Pakistan: UK Aid

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Alton for initiating this debate on a subject of such current concern, which is not widely reported, and where the suffering of people requires an appropriate and timely response.

Some time ago I met refugees from Pakistan who fled to Thailand to escape the hardships inflicted on them in their home country. Many were living in dire and deeply disturbing conditions, in detention centres. I visited some of those refugees to witness their predicament and I was profoundly disturbed by the conditions in which they were forced to live. But the situation that had forced them to leave their homes and their homeland was so dire that they had to emigrate. Their predicaments include discrimination against, and persecution of, minorities, resulting in severe hardships in so-called colonies where violence is perpetrated against communities, including desecration of Ahmadi mosques and cemeteries, the destruction of churches, and the abduction of Hindu and Christian girls, involving forced conversions, rape and forced marriages.

There is a continuing culture, with stigmatisation of minorities even instilled into the culture by inclusion in school textbooks. The blasphemy laws continue to be used as a justification for persecution, and there is a culture of impunity. For example, no one has been brought to justice for the killing of Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minorities—and reference has already been made to that terrible situation.

Those who wish to see a change in the culture of prejudice and persecution recommend many fundamental changes, and I shall highlight some of them. First, they recommend the use of the percentage of official aid for minorities mainly for education and professional training projects, such as nursing for girls, in line with the Government’s MDG goals. Secondly, they recommend support for the Punjab police’s commendation policy of establishing Meesaq centres in police stations, in areas where there is a large percentage of Christians. These are staffed by minority police staff and can be used by minority members to report crimes and seek appropriate protection and/or recompense. As the competence of staff is essential, UK aid could be used to help to train the staff and maximise the use of this significant opportunity.

Thirdly, provision of funds is recommended for basic necessities such as fresh water and electricity in slums and primary schools where there is a concentration of minority members. Fourthly, they recommend the provision of funding for training teachers in religious tolerance, so that they are equipped to deliver positive images of coexistence in their schools. Fifthly, provision of funds is recommended for shelter homes for the victims of forced conversions and forced marriages, where they could be taught skills to be self-sufficient. Finally, provision of funds is recommended for labourers working in the sewers to safeguard them from deaths and injuries.

Having heard the first-hand accounts of the suffering inflicted on so many Pakistani civilians from those people themselves, I passionately hope that policies to alleviate their suffering will be recognised as matters of profound concern and measures will be taken to implement them as an urgent priority.

Christians: Persecution

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for initiating this debate on such an important subject and introducing it so powerfully. I will focus on a detailed account of such persecution in two countries which I have visited many times and where I have had the painful privilege of meeting those directly suffering persecution. I will focus first on Nigeria. I am very pleased that it has already been highlighted in this debate because the situation there needs as much attention as possible.

There are almost 103 million Christians in Nigeria, which is almost half the country’s total population of 222 million. In the Muslim-majority north of the country, the proportion of Christians is much lower. This is traditionally where most of the persecution of Christians has happened. It continues to this day and continues to spread south. Such persecution is largely inflicted by Nigerian Islamist Muslims. I emphasise that the majority of Muslims in Nigeria are peaceable Islamic civilians. I make a distinction between “Islamic” and “Islamist”. Islam refers to those widespread and largely peaceful Muslim beliefs. Islamism refers to radical ideology, including movements such as Islamic State West Africa Province which are often associated with violence and persecution.

Those affected by this ideology in Nigeria include Christians living in the northern states that are under the influence of Islamic law. They face discrimination and great pressure as second-class citizens. Also, those who have converted to Christianity from Muslim backgrounds often experience rejection from their own families, violent intimidation and fierce pressure to renounce their new faith. Christians living in vulnerable locations, particularly in the north and central regions of the country, tend to be terrorised with devastating impunity by Islamist militants and armed so-called bandits.

