Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. We have programmes that bring the vulnerable and those who have been affected to the UK, and we are also investing a huge amount of funding in programmes in-country. I will be more than delighted to write to her with more details of what we are doing.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

The brutalisation of the Yazidi by Daesh has been a deliberate attempt to destroy the Yazidi people. Yazda, a Yazidi advocacy organisation, estimates that 35 Yazidi mass graves have been found. What support can my hon. Friend present to ensure that these crimes and graves are collated and evidenced?

[Mr Ellwood]

As I have mentioned, the Foreign Secretary is leading on this, and it will take time. We need to be patient, because it is important that we conduct forensic examinations, preserve evidence and take testimonies, but we will bring to account those who have committed these atrocities.

Kashmir

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

First, I wish to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) on securing this debate and on being such a strong advocate for Kashmir and Kashmiris in the Chamber.

In 1947, India and Pakistan partitioned, bringing about the largest migration of people in history, with more than 14 million people—refugees—crossing the newly formed India-Pakistan border for safety. One border disputed to this day is Kashmir, a small piece of land in the Himalayas which today is an unstable home to 12 million Kashmiris. On 24 January 1949, the first group of United Nations military observers arrived in Jammu and Kashmir to oversee a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Almost 70 years later, India and Pakistan have evolved but Kashmir is still a region beset by political disagreement, violence, and human rights violations. Its population is just 12 million, yet more than 3,000 people have disappeared during the past 70 years and the conflict has left more than 47,000 people dead, including 7,000 police personnel. The death toll continues, with both India and Pakistan at an impasse, as was depressingly noted in a House of Commons Library research paper on Kashmir. It stated:

“Currently, the two governments”—

those of India and Pakistan—

“are engaged in a process of rapprochement. This is not the first such process, but it has given rise to optimism.”

That paper was written in 2004, and India and Pakistan have still got nowhere. Optimism has run dry, and bloodshed and bullets in Kashmir have taken over.

UN observations have taken place at various times since 1949, at considerable cost, but to what effect? Resolutions have been passed calling for ceasefires, for security forces to be withdrawn, and for a plebiscite giving Kashmiris the opportunity to decide whether to join India or Pakistan, or even to determine their own future—that is the cornerstone of any civilised democracy.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

The UN clearly has a pivotal role to play in Kashmir, but does my hon. Friend believe it has sufficient skills, resources and political will to do what we are expecting of it in securing peace?

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[Nusrat Ghani]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I would say that the UN has considerable skill and considerable resources, but it is falling down on political will. Seventy years have been lost and Kashmir pays the price with lost lives and livelihoods. Last year, it saw an unprecedented level of violence and curfew, with 68 civilians killed and more than 9,000 people injured during months of unbroken violence. This was the bloodiest episode in Kashmir’s recent history. The shame of the international community in failing to recognise the violence and offer support to Kashmiri civilians is a bloody stain on all our history books.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights emphasised the importance of an

“independent, impartial and international mission”

within the conflict-ridden region, with “free and complete access”. Top UN officials have said that they continue to receive reports of Indian forces using excessive force against the civilian population under India’s administration, yet India has refused the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees access to investigate allegations of human rights abuses. I fully accept that Pakistan, not just India, has to allow the UN access to Kashmir so that it can evaluate the damage that the conflict has caused before it becomes another footnote in Kashmir’s history.

The UN has had 70 years to help Kashmiris, but instead has for too long wilfully sidelined the dispute. We need a renewed effort for honest UN involvement to resolve the current crisis, with the UN using all its powers to investigate the crimes committed. What pressure can the UK, by taking advantage of our privileged position on the Security Council, put on the UN? The UN has to show some humility and give some backbone to its statements. No resolution or reconciliation can resume until there is acceptance, not dispute, over the lives lost and damaged. Unlike at any other time in history, we have a real role to play, offering our hand of friendship and partnership. Pakistan is one of the biggest recipients of our aid funding and a partner in tackling terrorism.

Only last year, the Prime Minister visited India to secure a substantial trade deal. During that trip, what discussions took place on Kashmir? Will the Minister update the House on his discussions on Kashmir with his counterparts in both Pakistan and India?

Prime Minister Modi of India said that

“any meaningful bilateral dialogue necessarily requires an environment that is free from terrorism and violence”,

and he is absolutely right. The recent escalation of violence creates terror where no authority is trusted, not even those that are meant to offer protection.

