Egypt: Human Rights

Lord Williams of Baglan Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Williams of Baglan (CB)]

My Lords, I commend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry for calling this debate. Lest we look unusually critical of Egypt, one has to acknowledge at the outset that violations of human rights are, sadly, all too widespread throughout the Middle East, from the Maghreb to the Gulf, with freedom of religion and freedom of speech and association routinely circumscribed and disregarded. Representative government and an independent judiciary and press are deficient or absent in many cases.

There are of course differences, and in some Arab countries there is greater tolerance than in others. I note in passing the acquittal in Bahrain yesterday of a Shiite critic of the Government, Khalil Marzook, one of the leaders of the opposition Wefaq party. As for freedom of religion in Bahrain, its ambassador here is a Christian, and her counterpart, the Bahrainian ambassador in Washington DC, is Jewish. All of us would wish Bahrain well in a process of reconciliation, which, I hope, can include the now-freed Khalil Marzook.

Turning to Egypt, one cannot begin but with the shocking jailing of the three journalists in Cairo just a few days ago. Here I declare an interest as the international trustee of the BBC and as someone who remembers Peter Greste from the time when we both worked together in the World Service at Bush House in the late 1980s. He is a professional journalist of the highest calibre who would acquit himself well in any of the world’s major news organisations. It is no surprise to me that journalists at the BBC held a demonstration on Tuesday in support of Peter and his colleagues.

I have to say that it was shocking to see footage of three journalists held in cages in a 10-minute session in court, being sentenced in two cases to seven years’ imprisonment and to 10 years in the third. It was sadly reminiscent of Europe in the 1930s. Two other British journalists were tried in absentia and, needless to say, found guilty. All this is a chilling warning to the international press, and to the British press, in their coverage of Egypt. Those sentences have been widely condemned. The Prime Minister called them “appalling”, and the Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop—Peter Greste is Australian—considered the sentences to be a serious attack on the freedom of the press. Condemnation came from Governments and press associations around the world.

Egypt is in danger of losing friends, not gaining them. For all his faults, and there were very many—especially his meddling with the constitution, which concerned Egypt’s large Coptic Christian and secular communities—Mohamed Morsi was the only civilian elected president of the Egyptian Arab Republic in 62 years. He was replaced as interim president by Adly Mansour, a judge—but he was not elected. Egypt and Egyptian politics cannot be defined for ever by the limits of the garrison state. Like other Arab countries, it needs to look to models elsewhere, such as India, South Africa and Indonesia—incidentally the world’s largest Muslim country—which have made that difficult transition to real economic development, representative government, protection of human rights and religious tolerance.

There are, sadly, many areas of human rights where conditions in Egypt fall far below acceptable international standards. The reports of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the International Crisis Group can provide chapter and verse, including, it has to be said, reports of widespread incidents of torture.

What then should be the attitude of the British Government? I believe that we should act on the words of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary and raise our concerns about the case of the three journalists and other human rights violations in Egypt. As a former special adviser to two Foreign Secretaries and the current Secretary-General of the UN, I can imagine the advice that will go forward to Ministers. At other times, I would perhaps have written it. It would include the conflict between human rights considerations and security issues, the importance of Egypt because of the peace treaty with Israel, counterterrorism co-operation and so on. It will not be easy, but diplomacy is not meant to be easy. Our Government need to be tough in addressing concerns about the behaviour of the Government of President Sisi. I therefore submit that this is the moment for Ministers to act, not necessarily publicly but in a robust manner, on human rights violations, which have no place in the fight against terrorism and which are completely counterproductive. The political contest with the Ikhwan—the Islamic Brotherhood—is never going to be won if Egypt continues to undermine human rights in this manner.