Changes in US Immigration Policy

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Monday 30th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

I join others in congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) on securing this incredibly important debate. There is a reason why thousands of people have taken to the streets of Britain tonight to express their concern about this ban and what it says about our world, and particularly to ask what we are going to do about it.

I do not disagree with a word said by the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry)—it is a shame that she is no longer in her place—about sometimes challenging the agreeability of our debates in this place, so in the spirit of what she said, let me bring some discord to our discussions. I feel very strongly that the central question facing us tonight is what people in positions of power will do. We have seen what the leader of the free world in his first week in office has chosen to do with that power. We now have to ask ourselves as elected representatives in the United Kingdom what we will do by return.

I do not disagree with the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince) about respecting the fact that this man is an elected politician, but just because he won an election does not absolve him of responsibility for the consequences of his behaviour—and nor does it absolve us of responsibility for the consequences of not acting. With that process in mind, I wish to make four quick points. We have to speak up, and we must do so not just because of the impact on people in our communities described in the incredibly eloquent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), but because of what it says about us as a society. When we are indifferent to hatred and intolerance, we are participants in it.



This is about hatred. This is a ban on people on the basis of their religion or their nationality. No form of this ban could be acceptable. There is no way of modifying it to make it plausible. It is simply hatred, and we should be clear about that, because not being clear about it suggests that there are circumstances in which we might seek to ban people and restrict them on the basis of their religion or nationality. It suggests that we would do the same—that we would allow there to be different classes of citizen in our communities, in our country, in our world. We must be very clear about the fact that there is no acceptable form of this ban, and only the need to challenge it.

The question is, how do we challenge that? This is where I disagree with my Conservative colleagues. Absolutely, we must engage; absolutely, we must speak up. That is why I read with despair that our own Prime Minister had the opportunity directly to look the President of the United States in the eye, in a private meeting, and say, “Look, this is not right. This will be counter-productive. This will not achieve what you want, and it will divide our nation.” She clearly has not done that. The opportunity to engage was on the table, and she did not take it. I think that that damages all of us in the United Kingdom who defend the importance of our Government in leading such engagement.

The Minister may disagree with me, but I feel very strongly. [Interruption.] If the Minister wants to intervene and confirm that the Prime Minister raised this issue with the President of the United States directly, I will happily take an intervention, but if he cannot confirm that, what I say stands. I felt ashamed on Saturday night when the Home Office, the Foreign Office and No. 10 refused to make a statement. It was damning for us as a nation when the world was calling out for leadership.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. Did this not feel so abhorrent to so many of us because it came only a few days after Holocaust Memorial Day, a day on which we pledge that when we see prejudice and hatred we will stand up in the face of it, and was not our Prime Minister’s failure to do that deeply shaming to our country?

[Stella Creasy]

I could not agree more. One of the messages that I want to send from the House tonight is that we do not recognise that as the kind of leadership that we want in our country. Something clearly has to change, even if the Prime Minister did not know about the ban before she walked into that room with Donald Trump. What cannot continue is our saying that it is simply a matter for the United States. What cannot continue is our saying, “Well, if we can be sure that it will not affect our citizens, we will not worry about the implications of the ban elsewhere.” That is not good enough. That is not the British way.

The question for us is how best to express that and how best to engage. There is a world of difference between wanting to debate directly with President Trump whether he has done the right thing, not just for his own country but for our world, and rolling out the red carpet and giving him the same treatment that we gave Nelson Mandela, or, indeed, the Queen Mother when we laid her in state. There is a world of difference between wanting to debate with someone and engage with him, and wanting to indulge him. Let me say this to Conservative Members: to many of us, it looks like indulging and endorsing President Trump if nothing changes now that we know of this ban—now that we know of his intention and his deliberate actions to target Muslims in our world. If nothing changes, that will say more about us as a nation than it says about him.

The question for all of us is whether we should use the power that we have, as elected representatives of people in positions of authority, to send that message. It is whether we should join our citizens who are not just on the streets tonight, and who have not just signed that petition, but who are asking what has become of us as a world. They are people who recognise that diversity is a strength. They are people who recognise the words of a former American President, Franklin Roosevelt, who argued that a nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

I am proud of my country; I am proud to be a patriot; I respect the rights of other countries; but that does not mean that I must be silent when things go wrong. The silence of our Government, the mitigation, the quibbling, the laziness with which people are approaching this issue and the tardiness of the response do not reflect the best principles of being British.

