money laundering after the police seized computers, mobile phones and about $6 lakh during searches in Brussels, The Guardian reported.

Qatar rejects allegations that it is involved. The Gulf country, which is hosting the soccer World Cup, has gone to considerable trouble to boost its public image amid reports of human rights violations. Belgian prosecutors said they were investigating allegations that Qatar had sought to influence EU policy by bribing parliament officials.

Stung by the exposure and the impact it will have when it links trade and security with human rights, an EU diplomat here said it was a “south Europe problem” basing his observation on the fact that the arrests so far have been of MEPs from Italy and Greece.

Wiretaps led to the arrest of former Socialist MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri who ran about a dozen human rights organisations.

A Greek MEP, Eva Kaili, then one of the VPs of European parliament, was also arrested after a suitcase was found with her father containing $6 lakh which she said belonged to Panzeri. Kaili has since been stripped of her vice presidentship of European parliament as well as from her party.

Kaili had met Qatar’s Labour Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri last month and gushingly tweeted, “I believe the World Cup for Arabs has been a great tool for… political transformation and reforms.”