In Kashmir, pellet guns are being used by security forces. The Indian Government have advised that pellet guns should be used rarely, and only in pressing circumstances, yet the Central Reserve Police Force continues to use them persistently. These guns cause life-threatening injuries and brutally blind people—so far, more than 9,000 people have been injured. By their very nature, these pellet guns are the antithesis of targeted precision. They spray and maim through a 6-foot circle. It is impossible to limit the number of casualties with a 6-foot fan of pellets. These are not precision weapons or defensive weapons, and their use in open public places must constitute a human rights violation.

With a pellet gun, anyone and everyone within that 6-foot circle is a target, even children sitting at home. Twelve-year-old Umar Nazir was in the courtyard of his home—he was not protesting—when his eyes were hit by pellets. Both his eyes are injured, with little vision left. He is recovering in Srinagar, where the ophthalmology department has stated that it lacks the medical supplies to proceed with surgeries for injured retinas because the demand is so high. Depressingly, a former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir was forced to tweet Prime Minister Modi to ask for eye surgeons and eye trauma experts to be sent to Kashmir to help those with injuries. People’s lives are being lost and people’s vision is being removed for life, and the best way to get help from Government agencies seems to be by sending a tweet. That is how desperate the situation has become.

Will the Minister ask his Indian counterparts what their justification is for using pellet guns in public spaces? I can see none. Does he agree that the indiscriminate nature of such weapons constitutes a crime when they are used in public spaces? The Central Reserve Police Force has refused to share its operating procedure for this lethal weapon. Will the Minister put pressure on India to disclose its justification? Perhaps the Indian authorities can share with us which other liberal democracy uses such a weapon on its own people. Will the Minister tell the House what aid or medical support is being provided to Kashmiri hospitals?

The human rights violations I have described should be argument enough for UN access for observation. Human rights violations will not disappear without observation; they will just be disputed. If the UN takes the Vienna declaration seriously, it must step up its activity and willingness to be involved.

This is not just a regional issue. India and Pakistan both have nuclear weapons, so the stakes in the dispute are high. Pakistan is reputed to have the 11th strongest military in the world; frighteningly, it is also ranked as the 14th most fragile country. This regional dispute is not so regional: when two nuclear powers fail to resolve such a volatile dispute, it affects us all and has the potential to threaten us all. That is especially true as the terror has taken a new, violent form.

Access to books and education is key to building a strong community. For the first time, schools and educators have become targets. Village schools are being targeted for destruction, with at least 24 being burned to the ground last year. In one incident, the principal of a school in Bugam, Mohammed Muzaffar, rushed to the school as it was burning to the ground. He cried out that it was like his home being burned. It was no ordinary school: built in 1948, it housed 3,000 books.

With schools on fire, teachers fearing for their lives and books burned to ashes, the future is bleak for both young and old in Kashmir, as is its economic security. It is in all our interests that the crisis in Kashmir is recognised, that the full force of our international community is marshalled to support the UN in gaining access to Kashmir, and that all our diplomatic relations are focused on providing a resolution and respite for Kashmir.

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[Shabana Mahmood (Birmingham, Ladywood) (Lab)]

The House will know of my long-standing interest in Kashmir. Many thousands of British citizens of Kashmiri extraction have made their home in my constituency, and I take an interest on their behalf, but I have a more personal interest as my family originates from Kashmir. All four of my grandparents were born in Kashmir before my family moved to this country, so this debate has very personal resonance for me.

The hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) has already set out the background to this long-standing dispute and I pay tribute to him and to others who led the charge to secure today’s Backbench business debate.

We have heard already that this is a long-standing dispute between two nuclear-armed powers in one of the world’s most heavily militarised regions. It does not receive enough attention anywhere outside the region, and certainly not in our own country given the size of our British Kashmiri population; it certainly has a lot of attention from that population, but not enough from those outside it. I therefore pay tribute to all the doughty campaigners from all parties who have taken every opportunity available to raise this serious matter in the House of Commons and to press both our current Government and previous Governments to do more to help to build a resolution to this long-standing crisis.

The further push for debate on Kashmir has come as a particular result of the upsurge in violence and fighting in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir since last summer. We see the unacceptable failure of the whole world, the refusal to give effect to UN resolutions and the denial of respect for the self-determination of the Kashmiri people playing out in the worst possible way. People have lost hope and are rising against that loss of hope to try to force to have their rights be respected.

