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EU Members Want To Ban
Ahmadinejad From World Cup
By News Agencies
6-2-6

A group of European Parliament members is seeking an indefinite EU travel ban on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has called for Israel to be destroyed and questioned the Holocaust.
 
A group of 75 lawmakers from all major political groups in the EU assembly signed a petition, which was submitted Thursday to EU president Austria and FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, asking them to prevent Ahmadinejad from traveling to Germany to watch his team play in the June 9-July 9 World Cup and banning him from traveling to any of the other 24 EU member states.
 
"Ahmedinejad's likely visit to Europe would send a wrong signal to the Europeans and the international community and in particular to the suppressed people of Iran," the petition said.
 
The lawmakers say Ahmadinejad must renounce statements doubting the Holocaust happened and calling for the destruction of Israel, and insisted Tehran comply with international demands to curb nuclear activities.
 
"There's nothing to stop the EU member states, individually or collectively, issuing a declaration that he will not be granted a visa and will not be able to come to any of the member states," British Conservative Charles Tannock said.
 
Tannock said the EU had issued visa bans on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko to protest against suspected human rights abuses in their countries.
 
"There is precedent for this and there's no reason why it cannot be extended to President Ahmadinejad," he said, urging EU leaders to consider such a step at a summit in mid-June.
 
The Council of EU Ministers declared a travel ban on Lukashenko and 30 other top Belarusian officials following the March presidential elections in the ex-Soviet country which the EU considered rigged.
 
Only EU member states can declare a travel ban, which is unlikely because world powers, including Britain, France and Germany, are currently debating how to resolve the Iran nuclear crisis.
 
"We do not wish the Iranian president to come to Europe for very clear reasons - his attacks on Israel, his denials concerning the Holocaust," said Jana Hybaskova, member of the European People's Party, the biggest group in the European Parliament.
 
"What we want is not a short term solution, we want the European Council to deal with the issue like it dealt with Lukashenko."
 
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly questioned Israel's right to exist, said the country should be wiped off the map and called the Holocaust a 'myth.'
 
Iran has qualified for the World Cup in Germany and Ahmadinejad was reportedly considering going to Germany to cheer on his team, but Hybaskova said the Iranian embassy in Brussels had informed her he was unlikely to go.

 

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