Jammu and Kashmir

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady will be aware that the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights produced a report recently. She will forgive me if I do not try to say any more now on the Floor of the House. I will try to write to her, if I may, providing a list of the actions that have been taken over the past 12 months and an account of what we propose to do in the months to come.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I must say that I am very disappointed with the Minister’s response so far. His Government are failing to take the necessary responsibility. This issue is far more serious than he and the Government are suggesting. Tensions are high, and two nuclear countries are on the verge of another conflict. Kashmiris have been dying since 1947. Will the Government take some real action and show some responsibility? Will they put both India and Pakistan at the table, so that they can resolve their issues through dialogue?

[Mark Field]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to my earlier answers on this matter. Successive Governments have clearly tried to work on it on a bilateral basis, which I think has been more helpful. A huge amount of work goes on. Our high commissions in both New Delhi and Islamabad, and other staff, work closely together in trying to do what can be done on the ground in Kashmir but, as I said at the outset, it is not our role to bring both parties to the table in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests, and I think that trying to do so would be entirely counterproductive.

Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for her excellent work in bringing this important debate to the House, and I thank the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) for her excellent work as well. This is a very important issue, and having listened to some of the speeches of my hon. Friends, I am feeling quite emotional over the trauma that the Rohingya people are going through. It is unbelievable in this day and age. I cannot believe that the international community has failed completely to help these people.

Only last month, buses and trucks stood ready to return refugees to Myanmar from the Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, but no one wanted to go back. There are 900,000 Rohingya in more than two dozen camps in the area, living in appalling and dangerous conditions. Food and medical facilities are poor, there is little or no access to education for children, and living conditions are dire. New arrivals are living in highly congested areas and are vulnerable to disease and starvation. There is no proper sanitation, there is insufficient water supply, and women and children are living with the threat of, or enduring, horrific sexual violence and trafficking.

As bleak and disturbing as this picture is, the prospect of forced repatriation to a dangerously hostile home country, stripped of rights and citizenship, is even worse. The draft UN resolution aims to put a timeline on Myanmar allowing the return of more than 700,000 refugees, but all the evidence points to the fact it is not safe for even one refugee to return. It is an act of gross inhumanity that refugees still living with the trauma of horrific experiences are being forced back to a Buddhist-majority country that is still perpetrating genocide against the Rohingya people.

According to UN investigators, thousands of Rohingya are still fleeing to Bangladesh, and the estimated 250,000 to 400,000 who have remained following last year’s brutal military campaign in Myanmar continue to suffer the most severe restrictions and repression. Furthermore, according to reports from Reuters and others, the Myanmar Government are taking steps that threaten to make the purge of the Rohingya permanent. In August 2017, all 6,000 Rohingya residents of the village of Inn Din in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state fled a brutal army campaign. Rohingya Muslims and Buddhist villagers were once neighbours here, but Rohingya houses were burned to the ground and all trace of their lives there erased.

New satellite images show that the area was bulldozed and security buildings constructed where the Muslim houses stood. New homes have also sprung up, but not for the Rohingya. The new inhabitants are Buddhists, largely from other parts of Rakhine. The Myanmar Government’s resettlement maps show that Rohingya refugees returning to Rakhine will be herded into settlements that segregate them from the rest of the population.

The international community, including the British Government, has failed to take effective action to hold those responsible to account, address the root causes of the crisis and provide sufficient support to refugees. They cannot stand back and allow forced repatriation to a homeland where genocide is still happening. The British Government must accept in full the findings and recommendations of the UN fact-finding mission and officially accept that what took place is genocide, if we are to provide an adequate response to this appalling human suffering.

I welcome the Government’s leading role in humanitarian assistance for Rohingya refugees, but we must act now to improve security for women and children in the camps. The UK Government must take action through the UN Security Council to ensure that the Burmese authorities promptly bring suspected perpetrators of crimes against Rohingya to justice, including by referring perpetrators to the International Criminal Court. All the Rohingya refugees would like to return to Myanmar, but they cannot be expected to do so without guarantees of safety, citizenship and dignity.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for the Middle East (Alistair Burt)]

We have already expressed our condolences to Tunisia for the attack yesterday. The security situation in Tunisia has been worked on quite intensively by the Tunisian authorities since the attack in Sousse some years ago. We remain in close contact with Tunisia. We constantly update our travel advice to keep people in touch with the situation. We will continue to work with the Tunisian authorities to improve the security situation still further.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

T3. For at least nine months, the Met’s war crimes unit has been assessing material from the Rwandan authorities relating to five men living in the UK likely to have committed genocide offences in Rwanda in 1994. Their extradition to Rwanda was blocked in 2015. How much longer will these men evade justice?