More believers are killed for their faith each year in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world. Men and boys are often specifically targeted, to undermine the growth of Christian families in the future. Women and girls face abduction and sexual violence, with intense pressure, exacerbated by the knowledge that sometimes their communities reject them when they come home, believing that they may have become complicit with the Islamist ideology. The attacks often involve destruction of properties and abduction of civilians for ransom, sexual violence and killings. I have visited many places where civilians have been subjected to these terrorist attacks. I have spoken to families who have witnessed the abduction or killing of their loved ones. I have walked through the burnt remains of villages and seen the remnants of burnt churches, homes and shops. I have talked to shocked and grieving survivors. I will quote just a few of their testimonies verbatim; I have changed their names. Beatrice, aged 25 of Plateau State, said:

“I returned in the morning but everything was burned. I went to my home and saw my mother and siblings butchered and burned”.


Sarah, aged just 14, displaced to Abuja, said:

“We evacuated before the attack. Fulani militia burnt the orphanage and destroyed the crops”.


Janet, mother to four children, from Plateau State, said:

“I found my husband had been killed. I cannot go back to my village. It has been burnt. We are barely managing”.


I could give many more quotations. Christian believers are often stripped of their livelihoods and driven from their homes to survive as displaced people, leaving a trail of grief and trauma.

My small charity, the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, works with local in-country partners in places where civilians are subject to persecution—places which are largely unreached by many other aid organisations for political and security reasons. In Nigeria, it is our privilege to work with the Anglican Archbishop of Jos, Benjamin Kwashi. We always ask our partners to identify their priorities for aid. Their priority in the Middle Belt region is a desperate need for educational resources for the thousands of young people driven from their homes by the current military offensives. Without education, they will not have a future.

HART has delivered education supplies for over 6,000 young people. It is a great privilege. I am always profoundly moved by the sheer delight on the faces of young people as educational resources arrive. However, the military offensives and associated dangers persist and the people of Nigeria still suffer from sustained persecution. I will give one or two more examples. The famous kidnapping of the Chibok girls in 2014 did excite some attention but mostly that does not happen. Earlier this month, nearly 200 people were kidnapped in the Kajuru local council territory in central Nigeria, in addition to over 300 people kidnapped this year by suspected Islamist Fulani militia groups freely operating in the region. More than 300 Christian farmers have been killed in the region since January.

The suffering is exacerbated by the major problem of virtually no aid from the Nigerian Government being provided for those suffering persecution. Our local partner, Reverend Canon Hassan John, told us that, for over 10 years, displaced villagers have been forced to rely on aid from local churches or NGOs. He said:

“I can say categorically that there has been very little or no aid, not even from the state or Federal Government of Nigeria … I am not aware of any assistance from the British Government in the central region … In Southern Kaduna state, at least seven communities have [recently] been attacked. Villagers are forced to move onto the next village. None of these villages have received security or humanitarian assistance. Families in neighbouring villages do what they can to absorb and care for their relatives”.

The UK Government have sent much-needed assistance to north-eastern states in Nigeria, where Boko Haram continues to attack and devastate rural areas, but little or nothing has been sent to those suffering persecution in Middle Belt locations, who continue to lose their homes and property and are forced to pay ransom to free their relatives kidnapped by the Islamist Fulani militia groups. They appeal to His Majesty’s Government to urge the Nigerian Government to meet the needs of their civilians, especially in the Middle Belt, who are suffering from killings, abductions and destruction of homes, churches, and clinics, with over 2.5 million forced to flee and live in dire conditions as displaced people.

I turn briefly to my second example: Armenia, the first nation to become Christian. Armenia suffered genocide in the last century and is now suffering sustained Islamist Azerbaijani attacks. I have been there many times; we have seen the people having to flee. The little land of Nagorno-Karabakh, historically ancient Armenia, has now been cleansed of all Armenians—a real case of ethnic cleansing. Armenia is not a big nation to have to take the many people displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh.

I will finish with a quote from one of the bishops:

“It is not only the perpetrators of crime and evil who commit sin, but also those who stand by – seeing and knowing – and who do not condemn it or try to avert it”.


