Sudan

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I totally agree with the noble Lord: the word “transitional” is key. In our dealings with the African Union, the suggested timeline has been three months. We take encouragement from the new leader of the transitional military council and from the protests that continue to take place. There has been a reaching out: the individuals who were of deep concern to the protest movement have been removed from the military council; and there is direct engagement with the opposition forces. Having visited Sudan and seen the suppression of press freedom and of the freedom of minorities, I think we take great encouragement from the fact that those protests and that engagement continue, and the military has ceased from intervening to suppress the protests.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, are the Government aware that everything that Sudan is doing goes directly against the teaching of Islam? As a retired teacher of Islamic law, I can tell noble Lords that Islam recognises women as independent, both financially and personally, and in terms of the decisions they make for themselves and their children. In fact, women are entitled to payment should they choose to breastfeed their children. What the Sudanese Government are doing goes against every conception that Islam has of women; it is anti-Islamic. They really ought to be discouraged and not given any funds.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I am sure that the noble Baroness is referring to the previous regime. In view of the time, I will just say that there is a Koranic verse, “La ’ikraha fi al-din”, which means that there is no compulsion or coercion in faith. That should be understood not just by the new regime and Government in Sudan but by all Islamic Governments around the world.

Iran and Saudi Arabia: Co-operation on Syria and Yemen

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Taking the noble Baroness’s final point first, I can assure her and the House that we continue to raise consular cases with Iran at every opportunity. On the wider point of engagement, she is right that we that we have been working with our partners to ensure that the Iranian nuclear deal remains live and will continue to do so. In our most recent discussions, the Foreign Secretary had a conversation with Foreign Minister Zarif about the importance of also ensuring that Iran plays its role in, for example, ensuring the Assad regime comes to the table in Geneva so that we can get the kind of peace we are all seeking for the people of Syria.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, women and children have been forgotten in the concern about the Shia and Sunni discussions and yet it is they who suffer the brunt of the violence. Will the Government, please, concentrate on the plight of women and children, regardless of whether they are Sunni, Shia or anything else?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Baroness is right. I assure her and the House that the Government are totally committed to this agenda and have been leading on the issues of women, peace and security in our national action plans across the world. I was in Turkey when we launched the next Syrian action plan, and subsequently in Iraq to launch the national action plan on women, peace and security. Women have to be at the heart and soul of conflict resolution. By excluding women—more than 50% of the population—no solution can be found. Perhaps I may say a final word to those so-called religionists who feel that by using a noble faith they can exclude religion: you are wrong. For every prophet of every faith, including the Prophet of Islam, women played a central and pivotal role in all decision-making, both internally and externally.

Commonwealth Summit: Faith Leaders

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Monday 15th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I was not aware of the event that the right reverend Prelate points out but I welcome it and congratulate all its organisers. I open up this invitation: where events are happening, please let us know. They can be reflected as part of the Commonwealth timetable and I will be writing shortly to all leaders of local government across the UK to ensure that we celebrate Commonwealth Day on 12 March appropriately.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Cross Bench!

[Baroness Afshar]

Are the Government aware that faith representation is highly gendered and that, on the whole, women are not represented? Is any care taken to ensure that women, who have a very different perspective on religion, are also represented?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Baroness raises an important point and I assure the House that, along with the rest of the Government, I am committed to that objective. In respect of that, a specific women’s forum will take place as part of the four fora during the Commonwealth summit.

