Hong Kong

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 18th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

As I have said, and as the hon. Gentleman will understand, we felt that there was a direct breach of the joint declaration in the episode to which he alludes, which happened some three years ago. This is unacceptable. Hong Kong citizens and British national overseas have particular rights that we will constantly stand up for. We feel that it is the wrong way forward—it is not something that we accept, and we feel that such episodes are absolutely in breach of the joint declaration.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister will have seen reports from lawyers in Hong Kong that the police in Hong Kong have access to the health authority system to check whether injured protesters have been admitted to hospital. What representations has he made to ensure that the protesters’ civil and legal rights are respected?

[Mark Field]

I am very concerned by what the hon. Gentleman says on this matter. I think we all know there is great concern about what has been happening in Xinjiang state in north-west China. There is a sense that what is potentially happening for 1 million citizens may apply to many others. We are living in a world with more opportunity for electronic and other surveillance by authorities—and that applies to authorities in the west, as it does elsewhere. There are concerns, and we would be concerned if we heard that individuals who found their face on a CCTV camera were quietly arrested in the months ahead. We will keep an eagle eye on that development, and we hope as parliamentarians that we are made aware of any such breaches, because it is something that our consul general, Andy Heyn, and his team in Hong Kong would wish to make clear to the authorities would be totally unacceptable.

Bill Presented

Universal Credit Sanctions (Zero Hours Contracts) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Chris Stephens, supported by Frank Field, Neil Gray, Rosie Duffield, Mhairi Black, Ruth George, Hannah Bardell, Neil Coyle, Grahame Morris, Jonathan Edwards and Steve McCabe, presented a Bill to amend the Welfare Reform Act 2012 to provide that a Universal Credit claimant may not be sanctioned for refusing work on a zero hours contract; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 406).

West Papua: Human Rights

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

We think we know all about the great injustices of the world: people who have been killed, had their human rights transgressed, been illegally imprisoned and seen their calls for a right to self-determination unanswered. However, West Papua is the forgotten struggle. I thank the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) for giving us the opportunity to highlight the plight of West Papua, for his explanation of the history and an overview of the actions of successive Indonesian Governments against West Papua, and for the requests he made to the Minister, which I shall add to. I will not repeat any of those points, but I will say that, in the 50 years of Indonesian control, there is significant evidence of genocide.

Yale Law School, in a 2004 report for the Indonesia Human Rights Network, found

“in the available evidence a strong indication that the Indonesian government has committed genocide against the West Papuans”.

The Indonesian military have also carried out widespread acts of torture and sexual assault against the native Papuans—a point I made in a debate yesterday on women human rights defenders.

The people of West Papua have been campaigning since 1969, and many have had to flee and campaign from their new homes. A united campaign representing all those in the West Papuan diaspora and in West Papua, the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, was formed in 2014, bringing together all the campaigns. The Free West Papua campaign is based in the UK and supports the all-party parliamentary group on West Papua, which I chair. As the hon. Member for Witney said, Benny Wenda, who lives in Oxford, is the chair of the Free West Papua campaign and the United Liberation Movement for West Papua. I put on the record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) and her predecessor, Andrew Smith, for their years of support for Benny and the campaign.

The bringing together of the organisations has led to major steps forward recently, one of which was the Westminster declaration calling for an internationally supervised vote for independence, signed in 2016 by representatives of Governments of four Pacific states and parliamentarians from around the world; since then, other parliamentarians, including me, have signed up to the declaration. As the hon. Gentleman said, West Papuans, in secret and often in fear of discovery, collected a petition calling for the right to vote for independence, which was signed by 1.8 million people. That petition has now been presented to the UN. I thank the Minister for the meeting prior to that petition being presented, and look forward to future meetings regarding the petition.

However, my main comments regard incidents in Nduga province. I recently met members of the World Council of Churches on their return from West Papua, who gave me a report that highlighted that Indonesian security forces allegedly fired large-calibre machine guns and dropped grenades from helicopters in areas inhabited by indigenous local communities. While the Indonesian military continue to deny access to the province for human rights organisations, journalists, human rights defenders and observers, a rescue team consisting of local government and civil society representatives was able to collect data in some of the affected areas.