Blessed are the peacemakers, who not only speak words of peace, but make peace, for they shall be called the children of God. I finish with those words, offering them as an inspiring tribute to the theme of this debate, with the focus on people suffering persecution in our world today, while we talk this evening.

Foreign Affairs

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I try to use the privilege of speaking in your Lordships’ House to be a voice for people whose voices are not often heard. It is with a very heavy heart today that I will speak a little about one of the world’s forgotten, or largely forgotten, crises: Nigeria.

In central Nigeria, millions of people have been displaced by intercommunal violence. The death count has risen to 22,000 in 15 years, with countless others suffering life-changing injuries. Many children cannot go to school and so have no education. Families have been torn apart by insecurity and fear. The crisis is not often reported in our news media, but militias drawn from the Islamist Fulani ethic group—I emphasise that not all Fulani are Islamist—are now very well armed. Their cache of weapons includes automatic weapons, laser sights, machetes, petrol bombs and incendiary chemicals used to burn houses. They have carried out hundreds of attacks on Christian villages.

My small not-for-profit organisation, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust—HART—has made numerous fact-finding visits to dozens of these villages. I have witnessed first-hand the ruins of homes, farmland, food stores and churches. During my most recent visit, I heard detailed accounts of the deliberate targeting and slaughter of children, a 98 year-old woman being burned alive, and people being hacked by machetes as they ran from rapid gunfire. One survivor, who I will call Beatrice, told me:

“I returned in the morning but everything was burned. I went to my home and saw my mother and siblings butchered and burnt”.


Despite the scale and nature of the killings, victims receive almost no support from the Nigerian Government or the international community. Neither the UK Government nor the US Government have provided adequate humanitarian assistance to central Nigeria; nor has any member of the EU or African Union, or any of the UN relief agencies operating in Nigeria. Aid for Nigeria is directed mainly to the north-east or the north-west of the country, so displaced families across the Middle Belt are often left to fend for themselves. As HART’s local partner, the Reverend Canon Hassan John, told me before today’s debate when I asked him what his views were:

“I can say categorically that none of these villages have received security or humanitarian assistance from the Government of Nigeria, the UK Government or anywhere else. Victims of conflict are forced to rely on aid from local churches or small NGOs, or they receive no aid at all”.


I am told that the FCDO has responded to the crisis with support for a handful of small projects to promote interfaith dialogue. It has also launched the five-year SPRiNG programme to assess the root causes of violence. These are steps in the right direction. However, such a tiptoe response from the UK does not reflect the urgency of the crisis in central Nigeria. The rate of killings, abductions and land grabs is escalating fast. The longer we tolerate these atrocities, the more we embolden the perpetrators; we give them a green light to continue their killings with impunity.

I ask the Minister whether His Majesty’s Government will encourage the Government of Nigeria to respond more effectively to protect the civilians in their own land suffering so horrendously in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region and in other parts of the country too, of which, sadly, I do not have time today to identify the problems.

North Korea

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Swire, for enabling us to have this debate and to discuss the current threats to peace, security and human rights posed by North Korea. I have been in North Korea three times, as my noble friend Lord Alton mentioned. I will never forget one occasion when I went for a walk in Pyongyang and I heard the footsteps of my minder following me. After about 10 minutes, the footsteps accelerated. He caught up with me and he said, out of breath, “I can’t keep up with you. You are going to have to walk alone”, which was wonderful. I walked through Pyongyang without a minder, and it was poignant how many people wanted to come up to speak to me and how they shared with great openness their deep concerns. It was a very special occasion.

I am delighted that there are today representatives of the diplomatic corps of the Republic of Korea here and an escapee from North Korea, who himself suffered great torture. We know that people who have escaped from North Korea have great courage; it is a great privilege that you are here and we hope that you will find this debate encouraging.

Today’s discussion is very timely. In March 2024, it will be a decade since the United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded its mandate to ensure the full accountability of violations of human rights in North Korea. As some of us will recall, that inquiry visited London for an evidence-gathering session, where exiled North Koreans, including many who had found refuge on these shores, shared their harrowing experiences. In its conclusion, the inquiry found that

“systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been … committed”

in North Korea, which

“In many instances … entailed crimes against humanity”.