That significant upsurge in violence has elicited a brutal response from the Indian authorities. I am afraid that I wholeheartedly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). I do not believe that it is possible to minimise the extent to which the Indian authorities have acted in a disproportionate manner that has significantly harmed and, indeed, created great tragedy for the Kashmiri people in the region. This is the biggest uprising in two decades and the brutality of the response of the police and security services cannot be ignored. The fact that that is the case is upheld by human rights organisations across the world, including Human Rights Watch, whose world report for 2017 found clear evidence that the police and security forces have acted with impunity, that there have been extra-judicial killings and that mass rape has occurred. All those things are not acceptable.

I concur with the comments made by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker). Of course, there will be questions about the veracity of the videos we will see on YouTube, on Facebook and elsewhere on social media, but there should be an open investigation to prove the veracity of the videos. If they are true—I believe that they will be found to be true—there are big questions for the Indian Government to answer.

I have to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall that the big difference between the Indian Government and other Governments that commit human rights abuses is that India is the largest democracy in the world. Being a democracy is not simply about giving people a vote to decide their Government. It includes much more. It is about fundamental respect for the rule of law and for basic human rights that must be protected and that sit alongside the ability of the people to elect their Government.

[Nusrat Ghani]

Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am afraid that I would be doing other Members out of their time if I gave way. I apologise.

The use of pellet guns has been mentioned. This is a significant issue for the Indian Government, and our Government must press them more on it. The Indian defence for the use of pellet guns to see off protestors who they say are throwing stones is that pellet guns are non-lethal. Of course, a pellet gun will probably not kill, but I defy anyone to see the pictures of the victims of pellet gun attacks and say that that is a proportionate response against civilians in a democracy. It is not, and I do not believe that anybody would stand up in this House and say that it is.

When we debate Kashmir, people who speak more in favour of the Indian Government’s stance will often say that the position of those who live in Jammu and Kashmir is better because they are able to vote, they are free to take part in the democratic process and they are basically free, and that self-determination is not necessary because they are a free people, freely electing their own local leaders with a significant devolution of power. Nobody—not one person—in Jammu and Kashmir has voted to be hurt, injured, beaten up, raped, blinded or killed. Pellet wounds are brutal. They are a brutal response by the Indian authorities and send a brutal message to the Kashmiri people. They leave brutal scars, which are not just carried by the individuals who bear the physical scars but are borne by the whole community in Jammu and Kashmir itself and all around the world by those of us of Kashmiri extraction. They are a symbol of the population’s repression, its desire to resist that repression and its cry to be heard.

That cry is falling on deaf ears in the largest democracy in the world, which wants to do more business with the rest of the world and play a greater role in world affairs. That position is simply not acceptable and our Government must not shy away from making that plain, especially in relation to the use of pellet guns. Tremendous, appalling, sustained and deliberate misery has been visited on the people of Kashmir for too long. The stories of disappearances and the discovery of mass graves have brought no official UN-led investigation whatever. The police and the security forces have impunity, especially given the implementation of the Special Powers Act of 1990. If a people are humiliated, abused and allowed to lose hope, and offered only despair in turn, and given no answers and no rights, there will an uprising. It is inevitable.

None of us as responsible legislators, also working in a democracy, can watch these events unfold and sit on our hands. We can do more. The legacy of empire demands that we do more. We have a duty to speak out more regularly. We have a duty to challenge as well as to encourage both the Indian and the Pakistani authorities. I have to say to the Minister that the written answers to the questions tabled, particularly last summer, are so bland it is as though these matters are a daily occurrence that can be ignored. That is not good enough. There are other disputes in this world that elicit much stronger responses from the Government when Members of this House table written questions. That has not been the case in relation to the dispute in Kashmir. In particular, there has been no definitive answer on whether the Prime Minister specifically raised the issue of human rights abuses with the Indian Government. It is not enough to tell us that the issue of Kashmir was raised. We need to know whether the human rights abuses and the use of pellet guns were raised.

I believe that it is now incumbent upon the British Government to make a clear call to raise this issue at the United Nations and to ask for an independent, UN-led investigation into human rights abuses, so that we can at least demonstrate that although some parts of this world see this as a forgotten conflict, or a conflict they want to be forgotten, we will never forget it and will keep fighting.

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[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) on securing this extremely important debate that, as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary Kashmir group, I assisted in bringing to the House. I am privileged to take part because the issue matters deeply to many of my constituents and to me personally, as my family originates from the state of Kashmir so I know the region well. Although the seriousness of the issue means that I could talk at great length, time does not permit so I will try to keep my contributions to several key areas.

