author . - Madam President, Sakharov laureate Salih Mahmoud Osman came to the European Parliament last November to warn against the EU cooperating with tyrants under the Khartoum Process, namely with the brutal regime of Omar al-Bashir, who led wars against his own people in Darfur, in South Sudan. He was using EU funds and complacency and further repressing and oppressing the Sudanese, not deterring but instead making ever more migrants and refugees forced to flee misery and persecution. Salih was so right that he himself was again put in jail last month, as well as dozens of human rights defenders and civil society opposition activists. Well, all protests are violently silenced in Sudan. As a European, I am in pain and in shame for Salih and all the other brave Sudanese.

Commission, Council and Member States: you will betray European values, interests and the trust of EU citizens and our African friends if you do not act immediately and decisively to get Sakharov laureate Salih Mahmoud Osman and all these brave Sudanese activists out of jail, and if you do not hear their warnings and their pleas to us, and if you do not get Omar al-Bashir, indicted as a criminal by the International Criminal Court (ICC), arrested and sent to trial.