According to recent reports, security forces killed at least nine indigenous Papuans, while at least five indigenous Papuans, including two minors, have been reported missing since the commencement of military operations. Witnesses have stated that many displaced villagers continue to hide in the jungle, where they live in small groups in improvised huts. The men leave the shelter during the night and walk long distances to collect sweet potatoes and taro. They do so under fear of murder. The harsh climate and food scarcity in the central Papuan highlands have particularly affected women and children. According to local human rights defenders, at least 13 have died because of starvation after fleeing villages.

I want to use this opportunity to highlight the fact that Indonesian armed forces have been accused of deploying chemical weapons—suspected to be white phosphorus, banned under international law—in West Papua, Indonesia’s easternmost territory. I am referring to international humanitarian law, because this is an issue of contention. Under the convention on the prohibition of the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons and on their destruction, which Indonesia has signed and ratified—in fact, it sits on the committee—states are banned from using and stockpiling chemical weapons.

ABC, which is the Australian equivalent of the BBC, reported in December claims that wounds may have been inflicted by white phosphorous. The report had photos of the canisters and wounds. I have more photos, from the World Council of Churches, which I can provide to the Minister. I wrote to the Minister regarding this situation, and he responded to me, but I feel that the Minister’s letter could have been written by the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

Before I wrote to the Minister, the Indonesian embassy wrote to me, saying:

“I deeply regret that such motion was based on groundless reporting, most notably by Australia’s The Saturday Paper throughout its January to February 2019 articles. No significant evidence has been subsequently produced despite the strong claims made by the authors.”

In the Minister’s letter to me, he said:

“We are aware of a media claim, first made in The Saturday Paper on 22 December 2018, about the possible use of white phosphorus”.

It was not just The Saturday Paper, which is a small paper in Australia; it was ABC and many other media outlets that reported the claims. I am sure that the Minister would not want people to think that the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office was subservient to the Indonesian Government on these matters, so I once again urge the Minister to write to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to ask it to investigate this issue as an international priority. I request that the Minister immediately send an official request to the OPCW, asking the organisation to verify the incident and investigate the suspected breach of Indonesia’s obligations under the chemical weapons convention. If no investigations are conducted, if no light is shone into the dark underbelly of the military occupation of West Papua by Indonesia, how will we know what is going on?

Before I have to finish, I want to make just one more point about the letter from the Minister. He says:

“The use of white phosphorus is not banned under international law”.

I ask him whether the UK Government are going to call for the banning of white phosphorous, because when it is used against civilians, it is a chemical weapon; it is exactly that type of weapon and should be banned under international law.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Witney (Robert Courts) on raising an extremely important issue, which he did very well. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), who is an extremely energetic champion for the people of West Papua.

Several hon. Members have talked about the history and I agree with their analysis. There has been some discussion of the human rights situation. It is extremely disappointing that the human rights situation in West Papua is still so bad, because the situation in other parts of Indonesia has improved significantly over the past 20 years. One would hope that the people of West Papua would have benefited from that as well.

I want to raise a couple of particular episodes. First, at the beginning of last December more than 500 Papuans were arrested after peaceful demonstrations to commemorate the birth of the West Papuan nation in 1961. Days later West Papua Liberation Army militants attacked and killed 20 construction workers in the Nduga region. Some 300 villagers had to flee to escape the subsequent military sweep following the attack.

The British Government have slightly more power than the hon. Member for Witney suggested, because the UK is currently the penholder in the UN Security Council for the protection of civilians in armed conflict. Innocent West Papuans are clearly not getting the protection they so badly need. They are being treated as legitimate targets by the Indonesian military. I would be grateful if the Minister would explain what his Department is doing about that.

[Alex Sobel]

In a letter to me the Minister described that incident as “proportionate”. Would my hon. Friend describe the actions of the Indonesian army as proportionate or disproportionate?

[Helen Goodman]

They are most clearly disproportionate.

I want to talk about the use of white phosphorous. I believe that white phosphorous was used inappropriately, because I had meetings with Octovianus Mote, the deputy chairman and former general secretary of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, who had direct testimony from people in the area, and with Ian Martin, the former head of the UN mission, which conducted the self-determination referendum in East Timor.

We need to be really specific about this matter: white phosphorous is not banned under the chemical weapons convention, but its military use is circumscribed by protocol III of the UN convention on certain conventional weapons. However, it is prohibited in all circumstances to use it against civilians. It is also prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons, which is what happened on this occasion. I entirely support those calls to send in experts from the UN and the OPCW, to look at what happened. I heard stories of old people being burned out of their homes.

