From Al-Jazeera:
European Union politicians have adopted a resolution criticizing Egypt’s human rights record, as Cairo threatened to sever ties with the assembly and summoned EU ambassadors to complain.
In the vote, 52 of the 59 deputies present at the European parliament on Thursday voted in favor of the text, while the other seven abstained.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the assembly Green leader, said “the European parliament is sovereign and decides what it wants to decide”.
“If we have to criticize the rights situation in Egypt or Guantanamo or anywhere else, we’re going to do it. I couldn’t care less what they think in the Egyptian capital.”
The resolution criticizes Egypt over the status of religious minorities, alleged torture practices and the decades-long state of emergency.
It also calls for the immediate release of jailed dissident Ayman Nur, who mounted an unprecedented campaign against Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president, in the 2005 presidential elections.
He was jailed for five years for fraud in a conviction widely seen as politically motivated.
In Cairo, the foreign ministry summoned EU ambassadors “to inform them of Egypt’s complete rejection of a draft resolution over human rights in Egypt”, a spokesman said.