[Harriett Baldwin]

We are well aware of the reports to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I can assure him that, should there be any issues in terms of action that the UK can take in this regard, it stands ready to do that, should the situation require our intervention.

Demolition of Khan al-Ahmar

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

I know from my previous experience that, again, the short answer is yes. Proposals have been put forward, including by Benny Begin some years ago, and a lot of work has been done with the Bedouin community from the Negev and in the area. However, there is a fundamental point at which people’s rights, feelings and desires have to be taken into account. In this particular instance, it is not deniable that Israel has indeed come forward with alternative accommodation, but the question is, as it would be for any of us: if someone offers us something, we have a choice whether to accept it, but if that choice is taken away, the circumstances are rather different. What we have sought to stress to Israel is that, although this particular case has been through its legal system and alternatives have been provided, this is not what that community, which has already been moved, wanted. Accordingly, many people believe that those rights and wishes should be somehow taken into account, in a state that values and prizes the need for rights and laws to protect the most vulnerable, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Sir Nicholas Soames) said. He is surprised that that has not been the case.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said that the demolition of structures in the Khan al-Ahmar encampment would be a violation of international law and has called on the Israeli authorities to stop it. If the demolition goes ahead, which is likely given the previous record of the Israeli authorities, do the Government intend to take steps to hold the authorities to account for their actions?

Rohingya Crisis

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Dr Blackman-Woods) for securing this important debate and for bringing our attention to her visit to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. If we watch the TV and follow these stories, it is bad enough. My hon. Friend should be thanked for her efforts in bringing the reality that she has experienced at first hand to this House.

The UN refugee agency said that what it is doing was like establishing a city the size of Manchester overnight, but one with no infrastructure, housing, water, sanitation or tools for survival. However, that is better than the alternative. We have all heard the most horrific stories of brutality. It is difficult to comprehend the suffering. The Prime Minister has called the Rohingya crisis heartbreaking and has pledged to deepen partnerships with Asian countries in a move to combat such problems. The Foreign Secretary is looking for more analysis. That is not enough. The massacre of the Rohingya is genocide. We cannot keep denying the truth against the weight of evidence, and we cannot keep talking about how shocking the human suffering is without acting.

The UK is well placed to influence stakeholders in Myanmar and across the region, and at the United Nations. Last week, Burma and Bangladesh signed an agreement to repatriate refugees, although Burma gave no details of how many would be allowed to return home. Repatriations are expected to begin in the next month or two, but the Myanmar Government’s continued denial of a well-evidenced campaign of ethnic cleansing is astonishing.

Can we really believe that the Rohingyas’ home, or what is left of it, is safe to return to? Repatriations must not happen prematurely and without assurances that there is a genuine solution in place. I ask the Government to do everything in their power to bring about lasting peace and to ensure that no Rohingya will be returned to a place where they will not be safe. It should be recognised that the people of Bangladesh have opened their borders and their hearts to people in desperate need. If Bangladesh is to deliver a progressive refugee policy under such strain, the international community must step up its support. It is right that we continue to talk about the atrocities, but we also need to see proper recognition of the scale of the issue from the international community, and we need action to stop the horror.

Budget Resolutions

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Jo Platt).

This Budget will forever stand as a reminder of why we should never trust the Conservative party with the economy. Its mismanagement of fiscal policy since 2010 has led us to the longest fall in living standards for 60 years, and that looks set to continue well into the next decade. The deficit will not be eliminated for at least another 16 years. Growth is below 2% in every forecast year for the first time in modern history, and annual pay will not return to its 2008 peak until 2025, all because of an austerity programme that has bought so much pain with no gain. This Budget gives us nothing but more of the same—more austerity, and more attacks on the poor and vulnerable. It also gives us the same tired solutions, with a few scraps here and there for the NHS, hints that nurses might get a pay rise and changes in stamp duty for first-time buyers that are more likely to drive up prices in an already inflated market. All these sticking plasters just go to show that the Government have no idea how hard it is out there for people who struggle to make ends meet on wages that have not increased for years while inflation and living costs continue to rise.