Furthermore, I would like the Minister to suggest to the Indonesian military—it seems to be out of control in West Papua—that peacekeeping duties be assigned instead to the local police. As well as the UN-led investigation into white phosphorus, we need to see the release of political prisoners and the recognition of local political parties, to facilitate the development of a political and civil society in West Papua. I hope that the Government will review any sales of military equipment to Indonesia.

Women Human Rights Defenders

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Evans. Women human rights defenders are on the frontline of achieving positive change around the world. From #MeToo to #TimesUp, women are pushing back against hundreds of years of misogyny and oppression.

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on West Papua, I will highlight the role of women human rights defenders in West Papua. They are mainly women from outside West Papua, due to the fact that the stories of women rights defenders in West Papua are still hidden because of the oppression that they face daily.

I want to talk about Jenny Munro of the University of Queensland and her work on the subjugation of and violence directed against Papuan women street sex workers in highlands Papua, in particular by the Indonesian military. Her work describes co-ordination between the health sector and the military to force women to undergo HIV testing and medical treatment irrespective of the need for such medical interventions. Jenny’s work also describes some of the living conditions of young women who end up doing street sex work as the result of complicated social circumstances, as happens elsewhere in the world, and it highlights the experience of women who return home to Papua after testing positive for HIV.

West Papua faces the highest prevalence of HIV in Indonesia—admitted by the Indonesian Ministry of Health in 2014—and is the only part of Indonesia to be experiencing a generalised epidemic. In 2013, HIV prevalence among indigenous Papuans was officially estimated at 2.9%, while the prevalence among non-indigenous migrants was 0.4%. Health officials estimate that just one in five cases of HIV have been detected, and fewer than one in 10 of those people receive treatment. HIV prevalence is highest among youth aged 15 to 24 and among Papuans living in remote and rural areas. The prevalence of HIV among pregnant women, detected during antenatal screening, ranged from 2% to 6%, a much higher percentage. The data suggest that West Papuans face the most rapid increase in HIV prevalence anywhere in the world.

Similar to men diagnosed with HIV, the women in West Papua experience stigma and ostracism at the community level. However, because women’s position is more precarious to begin with, due to patriarchal values in which women overall are subordinate to male standards of behaviour, they are more likely than men to end up ostracised from their communities. That leads to a complicated management of secrets in order to remain within a supportive family network. Jenny Munro has also done some excellent recent work on young Papuan women who leave West Papua to study outside the province, and on the challenges that they face to complete their education when confronted by discrimination on the lines of gender and race—Papuans are Melanesians, rather than having the same ethnic origins as other Indonesians.

I raise this issue because, without Jenny’s work as a human rights defender, the systemic oppression and exploitation of West Papuan women would be hidden, and the extent of the utilisation of West Papuans by the Indonesian military and the high price in terms of their health and wellbeing would be kept secret. We would otherwise never know what was happening to women in West Papua—being forced into the sex trade to have unprotected sex, often contracting HIV.

Jenny is one of those people who work in an area of oppression or occupation where local conditions are so degraded that it needs women from the rest of the world to speak up for it and to give the people their voice, so that they can be heard here. This is the first time that any Parliament has heard about that particular aspect of the West Papuan occupation, and that is down to Jenny’s work, of which I was made aware in the weeks leading up to this debate.

I call on the Minister to do more to support women human rights defenders in West Papua and in other occupied territories. The sustainable development goals recognise the vital role of human rights defenders, including women, in contributing to progress. The Minister could do more to support women human rights defenders campaigning on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in West Papua and its causes under sustainable development goals 3 on good health and wellbeing, 5 on gender equality, 8 on inclusive growth and decent work, 10 on reducing inequality and 16 on access to justice. I will not labour the point, because tomorrow we have a debate in this Chamber on human rights in West Papua and I will use that opportunity to expand on how I see the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s role in safeguarding human rights in West Papua.

World TB Day

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

Not at all; it was a great speech, and well delivered.

As the right hon. Gentleman said, TB remains the world’s deadliest infectious disease. Despite it being entirely curable, it has claimed 1.3 million lives in the last year, including the 700 children who died every day.