These issues have been raised by other noble Lords, but I repeat them because they need to go on the record and be emphasised. The inquiry concluded by stating that the human rights situation in North Korea was without

“any parallel in the contemporary world”.

As we prepare to mark the 10-year anniversary of the inquiry’s report, we must be realistic and sober in our reflections. It is no great secret that impunity prevails in North Korea today and there is still no serious prospect of implementing many of the inquiry’s core recommendations to ensure that those most responsible for crimes against humanity are held accountable. Justice may be a long game, but I think we would all have hoped for greater movement in the past decade.

The UN inquiry recommended that the Security Council refer the situation in North Korea to the International Criminal Court. It recommended that a United Nations international tribunal be created, and that the Security Council impose targeted sanctions against alleged perpetrators of crimes. These recommendations have never been implemented. Given the role of China and Russia in the Security Council, we may never see them implemented. Therefore, new approaches to ensuring accountability, including the United Kingdom’s global human rights sanctions regime, must surely now be considered. I hope the Minister will comment on what steps are being taken to ensure that accountability can become a reality. The current situation of prevailing impunity in North Korea poses an acute challenge to the legacy of the inquiry, to the UK’s foreign policy and to international justice, but ultimately to North Korea’s victims, some of whom have found refuge here in the United Kingdom.

Before I move to speak further about some of the egregious violations in North Korea and their impact on communities, I will clarify why the issue of human rights matters in the context of this debate and global peace and security. Traditionally, there has been a separation in policy for North Korea, meaning that human rights issues and what are commonly termed peace and security issues, which refer to the country’s pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, are addressed separately. As my noble friend Lord Alton has argued many times, there can be no tangible political progress on human rights or peace and security in North Korea unless both issues are approached collectively. I am heartened to see this is now reflected at the Security Council, where the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union and other like-minded states have begun to break down these barriers and approach human rights and peace and security for North Korea as a single issue. The previous United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea highlighted the imperative for the international community to pursue leverage on human rights in a consistent, principled and effective manner. This included mainstreaming human rights into peace and security diplomacy. It is vital that this approach prevails.

I do not wish to dwell on this issue of policy, but I will clarify how the two issues are closely linked. We know from the testimonies of former officials that North Korea operates a slush fund, where state resources can be diverted to fund its weapons programmes. In turn, it is these weapons that threaten regional and international peace and security. According to the United States State Department, North Korea spends 35% of its gross national income on its military—a total of $3.6 billion. Some $620 million of this military budget is spent on nuclear weapons. Where does North Korea, a country isolated from the international economy, find such extraordinary amounts of money to bankroll its weapons of mass destruction programmes?

We know North Korea raises funds through theft and extortion. In 2020, the United States Department of Justice charged three North Korean individuals for stealing over $1.3 billion in cash and cryptocurrency from banks and business around the world. What is less well known is that North Korea diverts resources to its weapons programmes that should be spent on feeding and sustaining its population. North Korea is, quite literally, taking from the poor to feed its insatiable desire to build weapons that are capable of killing millions. According to the World Food Programme, over 40% of the North Korean population are undernourished. It would cost $79 million, which is just 2% of North Korea’s estimated military budget, for North Korea to meet the financial requirements of its food security, agricultural and nutrition sectors, and to eliminate chronic food insecurity for its population, yet it chooses not to do so. We can see that North Korea is sacrificing the basic and fundamental human rights of its population to fund its military machine. In this respect, human rights violations have become a generator of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea’s vast penal system is perhaps the clearest example of how the state diverts resources away from the most vulnerable to fund its weapons programmes. Created under the Soviet Civil Administration in November 1945, the North Korean penal system is comparable to the infamous Soviet gulags. The purpose of the North Korean penal system is to isolate persons from society whose behaviour conflicts with upholding the authority of the supreme leader. Detainees are re-educated through forced labour, ideological instruction and punitive brutality for the purpose of compelling unquestioning obedience and loyalty to the supreme leader, both while the individuals are in detention and after they are released. Many detainees in the penal system have no formal convictions, have experienced no due process and have committed no crimes. Simply reading the Bible or watching a foreign film may lead to a lengthy prison sentence.

