Daly and Wallace’s rogue state world tour
MEPS visit four of the least free countries on Earth in last year
IRISH MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace visited four of the world’s worst countries for human rights and political freedom in the last 12 months.
According to an index created by not-for-profit group Freedom House, Ms Daly and Mr Wallace travelled to some of the lowest ranking countries for civil liberties, media freedom and political rights in the world.
The controversial MEPs visited Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Iraq and Syria – the latter described as one of the ‘world’s most repressive regimes’ by the democracy watchdog.
Ecuador is regarded by the group as ‘partly free’, but the remaining four are ‘unfree’, meaning they have the lowest human rights records.
In November, Mr Wallace travelled to Nicaragua for three days as part of a select group of ‘election companions’ accredited by Daniel Ortega’s government.
The elections were condemned by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, who called on the ruling Sandinista party to allow the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
‘They don’t know they’re being manipulated’
(OHCHR) to return to the country.
Mr Wallace referenced his trip on his Independents for Change podcast where he defended the Ortega government, claiming it cost the ruling party ‘a fortune to quell the rebellion’.
‘The Europeans say “a whole lot of people in prison who want to run for election”. There are about 40 people who want to run for president and that’s not realistic either. Most of them were put in jail after a coup attempt backed by the Americans,’ he said at the time.
The EU parliament slammed the elections as a ‘an electoral farce,’ with MEPs pushing for sanctions against Oretga, who is accused of torturing and imprisoning democracy activists.
Ms Daly and Mr Wallace also travelled to Venezuela as part of a group of international election observers invited by the ruling party to observe the elections in the country. It was a move that led to both MEPs being blacklisted for ‘fake election’ observation.
Anton Shekhovtsov, an academic with the Centre for Democratic Integrity who has interviewed people who organise election observation trips, said some of those who take part are often not aware they are being manipulated.
He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I talked to one former organiser of the fake election observations and he told me a lot of people don’t even know they’re being manipulated.
‘Many of those who travel are not aware they are being manipulated in this way and in fact they try to do their job well to see that everything is in line with the democratic structures as they understand them. But the organisations are corrupt and show them a carefully orchestrated side of things,’ he added.
The Irish MEPs were sanctioned by the European Parliament’s Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group (DEG) for their Venezuela and Ecuador trips and are banned from travelling as part of official EU election delegations for the rest of the year.
The move is part of a growing concern in the parliament over far left and right MEPs’ ties with autocratic governments overseas.
Ms Daly and Mr Wallace also raised eyebrows among members of their Left political group in the parliament through a series of controversial votes.
Last year they voted against resolutions aiming to prevent the execution of a European citizen in Iran, against sanctions on Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria and against supporting civil rights movements in Hong Kong, Nicaragua and Cambodia.
Ms Daly and Mr Wallace did not respond to requests for comment.