Public services and public service workers are on their knees, but their desperate cries for more pay have been largely ignored: NHS staff have been all but ignored; teachers and pupils—ignored; firefighters—ignored; the chief constable of Bedfordshire police, who said publicly that he no longer has enough police officers to protect the public, has been ignored; local authorities—ignored; social care recipients—ignored; and mental health sufferers—ignored. That’s a Conservative Government for you.

The east midlands rail franchise threatens a poorer service for Bedford rail users, who have been let down by the Government’s cancellation of their plans to electrify the line from London to Sheffield, leading to slower and less environmentally-friendly trains. And talking of broken promises, it is now time for this Government to tell the nation the truth. Brexit is hurting our economy. That is not just because of the fall of the pound or because we are now the worst-performing advanced economy in the world, but because this is costing us a huge sum of money before we even leave—£3 billion, just to prepare for Britain’s exit on top of the £700 million that was already put aside. Hidden in the Red Book was an extra £3.5 billion every year to the EU after Brexit, even after transition. Just imagine how that could transform our NHS.

This is no Budget for the future, this is not prosperity and this is not progress—and it certainly does not reveal a nation ready to take on the challenges of the uncertain future Brexit brings.

The Rohingya and the Myanmar Government

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) on organising and leading such an important debate.

More than half a million people—mostly Rohingya women and children—have fled violence in Rakhine state, seeking refuge in Bangladesh. The latest reports from Amnesty International speak of massacre, murder and brutality on a huge scale, with women raped and tortured, and children shot in the back by the Myanmar military as they flee. The latest arrivals in Bangladesh have said they were driven out by hunger because food markets in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state had been shut down and aid deliveries restricted by the Burmese authorities.

The Government have donated £30 million in aid and pledged to match £5 million in donations to the DEC appeal for people fleeing Burma. The public response to this humanitarian crisis is profound. I pay tribute to all the fundraising efforts in my constituency of Bedford and Kempston—from the efforts of faith groups, mosque leaders, schools and charities to individual giving. That fundraising shows human nature at its best, and I am sure it will make the difference between life and death to those who are suffering terribly.

Families in Bangladesh are living huddled beneath sheets of plastic, with no access to clean water or toilet facilities. Let us not forget that that is the fate of the survivors. It is difficult to know exactly how many people have been executed, burned alive, raped or slain in their homes and villages, but it is in the thousands. Those responsible must be held to account. Myanmar’s military cannot simply sweep serious violations under the carpet by announcing another sham internal investigation.

While aid is vital, we know that money can only do so much. We must find a political solution to end this barbaric persecution so that the Rohingya can return home in a dignified way to rebuild what is left of their devastated communities. The international community must help to ensure that no Rohingya refugees are forced back to Burma if they remain at risk of serious human rights violations.

Aung San Suu Kyi has been rightly condemned for her refusal to intervene in support of the Rohingya, but she has since pledged accountability—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am immensely grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but his contribution is at an end. I did not mean that unkindly—he has done very well—but his time is up.

Violence in Rakhine State

Mohammad Yasin Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

As I said to the hon. Gentleman earlier, the constitution unfortunately constrains that to a certain extent. The military have essentially been in control for most of the time since the successful coup of 1962. The moves towards democracy have, by British standards, been relatively small. The constraint we are under is that the hand of the military still plays a very important role from day to day.

I started my statement with that issue simply to say that the escalation we have seen in the past 10 days came about as the result of a terror attack and the reaction of the security services to it. That is the moment at which things reached the crisis point that we have seen over the past 10 days. However, I accept what has been said by many Members of the House: this is not something that has come out of the blue sky; the persecution of the Rohingya population has been a profound issue for decades.

[Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)]

The Rohingya were the loyal allies of Britain in world war two and now they face their darkest hour. Will the Minister give us a clear answer? Will the Government make representations to the UN Security Council, calling for its immediate intervention to protect the Rohingya?

[Mark Field]

As I pointed out, we are in touch with the UN Security Council. We led the discussions that took place last week in this regard. Clearly, as the situation unfolds, we will be happy to make further representations.