I believe that the most pressing matter is the long-standing and ongoing human rights abuses taking place in the region. Last summer and long after, we saw the devastating deployment of pellet guns that resulted in the indiscriminate maiming and blinding of hundreds of Kashmiris, and the horrific photos of the aftermath of their use, with pellets embedded in the bloodied faces of demonstrators and children—images we would all like to forget. But security forces did not stop there. Thousands were injured, phone lines were cut, internet access was constrained and the region was placed under a strict curfew. We would expect such moves under a repressive regime, not one with the hallmarks of a free, open and liberal society.

The abuse then turned deadly, with the illegal use of live ammunition by security forces on unarmed demonstrators resulting in their deaths. Unfortunately, however, this is nothing new. The reality is that human rights abuses have gone on, largely unchecked, for decades in the region, as is well documented by many well-respected human rights organisations. Unaccountability for these crimes is rife. If we are to address the abuses, we must first look at the draconian Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, which allows the security forces to escape justice and accountability. It was only ever intended to be invoked on a temporary basis, but has continued in force since 1990. It has been widely criticised by well-respected human rights organisations, with numerous calls for it to be repealed. I repeat those calls today because the Act grants security forces in the region heavy-handed powers to kill, arrest and search. It is because of the Act that there have been near unspeakable horrors and abuses of human rights including extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, tormented and tortured civilians, mass rapes, widowed wives and orphaned children.

According to recent figures published in the Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution, between 1989 and 2010 there were almost 7,000 custodial killings. Some 118,000 civilians were arrested, almost 10,000 women were raped or molested, and as many as 10,000 Kashmiri youths were forcibly disappeared. There is no doubt that such abuses are taking place—I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma)—as they are well documented. To deny that they are well documented is to go against many well-respected human rights organisations and the evidence, including video footage and photographs, that we have seen with our own eyes.

[Nusrat Ghani]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Imran Hussain]

I may come back to the hon. Lady, but she knows that time is very limited.

As has been mentioned, we must not turn a blind eye to abuses that take place. We must not ignore them or just stand by. We must send a clear message today that wherever it takes place, injustice is injustice, and it will never be tolerated.

The second important issue is that of self-determination, specifically the right of the sons and daughters of Kashmir to self-determination and the urgent need for them to be able to exercise that right. A lot has been said about UN resolution 47, calling for a plebiscite on the future of the region. The resolution is crucial to the story of Kashmir, past and present, but it is non-binding, which is why the plebiscite has not yet taken place. However, I call again for the implementation of that resolution, whether it is called UN resolution 47, a free and fair plebiscite or whatever we name it. The ultimate choice must be for the sons and daughters of Kashmir to determine their own destiny. They have waited for more than 70 years for their voice to be heard and to make a decision on their future to determine their lives. For more than 70 years, they have been denied their birth right to self-determination. The international community must do what is fair and proper, allowing the sons and daughters of Kashmir their birth right.

I am passionate about the subject and could go on, but time is not permitting, so I will conclude. I have previously asked the Minister in this House to condemn the human rights abuses in the region. I ask him again today to use this opportunity on behalf of the Government to condemn those abuses. At the very least, Minister, please accept that the abuses are taking place, and assure us that the Government are doing everything they can to allow for a peaceful resolution on the basis of the sons and daughters of Kashmir determining their own destiny—something that is very much overdue.

Yemen

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

The situation in Yemen is dire. As the House has already heard, nearly 7,000 people have lost their lives as a result of the conflict, and more than 14.4 million people are food-insecure. The recent ceasefire provided a welcome few days of relief, allowing much-needed humanitarian aid through to areas that simply cannot be reached while clashes are going on, as was passionately noted by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz).

A true and lasting solution to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen must come from a longer, stable ceasefire during which efforts are made by both sides to agree a long-term, balanced peace deal that the people of Yemen have invested in themselves. I strongly support the Government’s work at the UN and, through our ambassador, Edmund Fitton-Brown, in Yemen. We should be proud that we have contributed £100 million to the UN’s humanitarian response, making us the fourth largest donor. I am pleased that our ambassador was present at the Kuwait talks. Our support for the UN special envoy, both politically and financially, is also extremely welcome.

However, we must recognise that this is not about us and that we are just one player. It is very easy to moralise on foreign affairs, but the devil is always in the detail. History has taught us that it is not our role to dictate relations between neighbouring countries in a region in which, if we are honest, our record is not exactly perfect. I suggest that we show some humility in our role.