According to the British Society for Immunology, one third of the world’s population is infected with the TB bacterium. We urgently need to enlarge our treatment of the illness and make vaccines that are safe, affordable and accessible. The BSI states that that is especially essential for pulmonary TB. We all know the tremendous impact that widely available vaccines could have on combating the disease, as the right hon. Gentleman has said; they are absolutely essential. Will the Minister comment on how much funding the Government can allocate to investing in the research to develop such vaccines?

Funding research into vaccines is especially important because of the increasing number of TB cases that are resistant to multiple antibiotics. That is an issue around the world, with more than half a million cases of drug-resistant TB reported in 2017. I ask the Minister what work is ongoing with colleagues to ensure that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is replenished as a means to combat the global spread of drug-resistant TB, as requested by the right hon. Gentleman.

The disease has played an important part in the history of public health in my Tower Hamlets borough. The UK has a high incidence of TB compared with much of western Europe, and London accounts for one third of UK cases. In my borough, the levels have decreased in recent years, which is good news. Incidence has halved from 64.7% in 2010 to 32.5% in 2015, but TB continues to affect Tower Hamlets disproportionately compared with other parts of the country.

Tuberculosis is a disease of poverty, and my constituents are among of the most vulnerable. The approach to tackling this complex disease needs to incorporate not only research into vaccines and cures, but spreading awareness to individuals who possess the aforementioned social risk factors.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As well as the health issues, is it not true that people with TB are socially isolated and excluded because of the effect on other people in the community? I wonder whether that is the experience in Tower Hamlets, because it is certainly the experience in places such as India.

[Jim Fitzpatrick]

It certainly is. Of course, one of the big downsides is that the risk of spreading the infection means that there has to be some degree of isolation, guilt and emotional stress. My hon. Friend makes a very important point.

The approach to tackling this complex disease needs to incorporate not only research into vaccines and cures but spreading awareness to individuals who possess the aforementioned social risk factors. Early intervention is also key to ensuring that the disease is treated swiftly and the risk of spreading it is minimised. That is why I am pleased that the Government are overseeing the national TB strategy for England between 2015 and 2020, enacted by TB control boards. With this approach, I am sure we will continue to see a decline in cases of TB in Tower Hamlets.

It is simply not acceptable for 10 million people globally to be falling ill from TB in 2019. This disease is curable and with the right funding treatments could be made easily accessible. Our Government need to continue to intervene to ensure that adequate investment is allocated to research vaccinations, to work with global partners and to play our part in eradicating TB worldwide.

I would be grateful to the Minister if she could confirm what is being done to work with other nations to deliver on the UN high-level meeting on TB target to find and treat 40 million people by 2022.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

The City of London’s connections with China form an essential part of our overall bilateral relationship, and we look forward to proceeding with an ambitious commercial agenda during 2019. As my hon. Friend will know, the City is already the world’s leading offshore trading centre for the renminbi. It engages in more than 40% of global trading, even more than Hong Kong.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Yanto Awerkion, Sem Asso and Edo Dogopia were among six members of the West Papua National Committee who were arrested in December, when the police and the military took over the group’s secretariat in Timika. The three men were detained on 5 January and later charged with treason, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in Indonesia. Amnesty International has called for the unconditional release of the activists, because they have only expressed their political views. Will the Minister press his counterpart in Indonesia to release them?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I very gently advise Members that, in future, if they have a substantive question that is not reached, they must ask a truncated version of it during topical questions? That is the way it is.

Uganda: Democracy

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams), who made a powerful and eloquent speech. His long association with Uganda puts him in a position to be an authoritative advocate for human rights and democracy there, and I thank him for bringing this debate to the Chamber.

The Ugandan people have long suffered from tyrants who have committed crimes against their own people. The name Idi Amin will live long in infamy. The rule of Milton Obote was also mired in human rights abuses, with Amnesty International estimating that the regime had been responsible for more than 300,000 civilian deaths across Uganda. After Obote, Museveni became President in 1986. He said in his acceptance speech:

“The people of Africa, the people of Uganda, are entitled to a democratic government. It is not a favour from any regime. The sovereign people must be the public, not the government.”

Those are his own words—words that he should heed now.