We cannot know the true scale of the prison population in North Korea, but if we take the US State Department’s lowest figures of 80,000 detainees in the political prison system we can start to understand its scale and question how North Korea can afford such a vast system. Australia and North Korea have roughly the same-sized populations. We know that Australia spends 250 US dollars per day on each of its prisoners to meet their basic human rights, such as food and clean conditions of detention. If we imagine that this basic cost of $250 per day per prisoner was being spent by North Korea on 80,000 prisoners, it would spend over $7 billion a year on prisoners alone, which is twice its military budget. Based on reporting from the non-governmental organisation Korea Future and its North Korean prison database, we can confidently assume that it is spending nowhere near that figure.

In its report from March this year, Korea Future detailed the case of a North Korean man in his 40s who was arrested for helping people escape the country. Throughout his sentence of seven years and nine months in a re-education camp, he was denied food as a form of coercion and punishment. Pressed into forced labour, he was typically provided with a meal consisting of roughly 4.3 ounces, or 120 grams, of corn each day. When he did not meet his forced labour quota, his food was reduced to just 80 grams, which contained inedible elements such as corn husks, small fragments of stone and wooden twigs. To survive, the man was forced to catch and eat insects such as cockroaches, and small rodents. That is just one of thousands of cases documented by Korea Future. We heard about those situations when we were in North Korea.

If North Korea is not spending its resources to ensure the basic and fundamental rights of its most vulnerable, where are those billions of dollars being spent? To quote our ambassador, James Kariuki, at the UN Security Council in August this year:

“The North Korean authorities divert resources from peoples' basic economic needs toward their illegal nuclear and ballistic weapons programmes ... We urge North Korea to prioritise the well-being of its citizens over the development of its illegal weapons programmes".


This example demonstrates why my noble friend Lord Alton and many others have argued that we cannot separate our policies targeting human rights and peace and security in North Korea. The two issues are mutually interdependent.

I end by discussing another human rights issue that poses a very real and present threat in North Korea—the persecution of religious communities. First, I commend the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea on its tireless work on this issue and many other human rights issues. It seems remarkable today but, at the creation of the North Korean state in the 1940s, religious communities, including Buddhism and Christianity, were part of the fabric of society. Many had played a role in the struggle for Korean independence from Japanese colonial rule during and following World War Two. The Protestant community in what is now North Korea was estimated to be 200,000-strong in 1945. Despite suffering waves of persecution throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Korean Catholicism had an estimated community of 55,000 adherents. Yet under the Soviet Civil Administration and later the North Korean state, these religious communities were targeted by persecution, discriminatory legislation, arbitrary arrest, exile and murder.

Tens of thousands of Protestants were killed or fled to South Korea. Those who survived were forced underground in the late 1950s and early 1960s, leading to the creation of the present-day underground churches in North Korea. Catholics suffered an even worse fate. According to the former archbishop of Seoul and apostolic administrator of Pyongyang, by 2006 there were no known Catholic adherents remaining in North Korea and no remaining Vatican-recognised institutions of the Catholic Church. All that remained were “show churches” in Pyongyang, used to try to mislead foreign delegations. In reality, Catholics have effectively been eliminated from North Korea.

A report by the law firm Hogan Lovells, which was commissioned shortly after the 2014 UN commission of inquiry, found evidence to suggest that this persecution of religious communities in North Korea may even amount to what can be called genocide. More recent evidence lends weight to this legal opinion. In its 2021 report entitled Persecuting Faith, the non-governmental organisation Korea Future documented 167 cases of serious human rights violations perpetrated against Christians in North Korea between 1997 and 2018. Indefinite life sentences and death sentences were handed to Christians simply for being Christian. Victims were generally aged between 20 and 59, but it is shocking that even a child aged two was also a victim. Korea Future found that, in 11 cases, the victims were believed to still be held in detention in North Korea; their fates are unknown.