My reservations about how Saudi Arabia conducts some of its affairs, internally and externally, are known. To discuss those concerns would require a whole other debate in itself. But however critical we are and will continue to be about the involvement of Saudi Arabia in this conflict, that involvement is at the request of the legitimate Government of Yemen, to deter aggression by the illegitimate Houthi rebels.

The situation in Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s involvement are not isolated, but have to be seen in the context of the wider difficulties in the middle east and, once again, ongoing tensions between Sunni and Shi’a; in this case there is also the involvement of the Zaydi Shi’a, who are so extreme that even Iran at some points calls them out.

As regional power struggles continue between Sunni and Shi’a, Saudi Arabia and Iran are once again the players in the situation. Iran has allegedly been increasing the frequency of its weapons shipments to the Houthis via the Omani border. Will the Minister outline what the coalition and the UN envoy are doing about that?

As I draw to a close, I once again have to mention terrorism and extremism. We know the danger posed by failed states. It is the fuel that Daesh feeds on, allowing it to export its ideology and terrorism. As we continue to defeat Daesh, we must also recognise the role being played by Saudi Arabia within the Islamic military alliance, which now has 39 members. The organisation’s joint command centre is in Riyadh, and the role of the alliance in the future defeat of Daesh has been recognised by us, the United States and others. We cannot risk weakening that alliance or the willingness of its leading members to lead the fight against Daesh by attempting to undermine its role in the Yemen conflict.

As my time is running out, I put one further request to the Minister. In the context of getting lasting peace in the region and strengthening co-operation, I suggest that he pushes for some sort of inclusion of Yemen in the Gulf Co-operation Council. That would send a strong message of solidarity and sustainable economic co-operation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

The UK of course has very good relations with both India and Pakistan, but our long-standing position, held by successive Governments of all hues, is that it is for India and Pakistan to find a lasting resolution to the situation, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people. It is not for the UK to prescribe a solution or act as mediator.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

There are no winners in Kashmir. The recent clashes have impacted on thousands of people and the economy is struggling, with over £1 million or 10,000 crore being lost in 100 days. A military solution is not working. I urge the Minister to encourage a political solution that involves not only India and Pakistan, but the Kashmiris themselves.

[Alok Sharma]

We should of course do all we can to promote trade and prosperity in the region, and that of course follows stability.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

So would we all.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

T2. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the threat of nuclear proliferation, especially across Asia and the middle east?

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swire]

Clearly I do not. We have a certain amount of leverage in Bangladesh—we are the largest grant aid donor, giving £162 million in 2015-16—so our voice has some influence there. In the past year our human rights and democracy programme has provided safety training for bloggers, and we have also funded a project promoting the rights of LGBT groups in Bangladesh, but there is a huge amount more to do. We are not shy of pushing the Government of Bangladesh in the right direction, but sometimes it takes a little bit of time and persuasion.[Official Report, 26 May 2016, Vol. 611, c. 1MC.]

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

The human rights of secularists in Bangladesh are threatened. Last month, Nazimuddin Samad, a law student in Dhaka, was killed for blogging, “I have no religion.” Will my right hon. Friend raise this with his Bangladeshi counterparts and ensure that secularists’ rights are also protected in Bangladesh?

[Mr Swire]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There was not only the Daesh-claimed killing on 9 April in Dhaka of Nazimuddin Samad, but the murder on 23 April of Rezaul Karim Siddique in Rajshahi, in the east of the country. This is becoming an all too familiar occurrence in Bangladesh. There is a disagreement: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina blames the opposition parties for trying to destabilise the country and the victims for insulting Islam; we think the problem goes beyond that.

Aleppo

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

In the sidelines of the London Syria conference, a number of major NGO workshops and meetings took place. A huge amount of effort has been put in by the Department for International Development Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), who is in his place beside me, so that there is a readiness to move in. At the moment, however, the situation is just too dangerous for that to happen on a large scale.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Time is not on the side of the people of Aleppo. On Sunday night, the main and only road for those in the rebel-held east was bombed. If the regime manages to close that route, nearly 200,000 residents will be left trapped, without food or medical supplies. Pressure on Russia is key. I urge the Minister to do all he can to stress to Russia that time is running out.

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend has made her point very powerfully. The very fact that we are having this debate means that we have another method of communicating with Russia and saying, “We care. We recognise what is going on. Russia, you need to do more, and currently you are not doing that.”

Daesh: Genocide of Minorities

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

That was a very moving speech by the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry).

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing the debate.

“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.”

That is Daesh. For the members of this death cult, the destruction of a way of life, an ideology and a set of beliefs that is not theirs is both their ultimate and sole aim. Daesh is self-defining as a committer of genocide. To achieve that, its members rape, enslave, and decapitate. Their victims are Muslims, Kurds, Yazidis and Christians.