President Museveni’s tenure has always been problematic, but his attempts to constrain democracy have been creeping. First came the repealing of the two-term limit on the presidency, which was introduced in 1995 under his own presidency. The lifting of the term limit led Bob Geldof to say:

“Get a grip Museveni. Your time is up, go away”—

not untypical of Bob Geldof, we might think. The arrest of the main opposition leader Kizza Besigye, as my hon. Friend mentioned, in the lead-up to the third presidential election was another stain on an election that Museveni should not have been contesting. In December 2017 he succeeded in getting the presidential age limit of 75 removed, just as he was approaching that age himself. The hallmark of a dictator is stripping away the impediments to his becoming leader for life, and that is exactly what Museveni has done.

In 2017, shortly after I was elected, I had the pleasure of being invited to a meeting of Ugandan exiles in the UK who support the main opposition party, Forum for Democratic Change. I was invited by my old friend Jimmy Sydney, who is here today and who became a social entrepreneur in Leeds after leaving Uganda. At that event I met Nandala Mafabi and through him found out about the conditions under which Ugandan MPs have to function. Nandala told me how the Parliament had been entered by Government troops, who had arrested MPs opposed to the life presidency; their symbol of a red hat and ribbon made it easier for the troops to spot them. I sat there imagining that happening to us here, today—troops coming in and stopping us having this debate because the Government did not like what we had to say. I found it unbelievable. It still is unbelievable to me that that could have happened in a country that calls itself a democracy and that MPs could be arrested in Parliament for exercising their democratic rights. This is surely a sign that democracy has died.

Just a couple of weeks after that event, I heard that Nandala had been arrested and spent two nights in the cells. His alleged crime was that he was part of a group of protestors demonstrating against the proposed amendment of the constitution to remove the presidential age limit. That is just the story of one MP; my hon. Friend told the stories of other MPs and the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) told that of yet another.

We must heed the words of the Ugandan community in the UK. Will the Minister commit to meeting their requests? I echo the requests made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South for the Government to place targeted sanctions on Uganda, including on military materials; to freeze assets of Ugandan officials known for violations of human rights and abuses of power; to enforce a travel ban on Ugandan leaders known for corruption and violations of human rights; to condemn in the strongest terms the attacks and abuse of Ugandan parliamentarians and all activists, whether in or outside Uganda, including in this country, and to apply conditionality to aid to the Ugandan Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I am happy to confirm exactly that.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources is meeting now in Hobart. What progress has the UK delegation made in securing a marine protected area for the Weddell sea, which is absolutely vital to stop run-away climate change?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the important talks that are taking place. The UK is very much a co-proponent and keen advocate of the proposal currently under discussion. We strongly support this marine protection work, not just in the Weddell sea.

Nuclear Treaty: US Withdrawal

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

Understandably, we often take the situation for granted. I am the father of a 10-year-old son, and we have perhaps taken for granted the fact that he is the third generation of Field menfolk who have not had to go to war. We should be aware that that is the exception, rather than the rule.

I am a great believer in utilising the strongest possible bilateral and multilateral communications, in diplomacy terms. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that one thing has been very evident in all the discussions since that fateful day in June 2016: when we leave the European Union, we have to work together in security, defence and intelligence. We have focused our minds on that a great deal, and we will continue to do so even when we are outside the European Union.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As recently as this summer, Jon Huntsman, the US ambassador to Russia, described the INF as

“probably the most successful treaty”

in the

“history of arms control”.

Does the Minister agree with Jon Huntsman, and, if so, will he make that point to the US and Russian Governments as he meets them?

Polish Anti-defamation Law

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Polish anti-defamation law.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Gapes. I am pleased that the Backbench Business Committee has given time to this sensitive and difficult subject. I was going to raise it in the general debate on anti-Semitism in the Chamber on 17 April, but unfortunately I was not called, and I felt the issue needed a full airing.

This debate takes place in the context of the fact that the Polish President signed the Bill into law while also referring it to the Polish constitutional tribunal for review. I am pleased that the Polish prosecutor general has issued a legal opinion stating that in part the law is unconstitutional, and I look forward to the tribunal’s ruling, which should come any day now.

It is only appropriate to start this debate by paying tribute to the thousands of Poles who helped the Jews during the second world war and fought alongside allied soldiers, in the Polish free army. The righteous among the nations are a group of non-Jewish people who have been recognised for their great sacrifices and bravery in helping Jewish people during the holocaust. The title is awarded by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, and Poles constitute the largest national group of the righteous, with 6,706 people listed. We must remember that the punishment awaiting those who provided any kind of help to Jews was death for them and their entire family. At liberation, around 50,000 Jewish survivors were on Polish soil. It is estimated that about 30,000 to 35,000 Jews, only about 10% of Poland’s Jews, survived, and around 1% of all Polish Jewry was saved with the help of Poles and thanks to the devotion of the righteous among the nations.