Kashmir

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

I declare that I am privileged to be the first Member of Parliament of Kashmiri heritage. I also have a significant number of Kashmiri constituents, who have a significant interest in this issue. I am sure that many other Members have been contacted by constituents with such an interest.

The key issues when discussing Kashmir are Kashmiri geography and Kashmiri self-determination, and many people are very concerned about that. For me, the key issue today is the violation of the human rights and civil liberties of the Kashmiri people—that is the most important thing. There have been violations of the Geneva convention by Indian armed forces.

As other Members have said, Kashmiris are having their human rights violated and abused. That has gone on for at least the past six decades, since Indian forces unlawfully invaded Kashmir in 1948. Kashmir was then an independent state under the reign of Maharaja Hari Singh. In 1953-54, a resolution was presented to the United Nations by the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, to allow the Kashmiri people the right of self-determination. To date, to the shame of the United Nations, such resolutions have not found their way to the General Assembly. People still wonder—certainly the Kashmiris are still wondering—whether the plight of the Kashmiris is worth its salt; it certainly seems not to be worth hearing in the General Assembly of the United Nations. That is very significant.

A number of Members wish to speak, so I will try to be as brief as possible. I recognise the work of the shadow Foreign Office team, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), who has responsibility for south-east Asia, and the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry). They have both made recognising human rights and civil liberties a significant policy issue for the Labour party. The shadow Secretary of State has written to the Foreign Secretary, ahead of his second visit to India, asking him to raise the issue of human rights and civil liberties in Kashmir when he discusses trade. I hope that, on his return, he will report to the House that he has raised those issues with the Indian Government.

There are currently more than 500,000 Indian troops in Kashmir, and they are protected by the Armed Forces (Jammu & Kashmir) Special Power Act 1990, which allows them complete free rein to abuse and torture people. There is no accountability when people go missing, and there is no court in India than can hold Indian troops to account. It is a clear violation of the Geneva convention for any military to be able to do such things, and I am surprised that we still do not raise it. I hope the Minister takes note and raises it with the Indian Government.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) on securing this debate, and I congratulate him and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) on their powerful speeches. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a particular concern about the use of pellet guns in Kashmir? Does he agree with me and Amnesty International that there should be a ban on the use of such guns, which are causing such serious injuries to so many people?

[Mr Mahmood]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. I will deal with that issue later in my speech, but I wholly agree with what she is saying.

I was talking about half a million soldiers in Kashmir who have no control over how they behave and how they abuse the people. There are serious concerns in Kashmir, particularly about the situation of the civilian population. We are very concerned that when a woman leaves the house, whether she be a mother, a daughter or a wife, we do not know what state she will return in—if indeed she will return at all. There have been gang rapes by the military—an absolutely atrocious act by any individual or community.

Forced Organ Removal: China

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered forced organ removal in China.

This is a very difficult subject to talk about, but there are those of us who have followed this issue in China and listened to people who have come to the House to present petitions and speak to us about it. We have watched the film on the issue and had a briefing in the House as well. Many Members of the House have been vociferous and outspoken on the issue. I commend the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for the hard work that she has done on it in the House. We admire her courage, tenacity and commitment to the issue. The rest of us will add our contribution. I know that her contribution will be as important as everyone else’s. I thank every hon. Member who has come today to participate. The abstract nature of the debate may have precluded many from attending. I am grateful to those who are here for acknowledging that the issue is worthy of time and attention from Members of the House.

My boys like to watch crime dramas, as many of us do. Some of them are so far-fetched that I scoff along with them. However, others are too chillingly real. The idea of someone having organs cut out of them and waking up in a bath of ice has long been an urban legend. However, today’s debate is not based on a horror story as we approach Halloween; it is not make-believe. It is a horror that is all too real in China. As it has been brought to our attention, I feel that we have a role to play in returning this scenario to the realms of urban legend. That is why the debate is so important.

This story, which is almost too dreadful to believe, was first revealed in March 2006, when a woman stated that as many as 4,000 Falun Gong had been killed for their organs at the hospital in which she had worked. I had the privilege of meeting some of the families of those people in this House, and a charitable organisation was also involved, so we know some of the stories at first hand. That lady said that her husband, a surgeon at the same hospital outside the north-eastern city of Shenyang, had disclosed to her that he had removed corneas from the living bodies of 2,000 Falun Gong adherents. A week later, a Chinese military doctor not only corroborated the woman’s account but claimed that such atrocities were taking place in 36 different concentration camps throughout the country. He said that he had also witnessed Falun Gong being transported in massive numbers across the country in cattle trains, at night and under the cover of tight security. People may think that that is something from the history of the second world war, but the transportation of people in cattle trains is all too real. As I said, it happens at night and under the cover of tight security.

