Iran: Human Rights

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Maginnis of Drumglass

Tuesday 10th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they have taken to co-ordinate international representations about the execution of Mr Gholamreza Khossravi Savadjani, a political prisoner in Iran’s Evin Prison, and about the use of capital punishment and the human rights situation in Iran.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we are aware of the execution of Gholamreza Khossravi on 1 June this year. The right to life is a fundamental human right and the UK opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances. The UK continues to call on the Iranian Government to implement a moratorium on the death penalty and to guarantee the rights and freedoms of all Iranians.

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. It is quite disappointing in so far as what seems to dominate is the relationship that his Government want to have with Mr Rouhani. Will he acknowledge that since President Rouhani was elected there have been more than 550 executions? They are running now at the rate of two a day. The influence of Rouhani across the frontier in Iraq has led to killings running at the rate of about 1,000 a month with 4,000 Iraqis being injured. All in all, since we intervened in Iraq not so many years ago, do we not have a responsibility to Iraq and Iran to make amends by standing up and publicly and internationally exposing the injustice to the people we left behind?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord’s last remark is a reference to the PMOI. I recognise that it is a linked issue. The UN rapporteur’s most recent report on human rights in Iran demonstrates that human rights in Iran continue to be awful and that Iran is the second most frequent executor of prisoners in the world after China and indeed, in terms of size of population, the largest. We have no illusions on the quality of prison life, the use of torture or the absence of an adequate rule of law within Iran. Nevertheless, Iran is a complex political structure. It is not as simple a dictatorship as some of the states with which we have to deal. We think it is worth while pursuing an opening with the new president, and we are cautiously and carefully negotiating to see what is possible. The noble Lord shakes his head, but I think we have learnt from our experience in Iraq that blundering into a country with a large army and overthrowing the regime does not always lead to a much better outcome. Evolution is better than revolution.

Iran: Election

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Maginnis of Drumglass

Monday 17th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

My Lords—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

It is 10 minutes for a UQ, I am afraid, and we are out of time.

Iraq: Camp Ashraf

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Maginnis of Drumglass

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

My Lords, will the Minister accept that the term “unfortunate circumstance” misleadingly and euphemistically represents what has happened in Camp Ashraf? Does he accept that what happened there was a massacre—wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter? Will the Government consider the need to send a delegation from this House, or from Parliament in general, to Camp Ashraf? Furthermore, will they consider sending Nouri al-Maliki and his Camp Ashraf dispersal committee to court at The Hague?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there is a good deal of violence all the way across the Middle East at present, with which the United Nations is actively engaged. I have to reiterate that Iraq is now a sovereign state; that the United Kingdom Government are doing their best to investigate what has happened; that this is a long-standing confrontation going back to the change of government in 2003 in Iraq; and that it is not as simple to resolve as the noble Lord suggests.

Extradition: Gary McKinnon

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Maginnis of Drumglass

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what recent discussions they have had with the Government of the United States about the extradition of Gary McKinnon.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we regularly discuss a range of extradition matters with the United States authorities, who are anxious to see a conclusion to Mr McKinnon’s case. However, further consideration has been delayed because my right honourable friend the Home Secretary wishes, before deciding the case, to obtain an up-to-date assessment by medical experts recommended to her by the Chief Medical Officer, and Mr McKinnon has not yet granted medical consent for this to take place.

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer, but it tells me little more than I already know. Is it not ironic that a Parliament which has voted against the lengthy detention of criminals should keep a young man suffering from the condition known as Asperger’s syndrome in psychological torture for more than 3,300 days? Is it not time for the Home Office to liaise with those who have expertise in autism? Perhaps the department should go to the National Autistic Society and ask for a list of people with expertise in the area rather than relying on the normal line of, “Let’s see what the Chief Medical Officer says”.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord wishes to question the expertise of the newly appointed Chief Medical Officer. Negotiations are under way about the choice of an expert or a panel of experts, and we are assured by Mr McKinnon’s solicitors that they will consent to this. That is what we are waiting for. We have to recognise that these are complicated legal issues which have to be dealt with by legal means. Further, perhaps I may remind noble Lords that Mr McKinnon was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome in August 2008.