I will start by paying tribute to a few of those Poles listed at Yad Vashem. First, I pay tribute to Jan and Anna Puchalski and their children, Irena, Krystyna and Sabina. They were a poor Polish family with five children, living in a tiny house. Jan supported his family on his small salary from working in a tobacco factory. On 13 February 1943, a Jewish family of four, who sometimes stayed in the area during the summer, and two other people, turned up at their door, having escaped a Nazi raid on the ghetto. Despite their lack of resources, the Puchalskis hid five Jews in a shelter under their floorboards for 17 months.

Secondly, I pay tribute to Jan and Antonina Żabiński. In the 1930s, the Warsaw zoo was one of the largest in Europe. When the war broke out, part of the zoo was bombed and many of the animals were taken to Germany. The zoo’s director, Dr Jan Żabiński, was allowed to visit the ghettoes because he was an employee of the Warsaw municipality. Using the excuse that he was going to tend some trees in a small public garden in the ghetto, he visited his Jewish friends to offer them help. As the situation worsened, he offered them shelter in his zoo. Around a dozen Jews lived in the couple’s home, with others staying in former animal enclosures around the park. He also helped them to get documentation and find accommodation elsewhere. The couple’s story was turned into a film, “The Zookeeper’s Wife”, just last year.

Thirdly, I pay tribute to Leopold and Magdalena Socha. Leopold Socha was a sewer maintenance worker in Lwów. When the Nazis occupied Poland, Leopold witnessed the suffering of the Jewish people and decided he was going to try to rescue at least 20 Jews from the ghetto. He enlisted the help of his co-worker Stefan Wróblewski. Together, they hid 21 Jewish people in the sewers. Initially the Jews paid Socha and Wróblewski, but as they ran out of money, Socha and his wife provided for them. They stayed in terrible conditions in the sewers for 13 months. Sadly, only 10 of the group survived until the liberation of Lwów. Leopold also saved the life of my great-uncle, Yehuda Mildiner. I pay tribute to Leopold and the 6,706 righteous who did so much for families like mine.

Poland was the only occupied country to set up a committee to aid Jews, Żegota, which provided food, shelter, medical care, money and false documents to Jews. Most of Żegota’s funds came directly from the Polish Government in exile here in Britain. In particular, the children’s section of Żegota, led by Irena Sendler, saved 2,500 Jewish children with the co-operation of Polish families, the Warsaw orphanage of the Sisters of the Family of Mary and Roman Catholic convents. Polish forces also gave exemplary service to the allied effort in the battle of Britain, the battle of the Atlantic, the north African campaign, particularly the battle of Tobruk, the Italian campaign, including the capture of the monastery hill at the battle of Monte Cassino, and the French campaign. We all have much to thank the people of Poland for, securing the freedoms we value today.

However, I return to the law passed on 26 January by the Polish Parliament and signed into law by the Polish President in early February. The fact that the President referred the law to the constitutional tribunal for review has not stopped the first case being brought. If nothing else, the nature of this case needs to make us stop and think about the nature of the law and its potentially far-reaching consequences, not just in Poland but globally.

The case was brought on 2 March 2018 against the Argentine newspaper Página/12 by the Polish League Against Defamation. The lawsuit focuses specifically on a photograph that accompanied an article about the 1941 massacre of Jews in the Polish village of Jedwabne. The Polish League Against Defamation claims that Página/12 was being “manipulative”, as the image is of four Polish anti-communist fighters in 1950, while the article is about the 1941 pogrom while Poland was under Nazi occupation, and that by linking the two events the publication was

“harming…the reputation of Polish soldiers”,

and trying to make Poland appear anti-Semitic. Página/12 has changed the photo of the partisans to that of a monument in Jedwabne vandalised with a drawing of a swastika, a proportionate response to what was clearly an error by the newspaper.

The lawsuit was brought by the right-wing nationalist Polish League Against Defamation, an independent organisation formed out of the Patriotic Society Foundation. Although the article was published in December, before the law took effect, and may not be admissible, it clearly shows the dangers the law could pose. The Argentine Government agree, stating:

“No law can limit, condemn or prevent freedom of expression or limit research”.