Terrorism: Sexual Violence

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I can give the noble Lord that assurance. Only two weeks ago, the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, chaired a meeting of Ministers, including those from the Foreign Office and DCLG. They looked at the action we are taking domestically on the primary issue of modern slavery and the referral mechanism, which includes support for victims of human trafficking. The meeting also brought together elements of international action and our bilateral representation and leadership on this issue, and how modern slavery and human trafficking is one of many instruments used by terrorist organisations.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, are the Government aware that by misunderstanding or misrepresenting Islam, this kind of slavery is now extended to children as young as nine years old? The issue is becoming much more serious and needs to be comprehensively dealt with in the localities. Intervention is essential at the point where it starts.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I assure the noble Baroness that I understand that issue very well. Around the world, organisations such as Daesh, Boko Haram and al-Shabaab erroneously say that their actions are inspired by Islam, by religion. What religion? What humanity? We condemn them totally and unequivocally. On a practical point, I was in New York earlier this week and met the Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed. We discussed some of the steps that have been taken in Nigeria—including the very point the noble Baroness alerts us to—about working with communities and clerics on the ground to ensure that the poisonous narrative the terrorists present can be unequivocally condemned by the religious leaders who represent that faith.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the noble Baroness refers to the reports, which were widely reported in the UK, that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been charged with additional crimes. We are aware of those reports, but we have not yet seen the details of the charges from any official sources and we are urgently seeking further information from the Iranian authorities. The noble Baroness refers to a softly, softly approach. We continue to raise these issues consistently; indeed, last week my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary met the Foreign Minister of Iran and the Vice President of Iran and raised this case and all cases of dual nationals. There is complexity here because, as the noble Baroness will be aware, not all countries recognise dual nationality. Iran is one of those countries. However, we continue to be consistent and to raise all these cases on a regular basis. We will continue to do so to ensure that we can secure the release of all the detainees currently being held.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, as an Iranian-born Member of this House, I say that it would be extremely helpful not only to Nazanin Zaghari but to all defenders of human rights and all women in Iran if the Government insisted that the Iranian Government respect their own rules and regulations and allow that all prisoners are entitled to proper representation. The difficulty here is that it is the Revolutionary Guards who are preventing the process. I am sure the Government would help the Iranian Government and Iranian citizens in prison by insisting that consideration of the proper legal representation of prisoners be maintained at all points.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Baroness obviously speaks with great knowledge of Iran. I assure her and indeed the whole House that we continue to raise these issues in a robust manner. I am acutely aware of the details of all these cases due to my responsibilities as Minister for Human Rights at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Equally, the noble Baroness will be aware that she calls upon certain elements within the Iranian Administration; I hope they heed that call but, unlike the UK, Iran does not legally recognise dual nationalities, so it views these detainees as Iranian nationals.

United States: Immigration Policy

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Afshar]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the decision by President Trump to limit immigration to the United States, what steps they are taking to secure the rights of Iranian-born British citizens visiting the United States to return to the United Kingdom and not be sent to Iran.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con)]

My Lords, we gained assurances that measures enacted by President Trump’s executive order of 27 January do not affect British passport holders irrespective of their country of birth or whether they hold another passport. We are closely monitoring any changes and would consider intervening with the relevant authorities if necessary. Standard US policy is that visitors who are denied entry to the US are returned to the country from which they have travelled.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

I thank the Minister, but what measures have the Government taken to ensure that, at the point of entry into this country, passport controls focus on the legitimate passports of individuals and do not ascribe an assumed identity to visitors in terms of their dress code, assumed nationality or religion?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, with regard to visitors to this country, I can give the noble Baroness that assurance. With regard to the access of visitors to the United States, its guidance says that those same factors should not determine the decision that is made: the decision is made on an equality basis.

Iran: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, as an Iranian-born Member of your Lordships’ House, I feel very vulnerable about ever returning home. Now that negotiations are ongoing about Iran’s participation, it is essential that we ask the Government to deliver, particularly on the arrest of human rights activists, scholars and feminists in Iran. There must be negotiations and conditionality for international participation.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises the important point that when human rights are abused, it undermines the way in which society and government work. Not only have our Government frequently released statements condemning the human rights situation in Iran which cover the issues that the noble Baroness mentioned, we have joined action led by the international community. We have designated more than 80 Iranians responsible for human rights violations under EU sanctions, we have helped establish a UN special rapporteur on Iranian human rights and lobbied at the UN for the adoption of a human rights resolution on Iran. We will continue to fight for the causes the noble Baroness describes.