In 2006, two prominent Canadians—David Kilgour, a former MP, and David Matas, a human rights lawyer—published a report for the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China, in which they gave credibility to claims that the Chinese authorities were harvesting organs from executed members of the group. Victims were held in concentration camps prior to dissection, after which the remains were immediately cremated, as if the authorities could get rid of the evidence of their ill deeds by cremating them so quickly.

It was in July 2006 that Kilgour and Matas published their 140-page report. It drew

“the regrettable conclusion that these allegations are true.”

The investigation uncovered the on-demand nature of organ transplants in China; there is an abundance of organs despite the lack of a functional donation system. Ten years later, on 22 June 2016, they published an update to their report. It shows the continued expansion of transplantation capacity—organ harvesting first came to light in 2006—the driving factors behind the industry’s growth, and the role of the ruling party, Government agencies and individual officials in implementing and perpetuating the systematic killing of prisoners of conscience for their organs. We are talking about those of the Falun Gong belief, those of Christian beliefs, who have been persecuted, people serving time in jail and those from other ethnic groups.

The harvesting is done on an industrial scale, as some of the figures illustrate very well. Although Chinese officials typically say that China transplants about 10,000 organs a year, the update to the report shows that that figure is surpassed by just a few hospitals alone. We can say, based on Government-imposed minimum capacity requirements for transplant centres, that the total system-wide capacity since 2000 would have easily reached more than 1 million transplants. Given that the vast majority of those hospitals far exceed the minimum requirements, the number of transplants performed in China is staggering. As I said, it is on an industrial scale.

The Conservative Party Human Rights Commission heard from at least two witnesses on the harrowing practice of forced organ harvesting. Notably, it heard from Ethan Gutmann, who has spent several years investigating this appalling practice—the forced removal of internal organs from live individuals for transplant. It also notes the information provided on behalf of UK Falun Gong practitioners in the written submission. Ms Lin stated:

“There have been persistent allegations that large numbers of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience have been killed to supply China’s lucrative trade in vital organs. Uyghurs and other prisoners of conscience may have been victimised in a similar way.”

Former Falun Gong prisoners report being subjected to targeted medical examinations and blood tests in custody that appear designed to assess the health and compatibility for potential transplant of their organs, Ms Lin claimed. She told the commission:

“Concern stems in part from the significant discrepancy between the number of organ transplants performed and the known sources of organs: even when we include death row inmates, the number of transplants performed in China is far too high. The short wait times achieved by transplant hospitals suggest that people are killed on demand for their organs.”

That is the horror of what is taking place in China. The House must today illustrate the issues clearly and ensure that we speak on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves—those with no voice.

Ethan Gutmann has stated, based on meticulous research into individual hospital accommodations for transplant recipients, occupancy rates and a full accounting of the overall number of hospitals in China carrying out organ transplants, that the claims by the Chinese of performing 10,000 organ transplants a year are intentionally low; they are keeping them low on purpose. The new report estimates that a minimum of 56,000 and perhaps as many as 110,000 organ transplants are being conducted a year, leading to an estimated overall total of 1.8 million organ transplants since 2001. Previous speculation that approximately 40,000 to 65,000 organs were extracted from prisoners of conscience is now seen as a serious underestimate, particularly as the number of Chinese hospitals that have informally confirmed the use of Falun Gong prisoners as a primary organ source continues to grow.

I am very concerned and I have tabled questions in the House, as other hon. Members have, on the issue. Organ tourism to China takes place. People in western countries find out about an organ that may be available in China at short notice. Given how quickly these things happen, there has to be an organised, established method of harvesting the organs so that those who come from the west can come across and get the transplant that they need so much. I urge the Government to take action on that issue as well. I know that that is not exactly in the portfolio of the Minister who is here to respond, but I am very pleased to see him. I know that all hon. Members will get a positive response from him.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on putting the case and raising this important issue in so eloquent a manner. Does he agree that nations should not allow their citizens to travel to China for organs until we know that China meets the World Health Organisation guiding principles on transplantation and ethical standards?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and for wisely putting the thoughts of everyone in this Chamber today on record. I totally agree with her—I think we all do—and that is one of the things we hope the Minister will respond to, because those going to China cannot close their eyes or ears to what is happening and to the question of whom the organ is coming from. The recipient cannot say, “I don’t know, but I need the organ transplant.” I am not taking away from the fact that they need the organ transplant, but there must be rules in place and China must be part of that.