Even more concerning is the reaction of the Polish Government. The deputy Justice Minister expressed his hope that the Página/12 case would go to court, saying:

“If the court decides the complaint is admissible—and it should do so—then there will be a court case.”

In 2012, Barack Obama used the phrase “Polish death camp” during a Medal of Freedom ceremony for Jan Karski. He was clearly referring to a Nazi death camp in Poland, and the White House press secretary clarified that he had misspoken after Donald Tusk, then the Polish Prime Minister, complained about his use of the phrase. Will President Obama now face a lawsuit under the law? There is a much bigger picture here. When laws are passed that are regressive in nature, they have a wider societal effect than just the intended function of the law. When section 28 was passed in this country, it created a new wave of acceptability around homophobia.

My fears have already been realised, as can be seen from the actions of thousands of individuals against the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. The staff were subjected to a wave of, in their own words,

“hate, fake news and manipulations”.

The brother of Piotr Cywiński, the museum’s director, posted on Facebook criticising the

“50 days of incessant hatred”

targeted at his brother. He said:

“For 12 long years he’s worked in one of the most terrible places in the world, in an office with a view of gallows and a crematorium. Dozens of articles on dodgy websites, hundreds of Twitter accounts, thousands of similar tweets, profanities, memes, threats, slanders, denunciations. It’s enough to make you sick.”

All this came after the law was passed.

Protesters have also been targeting the museum’s guides. They claim that the guides are trained to promote “foreign narratives” and that only Polish people should be allowed to work as museum guides. Videos of protesters, including convicted anti-Semite and local politician Piotr Rybak, harassing guides during the tours have been posted online. In March, the home of an Italian guide was vandalised with graffiti on his door that said “Poland for the Poles” and graffiti equating the Star of David with a Nazi swastika, with “Auschwitz for Poland guides!” daubed on an adjoining wall. To think it is acceptable to abuse those working to keep alive the memory of one of humanity’s most horrific death factories—a machine of genocide operated by Nazis—is, to me, beyond comprehension.

After my letter to the Foreign Secretary and after applying for the debate, I have not been immune from such abuse, giving me first-hand experience. As well as posting abuse on Twitter and in the comments sections of websites, people have taken to emailing my parliamentary email address. I will read one example. I apologise in advance for its language and its anti-Semitism, which is some of the worst I have ever seen. I want to be very clear that I am quoting; these are not my words. It says:

“You Talmudic piece of shit…Fuck off—leave Poland alone. Keep your Talmudic noses out of Polish affairs, Satan’s Brood. The Synagogue of Satan will go down in flames”.

Another email had pages and pages of graphically anti-Semitic images. On Twitter, I received this comment:

“People like you are the very reason we have the need for this legislation. Jewish Amnesia Syndrome is back. Denying there were Jewish perpetrators is after all denying one Holocaust Narrative.”

Another said:

“Of course this guy is not antisemitic”—

I thank them for that—

“he is a Jew and takes a profit from his MP status for lobbying against Poland and support the state of Israel which obviously needs new financial sources”.

Another said:

“Sobel is a member of the lobby. A liar, fake news spreading provocateur insulting 6 Million Polish victims murdered by Nazi Germany”.

One account now suspended by Twitter sent me 10 tweets accusing me of being in a worldwide conspiracy and on George Soros’s payroll, and saying that I should be banned from Poland, as well as including a homophobic insult.

If the Polish Government’s intention is for the law to minimise the false reporting of the holocaust and minimise anti-Semitic feeling, the exact opposite has been the result. I am sure that, as I speak, people are taking to their keyboards to send me more hate. I will not be able to press refresh on my Twitter account today, as it will just be filled with abuse.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I am very sorry that the hon. Gentleman has received those comments. Unfortunately, all Members suffer vile abuse on Twitter, as I am sure he will recognise. There are crackpots in every society. Has he managed to speak to the Polish ambassador, or to visit Poland during the course of this year, to get a first-hand account of the situation on the ground there? A lot of misinformation on this subject is coming out of the country.

[Alex Sobel]

I intend to visit Poland later in the year, but I have not managed to yet. The Polish ambassador invited me for a meeting, but I did not arrive into London until quite late yesterday, so I responded that I will meet him after the debate. I have not been able to meet him, but I intend to. I understand that there are lots of different views, but I think the evidence is quite clear that the passing of this law has given an acceptability to things that were not acceptable before. It is about the consequences of the law and the atmosphere that it has created. People of Polish-Jewish descent and people from Poland have told me about their fears as a result of the law.