Iran: Nuclear Deal

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Wednesday 15th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I am always pleased to be able to celebrate the importance and effect of diplomacy. I entirely agree with what the noble Lord said about the opportunity for a more stable Middle East.

I am reminded by those who advise me that when, in response to my noble friend Lord Jopling, I was reading out the number of days—the finalisation, adoption, implementation, transition and UNSCR termination days—I should have said for clarity that UNSCR termination comes 10 years after adoption day, not implementation day.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, as an Iranian-born Member of this House I welcome this decision, in particular in the name of the people of Iran if the sanctions are removed on medication and food, because the poor in Tehran and the rest of Iran are starving. However, I am very grateful that the Government are remaining vigilant on human rights issues and I urge them to continue, because Iranian human rights measures are absolutely deplorable.

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

I can assure the noble Baroness that we will continue our pressure on the human rights record in Iran, which really bears no scrutiny because it is so poor. With regard to the suffering of the Iranian people, she is right to draw attention to the fact that sanctions have not affected medicines over this period.

Syria and the Middle East

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

I add my thanks to the noble Baroness for initiating this debate and apologise for not being here at the beginning of her speech. I would like to add a comment, however, on her speech. The textual teaching of the Koran prevents any kind of cruelty or violence against any religion of the book and any religion that preceded Islam. Therefore, those who in the name of Islam kill others are going against the textual teaching of the Koran and, thus, are committing a sin.

I also thank and support the insightful views of the noble Lords, Lord Lamont and Lord Wright, who expressed the importance of understanding the situation in Iran. I support the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, for discussions and peace process negotiations.

As a person born and raised in Iran who, of course, does not support the Government but continues to keep a very close eye on their politics, I suggest that any kind of aggressive cutback on medication, on support, on food—any tightening of sanctions—would be entirely counterproductive. Already, Iranians are suffering. People are dying on the street; people are unable to feed their own children. I know of quite well-off middle-class women who have to spend their day queuing for one loaf of bread to feed their families. The situation of hunger in Iran is terrible and the lack of medicine is resulting in deaths across the board.

We really need to think about treating the Iranians more humanely if we expect them to come to negotiations and deal with the West more humanely. It seems that so long as the Iranians are seen as pariahs and treated as the enemy of all the West, they will only go on using their influence—which in the rest of the Middle East is quite considerable, as has been stated. Although they do not have an effective army, they have a very effective voice, and if they are seen as the victim of the West, it is very likely that much of the Middle East will see policies and politics in terms of what the Iranians see.

I might say that I know for a fact that the Iranian people do not wish to have nuclear power. I get told again and again that that is the last thing that they want. However, what they actually need is the possibility of using something as a negotiating tool. What do they have to use? It is only because they started the nuclear process that the West wants to talk to them. The British, who are such masters of diplomacy, should be at the very forefront of the talking—the jaw-jaw and not the war-war. I am sure that the Minister will see to that.

Iran

Baroness Afshar Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Afshar]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recent elections in Iran, what steps they are taking to facilitate closer commercial and educational ties with that country.

[Baroness Afshar (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to speak about the country where I was born, and I thank noble Lords who are participating in this debate and speaking. I would like to raise a few points before the negotiations between the countries start again, in the hope that they might be used as relevant points by the negotiators.

Negotiations between Iran and the six powers in Geneva seem to have been very optimistically received. The noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, the EU’s top foreign policy official, has described them as “substantive and forward-looking”. Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Mohammad Javad Zarif, has spoken of the possibility of achieving a satisfactory outcome in the next six months. I add my voice to those of the educationalists and economists in the UK who have also welcomed this rapprochement. The UK in general, and the education sector in particular, would benefit from the easing of sanctions. This could be a win-win for all concerned, provided that there is understanding and appreciation of the difficulties on the way.