It would appear that there is sufficient credible evidence to show that human rights violations perpetrated by North Korean officials are neither arbitrary nor random, and are purposely directed at the destruction of Christian and other religious communities. These findings are supported by testimonies, internal government documents, and statements from former high-ranking North Korean officials who have defected.

This brings us back to the question of how we can ensure regional and global security from North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and how we can increase the security of the North Korean people. The first step in any response must include efforts to ensure accountability and deter future acts of violence and aggression. In doing so, we should deploy all available options in our foreign policy toolbox, including bilateral diplomacy, consensus-building at the Security Council in New York and the Human Rights Council in Geneva, and the United Kingdom’s global human rights sanctions regime.

It is the prospect of using targeted human rights sanctions that I will end on. The global human rights sanctions regime was established in 2020. The regime allows the UK Government to impose sanctions in response to certain serious human rights violations around the world. The regime is intended to target not individual countries, but individuals or organisations involved in serious human rights violations. It is with that message to my noble friend the Minister that I conclude.

Azerbaijan: Khojaly Massacre

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend caught me somewhat unawares by the succinctness of his question. Of course we recognise the events of the tragic episode that took place in Azerbaijan, as I said. I stress that there is no violent solution to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. We urge both sides to engage internationally. We support the engagement that takes place between those countries and the organisations that facilitate it, such as the OSCE.

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I was present in Nagorno-Karabakh many times during the war in the 1990s and can testify to the reality of events at Khojaly, a town used by the Azeris to fire so many missiles on the capital, Stepanakert, that it would have been annihilated if the Armenians had not taken control of Khojaly. They gave advance notice of their attack and requested that the Azeris allow civilians to evacuate. When the attack began, they saw Armenian civilians still present. They stopped fighting and asked the Azeris to allow safe passage, but Azeris mingled with Armenians and both sides suffered deaths. The Armenians gave the Azeris permission to collect their dead, but the Azeris mutilated captured Armenian prisoners.

Is the Minister aware of the Azeri bias in much of the media coverage of the Karabakh war, not only on Khojaly but on other events, such as the massacre by Azerbaijan at the nearby village of Maraga? I visited Maraga many times. I went first when the homes were still burning. The charred remains of corpses and the vertebrae of beheaded Armenians were still on the ground. Does the Minister agree that rewriting history has serious implications for future developments in the countries involved?

Myanmar: Health Workers

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Nye (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Labour Benches.

British-Iranian Relations

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Alton on achieving this very important debate.

I will use the short time available to give a personal message from Christian Iranian asylum seekers based near my home in Witney, who have become friends. These are their words, not mine:

“Our Iranian friends are losing their lives for the simplest human rights of a person. At the risk of making their voice known to the world, they have come to the streets and they only protested. But the answer to their protest was gunshots, prison and execution. In the last four months, more than 1,000 people have been killed in Iran. Many of their bodies have not been handed over to their families; many have been executed and several hundred innocent children have died. Now, we have only one request to the British people: please help us so that the voice of the people of Iran is heard because, in our country, there is nothing but oppression, torture and imprisonment; the oppression of women; and shutting the mouths of young people. My country smells of blood—the smell of the blood of my brothers and sisters, who only wanted nothing but the cry of freedom in the street.”


These poignant words provide a painful, powerful endorsement of the purpose of this debate. I hope that the horrific persecution of minorities by the regime in Iran is something that the Minister can address in his reply.