The Syrian Centre for Policy Research estimates that in Syria, approximately 470,000 people have been killed either directly or indirectly as a result of the five years of civil war. What is most shocking is that the United Nations has given up estimating the number, because the numbers are so vast that it cannot provide verifiable statistics. Whatever the number of those killed, millions more have been displaced and lost. Each cowardly act of death and destruction is just that—a cowardly act—but put together, these acts make up a reign of terror, targeted at a specific group of people. This is the systematic murder—genocide—of the people who form these communities, the cultural heritage that has tied them together for generations and the values and beliefs that define them.

I heard first hand what Daesh do. I was lucky—or unlucky—enough to meet a young, brave Yazidi woman called Nadia Murad, in a meeting co-ordinated by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), for which I give him credit. She had been taken by Daesh as a sex slave. Her race was justification enough for the horrific way in which she, her family and her community were mistreated and destroyed.

We failed to prevent genocide in Bosnia. In Germany, the Nazis were appeased while they targeted Jews. The death cult of misfits that we face now cannot be allowed to get away with this any longer. In Iraq and Syria, Daesh’s statements have taken credit for the mass murder and persecution of Christians and have shown its clear intent to purge Christian communities from the area it claims as its own. As a country, we show a weakness by failing to acknowledge the extent of the persecution against Yazidis, Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities. We are failing the victims of deliberate and targeted persecution, where race, faith and gender are all the excuse that Daesh needs to find new and innocent targets for mass murder. If we do not recognise these acts as genocide, we effectively declare that we are not willing to take all action necessary to bring it to an end and to bring the perpetrators to justice, as they deserve.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

A week after the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) brought Nadia Murad to the House of Commons, I was fortunate enough to bring her to the Public Gallery here. In fact, she went up there with my wife who, incidentally, is the daughter of holocaust survivors. Afterwards, as I am sure the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber will agree, Nadia was so grateful. I could not understand why she was so grateful to us, but I think it was because she had faith in this House. She genuinely believed that we would act to help her and her people. She was not one of our jaded constituents. She thought that this House meant something, and that we would do something to help her and her people.

[Nusrat Ghani]

My hon. Friend is right. As the oldest democracy in the world, we have a responsibility to Nadia Murad also.

We would be complicit in overlooking the scale of criminality that is ongoing and largely unpunished. That is not a position that a country steadfast in its commitment to fairness, freedom and justice should be relaxed about. The UN Security Council’s declaring these acts to be genocide is key to preventing the spread of terrorism and radicalisation, and it allows an international criminal tribunal to be set up to try the terrorists who are committing these heinous acts and to bring them to true justice. That is why I support the motion.

On 12 April, when the Minister was challenged on the issue, he said:

“I too believe that acts of genocide have taken place”.—[Official Report, 12 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 165.]

I hope we can move on from that statement today.

[Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. I was present when the Minister gave that response. Does my hon. Friend hope, as I do, that this afternoon the whole House will be given the opportunity to send a powerful message by voting and being united in that vote, and inviting Ministers and Parliamentary Private Secretaries—those on the payroll—to vote as well, to send a strong message that what is happening is genocide?

[Nusrat Ghani]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful statement. I, too, hope that is the case. Sending cross-party support today will also be a very strong message.

Previous generations have already struggled to explain Bosnia, Rwanda and the Nazi persecutions. Now it is our turn to decide whether we will have to explain to future generations what we did or did not do against the death cult Daesh. Historical memory can be a tool of prevention, but it is rare that society uses it in that way. Let us be the generation that does use it as a tool of prevention. The Nazis wrote history, the Bosnian Serbs wrote history, and Daesh is currently destroying and rewriting history all at once. Not satisfied with destroying the past and present of races, faiths and genders, it is destroying the future of those communities too. It is our collective job, as a member of the UN family of nations, to make sure that those communities are not just a blot of ink in the story of Daesh.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

First, an arrangement has been agreed between the Russians and Americans for investigating alleged breaches of the ceasefire, and there is a commitment on both sides to working up a co-ordination cell to try to identify legitimate targets that can be struck during the ceasefire. As for the UN dimension, we are looking at that, and we would very much welcome a UN resolution behind the ceasefire. We already have UN resolution 2254, which we agreed on 18 December in New York, but we welcome further UN resolutions. That can only happen if the Russians are prepared to work with us, because they have a veto.