Education is one of the most effective means of building long-term trust among nations and individuals. It is hardly surprising that it is Ayatollah Rouhani, a graduate of Glasgow Caledonian University, who started the negotiations and secured a level of agreement from the spiritual leader of Iran. Students make a significant contribution economically, academically and intellectually, in terms of building understanding across divides that sometimes prove difficult to cross otherwise.

However, there is a real problem in the banking system as it stands and as it has operated in the decades since the imposition of sanctions. It has been a serious impediment. Students who have been offered places—who are more than willing to pay the fees and health taxes that might be imposed in the future and have the money ready—cannot find a bank in the UK willing to open an account for them. I know of students who have lived in Canada for more than 10 years but who, because they are Iranian, cannot even transmit money from Canada to the UK to start discussions. That seems to result in universities saying that their hands are tied because they cannot proceed with the processes. The University of Sheffield, for example, has been working in Iran and has offices there offering scholarships to Iranian students with exceptional academic potential. Many Iranians, particularly women, have such potential aplenty.

The difficulty is not only that the students cannot open accounts; a further problem is when those students who are already in this country and have accounts here go on fieldwork trips and come back, they find that they have to reopen the same accounts and provide the same information all over again. In the case of one of my students, who made two field trips, this had to be done twice.

These kinds of obstacles make students less willing to apply to British universities. The measures are highly counterproductive and the Government should come to the rescue of these students because, as we all know, most if not all British universities are heavily dependent on foreign student fees in order to bridge the gap created by the cuts. Last year, banking restrictions also resulted in Iran abandoning its conversion rate for foreign students, which gave favourable rates to students studying abroad, particularly in the UK. Now, it is much more expensive for Iranian students to raise the same fees in Iran.

Banking restrictions have also resulted in very serious medical problems in Iran because pharmaceutical companies cannot import the necessary ingredients for producing medication at affordable prices. This has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. Political prisoners have even written an open letter asking for the lifting of sanctions. They point out what I have pointed out in the House before: namely, that sanctions only make the rich richer and the poor poorer. It is not the rich who suffer from the sanctions—they get their medication, they come abroad for treatment—but those who are living in Iran. The situation is dire, which is another reason that Iranians are extremely keen to enter negotiations and for them to be successful.

The prospect of detente has already resulted in the freeing of a number of political prisoners: 11 were freed a month ago. They included Nasrin Sotoudeh, the campaigning human rights lawyer and winner of the European Parliament’s 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and the reformist politician Mohsen Aminzadeh. A week later, on the eve of President Rouhani’s visit to the USA, 80 more political prisoners were freed, some of whom had been jailed after the mass protests triggered by the fraud- tainted re-election of former President Ahmadinejad in 2009. Last week, more political prisoners were pardoned. The hope is that this process will continue and accelerate.

A rapprochement would be extremely beneficial to the UK. The Iranian economy has not died during this period. In fact, many projects have been set up, including mining, construction, chemical production, car manufacturing and packaging, and are thriving. But the sanctions have resulted in trade relations moving towards Russia and the East, rather than the West. In 2010 China became Iran’s largest trading partner. In 2011 trade between Dubai and Iran was valued at $13.6 billion. Last year Iran’s largest car maker agreed to send 10,000 cars per annum to Russia.

To circumvent the banking restriction, trading partners use hawala, a system of exchanging money without the money ever leaving the country. It is a system completely dependent on trust, in which the bank uses a country that trades favourably with both trading partners. The current favourite is Japan. The Iranian bank leaves money in a bank in Iran and Japan uses its debts to Iran to provide money in any currency to a trading partner on the other side. So trade has continued; it has not diminished. This could be a profit that the UK is missing.

I shall end by mentioning nuclear power and chemical weapons. I am no expert in these matters, but the facts that the Iranians are offering to keep only two nuclear programmes in Natanz and argue that they have no chemical weapons are worth considering. Iran was attacked with chemical weapons. The havoc that caused means that no Iranian would allow them to be used against anyone, not even their enemy.