Nagorno-Karabakh

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I reassure my noble friend that the United Kingdom Government take their commitments under the genocide convention seriously. Where there is evidence that thresholds have been met, we will take appropriate action. I am aware that during and after the 2020 conflict, there were widespread reports of atrocities. In September 2022, there was widespread media reporting of crimes that may amount to grave breaches of the Geneva convention. The UK Government have raised our concerns directly with the Azerbaijani Government and will continue to do so. On the humanitarian point, we are working closely with partners. Indeed, this morning again I asked for access, which is currently being attained by various organisations, including the ICRC. We will follow up with direct conversations in Geneva as well.

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, my small charity, the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, supports a rehabilitation centre in Karabakh. I recently spoke to the director, who said that the situation is dire: the shops are empty and there are shortages of food, medical supplies, diapers—causing great problems for people with incontinence—and fuel for transporting patients. Schools are closing because there is no food, and Azerbaijan has cut off gas, internet supply and power, causing a risk of vulnerable people dying from hypothermia. Families cannot travel, so hundreds of children are separated from their parents. The situation is so serious that some fear genocide. I therefore ask the Minister: how long will the UK Government continue to allow Azerbaijan to inflict such horrendous suffering? Will they fulfil those genocide prevention responsibilities by working with the UN Security Council to require the immediate lifting of the blockade and/or launching humanitarian aid airlifts?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness for her continued campaign in this regard. I am aware that both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, have written recently about this situation, particularly concerning the institutions which the noble Baroness mentioned, such as schools. As I have alluded to already, we are working closely with international agencies, including the ICRC, to get their direct impact assessment of the closure. The Government will remain a significant donor in this respect. I have also alluded to the importance we attach to our obligations and commitments under the genocide convention. We will continue to work closely with our UN partners at the Security Council, as we did in December.

Nigeria

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Cox]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of Nigeria regarding the violent targeting of Christians, non-Islamist Muslims, and other minority faith and non-faith groups in that country, including reports of massacres, destructions of homes and clinics, forced displacement, and abductions.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK Government believe that violence against any person because of their religion or belief is unacceptable. In Nigeria, attacks by terrorists and criminal gangs as well as localised community violence are having an unacceptable impact on people’s lives. We regularly raise our concerns, including about the impact that violence is having on different faith and non-faith groups, with Nigeria’s Ministers, state governors and security professionals. Through the UK-Nigeria security and defence partnership, we are committed to supporting Nigeria to improve security across the country and protect human rights.

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very principled reply. Is he aware that, according to Intersociety, 4,020 Christians have been killed by militant Islamists; that more than 2,000 were abducted between January and October this year alone; that, according to Open Doors, 3,500 killed were last year; and that many Muslims have also been killed? I have visited Nigeria many times, including twice this year, and I have seen the mass graves of civilians, the burned villages, and met survivors who described the atrocities perpetrated by militants. Will His Majesty’s Government therefore make representations to the Nigerian Government to call perpetrators of violence to account and protect its civilians from the escalating massacres and abductions?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right: it is a grim picture, with atrocities being committed far too regularly. Of course, we continue to encourage the Nigerian Government to take urgent action to protect people at risk, bring perpetrators to justice and implement long-term solutions that address the causes of violence. Most recently, the British high commissioner for Nigeria raised our concerns about violence with all the main presidential candidates ahead of the 2023 elections. Our high commissioner works very closely with state governors, local community faith leaders, NGOs and so on to address these issues, including through our work with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum. In January, the Minister for Africa raised our concerns with Nigeria’s Vice-President during his visit here. She also raised the various security challenges that Nigeria is facing with Nigeria’s National Security Adviser, General Monguno, at our security and defence partnership meeting in February. The former Prime Minister also raised the issue during his meeting with President Buhari at CHOGM in June.

BBC World Service

Baroness Cox Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cox (CB)]

My Lords, I also warmly welcome this debate on the importance of the BBC World Service and congratulate my noble friend Lord Alton on his characteristically superb introduction. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Hampton on his inspiring maiden speech, which was clearly from a very experienced teacher.