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

3. What diplomatic support the Government are providing in Kurdistan to tackle ISIL/Daesh.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

Daesh is progressively being defeated in Iraq as the competence of Iraqi security forces improves. Specifically on Kurdistan, we are providing the Peshmerga with air power, logistical support, weapons and training.

[Nusrat Ghani]

Reports suggest that 45% of Kurdish forces are composed of women. Nesrîn Abdalla, a unit commander in the Syrian Kurds women’s protection units, recently said:

“We do this not just to protect ourselves, but also to change the way of thinking in the army, not only to gain power, but to change society, to develop it.”

What particular steps have the Government taken to ensure women’s participation in regional diplomatic talks, post-Daesh?

[Mr Ellwood]

May I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for that quote and for the work that she has done in pioneering the role that women can play? That is something that Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy, recognises, and he is trying to include women’s voices in the peace talks that are taking place at the UN. On our front, British training is taking place in northern Iraq, and UK training teams will train female units in the Peshmerga.

Deaths of Journalists: Conflict Zones

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Marie Colvin was a The Sunday Times journalist killed in Syria in 2012, while reporting from the siege of Homs. She passionately believed that through her work she could be the voice of all those experiencing conflict, from whatever perspective. During the latter part of her life, her determination to be that voice had a physical manifestation: an eye patch, the result of injuries sustained in Sri Lanka, where she was hit by shrapnel as she tried to cross the front line.

Following her death, the columnist Peter Oborne wrote:

“Society urgently requires men and women with courage, passion and integrity to discover the facts that those in authority want to suppress.”

Marie Colvin herself said:

“In an age of 24/7 rolling news, blogs and Twitter, we are on constant call wherever we are. But war reporting is still essentially the same—someone has to go there and see what is happening. You can’t get that information without going to places where people are being shot at, and others are shooting at you.”

The relationship between Members of this House and the fourth estate—our friends up in the Press Gallery—is complicated, but although much of modern-day politics could often be described as a conflict zone, we do not daily put our lives on the line in our place of work. When a member of our armed forces is killed in a conflict zone, the Prime Minister rightly takes a moment at the beginning of Prime Minister’s questions to remind the nation of the sacrifice that that brave serviceman or woman has made. But with the notable exception of people such as Marie Colvin, we do not hear anywhere near as much about the sacrifices made by a large number of professional and citizen journalists every year in the name of newsgathering.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, which I want to thank on the record for its assistance in preparation for this debate, has recorded that 98 journalists were killed last year. It has been definitively confirmed that 71 of them were murdered in direct reprisal for their work; were killed in crossfire during combat situations; or were killed while carrying out a dangerous assignment, such as covering a street protest.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I sought the hon. Lady’s permission last week to intervene. Statistics from the International Federation of Journalists show that 2,297 journalists and media professionals were killed in the past quarter of a century. That is an enormous number. They were standing up for the freedom of speech that we take for granted in this country. Does she agree that the United Kingdom and other liberal democracies should be promoting free speech and liberty across the globe, through the media and through journalism?

[Nusrat Ghani]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: the numbers are vast in the past 50 years or so. I hope that the Minister will respond on that, and I will ask him to do so towards the end of my speech. The International Federation of Journalists puts the number even higher than the CPJ, saying that at least 112 were killed last year.

Professional journalists in conflict zones, such as those working for the BBC and Sky, are fortunate to have extensive support from their employers. Employees of those organisations undergo hostile environment training in preparation for travelling to conflict zones to check that they are adequately prepared for the dangers that they will face.

Recently, a member of staff working for a major British media outlet in the middle east was approached by a man who verbally abused him, accusing him of being a traitor and a collaborator. His companions intervened, but another eight people arrived on the scene carrying batons and knives. The journalist ran away and took refuge in a nearby shop. However, two of his companions were heavily beaten up and received hospital treatment from the injuries they sustained.

The incident was reported by the staff member to the high risk team, which subsequently deployed a security adviser to the country to conduct a security review for that individual, and put additional security measures in place to support the staff. However, increasingly, our news comes not just from professional journalists, whose names, faces and employers we recognise, but from stringers and citizen journalists. Stringers are unattached freelance journalists and citizen journalists are members of the public—independent voices.

The ability of citizen journalists to share stories has an effect on professional journalists. The pressure to go deeper into conflict zones is greater. One of the defining features of a war reporter these days is that they are embedded in the conflict. Today, they are on the frontline, or in enemy territory.