Police: Crime Rates

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Maginnis of Drumglass

Wednesday 19th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, police commissioners will cost money, but police authorities cost money. Adjustments have been made for the election of police commissioners. We will come at a later point to the question whether police accountability is sufficient—I know that some people are concerned about police accountability and undercover officers—but police accountability is one of the things that elected police commissioners are intended to serve.

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

My Lords, in so far as those of us who have served in, and in support of, the police recognise the need to sustain that support, is it not important to remember that the Justice Minister wants to reduce the number of people who become victims through their lack of communication and land in prison? When we talk of the funding of the police, we must also recognise our responsibility to those, for example, who are on the autistic spectrum who find themselves in trouble and whom we have a responsibility to help.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I agree strongly with the noble Lord. In the prevention of crime, working with deprived children and disturbed teenagers is clearly an important part of reducing the crime rate and holding it down.

Turkey

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Maginnis of Drumglass

Thursday 13th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to speak. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, on his insightful contribution to the debate. I expected no less, knowing that he traces his roots back to my home county, Tyrone. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, on obtaining this timely debate and hope that, with her more natural authority to speak on these issues, she will be more successful than I have been during the past 28 years in seeking to obtain fairer play, justice and human rights for Turkish Cypriots. That is the issue that I want to address and I declare an interest: I have had a long-term interest in and association with Turkey and northern Cyprus.

How does one even begin to inject reality into the Cyprus situation where, for example, the Greek Cypriot President Christofias, in his most recent verbal aberration, declared that if he could meet President Gul and Prime Minister Erdogan,

“the Cyprus issue could be solved over dinner in a fish restaurant on the Bosphorus”?

Forget the pretension, ignore the insult, because Christofias obviously has little regard for either truth or reality. His mind is so conditioned by his own propaganda that he can easily overlook the Greek Cypriot repudiation of the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee, their rejection of various agreements since then, most recently the 2004 rejection of the Annan plan, and the fact that he, like his predecessors, is willingly held to ransom by the Greek Orthodox Church.

I wish that I had more time to expand on the negative part played by the Orthodox Church in respect of the rejection of the Annan plan and its relation to the ethnic cleansing that was visited on the Turkish Cypriots between 1963 and 1974. Only a knave or a fool can remain unmoved by the ghettoisation of the minority Turkish Cypriots, by the Akritas plan or by eyewitness accounts of the slaughter that was carried out during the Makarios presidency and by Nikos Sampson and the EOKA-B. I do not have to remind noble Lords that the same democratic deficit, moral deviance and violent hatred still pervade Greek Cypriot attitudes and are still being orchestrated and encouraged today, even on the football field and basketball court.

What angers me, and shames us all, in respect of the propaganda over much of my 28 parliamentary years, has been the willingness of a limited but verbose group of parliamentarians—mainly, but not exclusively, from another place, through an all-party group, lately known as the Friends of Cyprus, now the Cyprus all-party parliamentary group—to work exclusively to give credence to the Greek Cypriot line while effectively excluding any Turkish Cypriot participation, argument or rights. I remind noble Lords that it was I who was verbally and physically attacked when I dared to enter a publicly advertised meeting sponsored by the Friends of Cyprus in the Jubilee Room, where I spoke merely to remind those promoting the sectarian Greek Cypriot line that the history of Cyprus did not just start in 1974.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Order. Interventions in the gap should be a maximum of four minutes.

[Lord Maginnis of Drumglass]

I apologise and I will wind up. I simply implore the Government to take a more enlightened perspective than the politically myopic Chancellor Merkel, who obviously believes that the way to assist in finding a solution for Cyprus is to visit the Greek Cypriots and lecture Turkey from afar. She did not arrive in Cyprus to support the ongoing talks; rather, she went to stick her oar in before they fail. Berlin’s only interest is to keep Cyprus as an anti-Turkish card and I hope that the coalition Government will acknowledge that.