In my short time, I will focus on relevant issues in North Korea, Burma/Myanmar, Nigeria and Armenia. I travelled to North Korea with my noble friend Lord Alton on three occasions and strongly supported his campaign to persuade a reluctant Foreign Office and BBC of the importance of opening a BBC Korean service. Ten years after our first visit to Pyongyang, the UN established a commission of inquiry, chaired by the distinguished Australian judge, Justice Michael Kirby. In 2014, it published a damning report, concluding that the human rights violations perpetrated by the regime amount to “crimes against humanity” and detailed

“an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought”

and of

“the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association.”

Seven years ago, the BBC began broadcasts to the Korean peninsula. Justice Michael Kirby had said BBC broadcasts would be a great encouragement to its beleaguered people. Indeed, breaking the information blockade in places such as North Korea is a lifeline to people living in repressive isolation. It also underlines our commitment to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to ensure unimpeded free access to information and news. It is surely something which we should continue, even in the most challenging financial times.

I turn to another very dark country, Burma—or Myanmar. I use the name Burma, because our friends there prefer it. For half a century, Burma was ruled by a succession of military dictatorships which kept the country closed, the people repressed and democracy in chains. Many times in the past 20 years, I have travelled across borders to support our partners with the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, in the Shan, Chin and Kachin states, with aid and advocacy. Last year, there were genuine democratic elections, but that period of reform was shattered when the military again illegally seized power in a coup on 1 February 2021, imprisoning the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected leaders, and killing others. More than 12,000 remain in jail today, and many are in hiding. In the ethnic areas, civilians endure airstrikes and ground attacks from the military, destroying homes, churches and schools, and killing or displacing thousands of people. Only last week, Burmese troops torched the home village of Burma’s Cardinal Charles Bo, killing two civilians, including one child.

Many people in Burma, including pro-democracy activists, ethnic peoples hiding in the jungle, and civilians living in fear, repeatedly emphasise how much they rely on the BBC’s broadcasts as a source of reliable and accurate information, encouragement and hope that the outside world has not forgotten them. The BBC’s Burmese service has a long tradition of which it can be proud, and which it should be given the resources to continue. We are living at a time when cuts have been made in many areas of public spending; we all understand that. But that should not mean cutting lifelines on which so many people in different parts of the world living under dictatorship and fighting for freedom rely—nor should it mean cutting the United Kingdom’s reputation as a major deployer of soft power in the struggle between open societies and autocracies. I look forward to the Minister’s response to this debate, and in particular any assurances he may be able to provide as to the future of the BBC Korea and Burmese services, which provide such a vital service to two of the most closed countries in the world.

I turn briefly to Nigeria. With temerity, I have to express a concern. I have made numerous visits to Nigeria—twice this year included—and the atrocities clearly meet the legal definitions of crimes against humanity, and even genocide. None the less, they continue to receive very little attention from the international community and from media, including the BBC World Service. Media reporting is crucial to shine light on the atrocities and ultimately to engage the international community on the issue. Absence of such reporting enables misinformation and disinformation—including the Nigerian and UK Governments’ failure to recognise, at least in public, the horrific seriousness of the situation—to be broadcast unchallenged by the truth. Many thousands of civilians have been massacred in recent years. InterSociety reports that 4,020 Christians have been killed between January and October this year, and 3,800 abducted in 2021. Many Muslims have also been killed. The killings and abductions continue, but there has been virtually no reporting by the BBC.

Briefly, on Armenia, I and others are deeply concerned about apparent bias reflected in the failure adequately to report continuing conflict perpetrated by Azerbaijan upon Armenians in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia. This includes the refusal to report Azerbaijan’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, with violations of the ceasefire agreement reflected in the continuing detention of Armenian prisoners, the killings and atrocities performed by Azeri soldiers, and the destruction of sacred sites. The inadequacy of the BBC World Service in reporting the sustained and very serious perpetration of atrocities by Azerbaijan encourages continuation with impunity.

I hope that it is clear that I have a profound respect, indeed admiration, for the professionalism of the BBC World Service, and I strongly support continuation of funding for its work. I hope that it will highlight some of those areas which I and other noble Lords have mentioned need coverage.