Increasingly, we understand that many of the world’s conflicts today are conflicts of narrative. In the middle east, Daesh wants to control what the conflict looks like. It wants a monopoly over stories and images. More than ever, the narrative is what people are fighting over. Daesh wants to recruit with images, and the reality disseminated by journalists challenges that propaganda. Any citizen journalist can break the propaganda machine. Anyone with a phone is an opponent.

Daesh sees journalists as spies. It sees them as western actors who seek to disrupt the Daesh narrative by reporting on its weaknesses and failures, and that makes them a target. The philosopher Walter Benjamin said:

“History is written by the victors.”

That remains true, but the victors, and the course of the fight, are now a consequence of what is written, and that is even more the case now than it was in Benjamin’s time. That makes it even more important that we protect and honour those journalists, whether professional or citizen.

The BBC’s Lyse Doucet said last year:

“We often say that journalists are no longer on the frontline. But we are the frontline...We are targeted in a way we never have been before... now journalists are seen as bounty and as having propaganda value.”

Journalists in conflict zones are not ordinary members of the public. They tell the stories that allow us to understand what is truly going on in the confusion and propaganda of warfare, and they carry out a vital public service.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I congratulate her on securing this very important debate. Does she agree that the pace of news in the modern age means that we can no longer wait for dispatches to be informed about what is going on in conflict zones? Journalists are best positioned to give us this real-time accurate information of what is really going on.

[Nusrat Ghani]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Conflict is changing incredibly quickly. Lots of chaotic terrorism acts are happening all over the world, and, quite often, we rely on journalists to be our eyes and ears on the ground.

My discussions with journalists and their employers in recent days have highlighted what I consider to be a gap in the service provided by the Foreign Office to those taking risks to bring truth and to hold people to account. Will the Foreign Office consider making it the policy of British embassies and consuls abroad to hold a register of journalists working in conflict zones within the relevant country at any one time? At the moment this process is ad hoc. On registration, the embassy would and should provide a security briefing on the situation in that country or the neighbouring country if it is in conflict, increasing the ability of journalists to protect themselves, and their employer’s ability to ensure that they are acting according to legitimate and expert advice.

The role of foreign Governments in the protection of journalists is an important one. Will the Minister outline what expectations the Foreign Office currently has of foreign Governments to do everything they can to protect journalists who are British, or working for British-based media outlets, and to challenge them to extend that protection to their own local journalists? Will he consider making it a requirement for negotiations with foreign Governments, especially when embarking on diplomatic relations with emerging democracies, that the protection of journalists is an issue on the table?

The British Government have rightly identified Bangladesh and Pakistan as critical countries in the region and we have partnered with them as a result. Yet in Bangladesh, for example, bloggers are killed by al-Qaeda and others because of what they write. Last year, over 40% of journalists killed in Bangladesh were killed by Islamic extremists because they just disagreed with the words that were written.

In Pakistan in 2006, it is documented that the Government prepared a list of 33 columnists, writers and reporters in the English and Urdu print media and tried to neutralise the “negativism” of these writers by making them “soft and friendly”, and one could interpret that as going a bit beyond a friendly chat. I have more up-to-date testimonies, but the journalists concerned were reluctant for me to raise that on the Floor of the House today. Will the Foreign Office consider making it a requirement that countries that we are partnered with show clear intent to protect the rights of journalists, both professional and citizen? We must not flinch from exporting our proud British values of freedom of the media and of expression.

I will finish by talking about Ruqia Hassan, a citizen journalist in Syria who used her Facebook page to describe the atrocities of daily life in Raqqa, until she went silent in July last year. It has been reported that her last words were:

“I’m in Raqqa and I received death threats, and when Isis [arrests] me and kills me it’s ok because they will cut my head and I have dignity it’s better than I live in humiliation with Isis.”

It has been speculated that her Facebook page was kept open for months so that other citizen journalists could be lured in and so that they too, in turn, could be silenced.

Naji Jerf, a 38-year-old activist who reported for the website “Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently”, was also murdered late last year following his final work, “Islamic State in Aleppo”, which exposed human rights violations in the city. His murderers disagreed with him that anyone should hear about those violations. I believe he is the fourth person from “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently” to have been murdered so far.

Individuals such as these are part of conflict, and through our consumption of news we are complicit in their participation, but they take the risks. We must honour their bravery, and their pride in what they were, and still are, doing, by highlighting their contribution not only to our understanding of what is going on in conflict zones, but also their contribution to ending conflict by shedding light on it, and we must do all we can to defend their right to do what they do, and protect them as they go about it.