Strasbourg, 01/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - Adopting the report by Scottish National Party MEP Neil MacCormick, the European Parliament refused to lift the immunity of Dansk Folkeparti MEP Mogens Camre for statements “deriding and humiliating a group of people” in contravention of Article 226 b of the Danish Penal Code. At his party's national congress on 15 and 16 September 2001, Camre said: “All Western countries are infiltrated by Muslims and some of them talk to us nicely, waiting for there to be enough of them to made us disappear, like in Sudan, Indonesia, Nigeria or the Balkans… There is a connection between the despicable rapist, the man excising his daughter and forces his wife to wear the veil, and the man who through religious fanaticism crashed a scheduled plane directly into the World Trade Center. These people have in common hatred of other people, a hatred anchored in a sick ideology (unofficial translation).
During a brief debate, the rapporteur and other MEPs said that Camre's comments were unacceptable but that as a principle the European Parliament does not lift MEPs' immunity for opinions expressed as part of their political activity.