From the Kuwait News Agency:

BRUSSELS, Jan 13 (KUNA) — President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, Monday rejected a call to hold a minute’s silence in the memory of Ariel Sharon, the ex-Israeli Prime Minister who died on Saturday aged 85 after eight years in a coma and was buried today.

“I will not allow the minute’s silence. No, there is no minute’s silence,” he told the full house of the European Parliament in its first session this year in the French city of Strasbourg.

Dutch MEP Laurence Stassen who belongs to the extreme-right Party for Freedom had called for the one minute silence for Sharon.

But Czech MEP Richard Falbr said “I don’t agree with a minute’s silence for Ariel Sharon.

“He has caused the death of tens of thousands of Palestinians on his conscience,” said Falbr who belongs to the Socialists Group. Many MEPs clapped to show support to his proposal.