To conclude, I thank the Minister for Europe and the Americas for his letter, dated 8 May, in which he stated that the issue has been raised by the Foreign Secretary with his Polish counterpart at two meetings. He referred the issue to Eric Pickles, as the UK’s special envoy on the holocaust. Although I welcome Sir Eric Pickles’s involvement, I think this is a matter for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to take up, rather than leaving it to a special envoy with a limited role. I ask the Minister and the Foreign Secretary to take the matter up with the EU through all the meetings and institutions that they and their colleagues will attend, including the Council of Ministers, and to report back to the House on the results of those discussions.

I know that a number of Members are members of the Council of Europe, and I know that this issue has been raised there. I hope that they keep looking at ways to engage with Polish colleagues and gain support for the law to be dropped.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alex Sobel]

I thank everybody for their contributions to today’s difficult debate. It is a testament to our Parliament that we can have such a debate in an open way. I thank the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) and particularly his family for all the things that they did for Jews in Poland during the war. I am happy to speak to the BBC about its use of language, which is important. We should refer to the camps as Nazi extermination or Nazi death camps. I will see whether I can come to Poland with the hon. Gentleman and the all-party group in July. I take issue with his referring to Polish Jews before the war as “guests”. I do not feel like I am a guest in this country. I do not think my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) and for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) see themselves as guests. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham sees himself as a guest. We are not guests; we are citizens. Jews who lived in Poland before the war should be viewed as part of the Polish nation, not as guests of the Polish nation.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) for his kind words. He is always very kind to me, but he probably needs to look a little more into the issue, particularly the involvement of individual Poles in the holocaust. Barbara Engelking, founder and director of the Polish Centre for Holocaust Research, has written a book, “Such a Beautiful Sunny Day”, about this. She is also the chair of the International Auschwitz Council, but she said recently that there had been an attempt to remove her as chair. The Deputy Prime Minister of Poland went to Israel this week and said that the composition of the International Auschwitz Council should be guided by “Polish sensitivity”, which I interpret as an attack on Barbara Engelking and I am very concerned about it. I hope that the Foreign Office can also look at raising that as an issue in its discussions.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who, in his typical style, raised a wide range of issues related to the holocaust and anti-Semitism. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, he highlighted all the similar laws across Europe. I considered doing that, but time did not allow, so I am grateful to him for raising that. We need to tackle such matters right across Europe. There is, I am afraid to say, a contagion that is spreading.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside has given me much support in these areas. I was not aware of her own personal family history and how that memory will be affected by the anti-defamation law. I thank her for her support. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr. I did not intend to raise war reparations as an issue. On a personal level, I am not seeking war reparations from the Polish Government. I am concerned, however, that the letter of 13 March that the shadow Foreign Secretary sent has not had a response. I will pass on a copy of the letter I received from the Minister for Europe, which was helpful but needs to go further.

The Minister of State, Department for International Development, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) is subbing for the Minister for Europe and the Americas. I thank her and him for the letter and for raising the issue of criminality of debate. We need to raise it at every opportunity in every European institution. I hope that the Foreign Office will redouble its efforts so that we can apply pressure and also talk to other EU member states, some of whom I am sure have similar concerns about this issue. We must impress on the Polish Government the effect that the law is having not only within their own country but globally.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Polish anti-defamation law.

Conflict in South Sudan

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, which I will pick up later in my speech. I am sure the Minister will want to come to it when she responds.

In statistical terms, more than half the population in South Sudan is facing severe hunger right now. The conflict has devastated educational infrastructure in South Sudan. Almost 1.2 million children aged between three and 18 have lost access to education because of conflict and displacement. Almost a third of schools have suffered attacks. The destruction of educational opportunities is trapping South Sudanese kids in inescapable cycles of poverty. An adolescent girl in South Sudan right now is three times more likely to die in childbirth than to complete primary school.

As ever in stories of conflict, women and children pay the highest price. A recent study from the International Rescue Committee and the Global Women’s Institute at Georgetown University revealed that more than 65% of women and girls have experienced some form of gender-based violence. That is double the global average. The UN has found

“massive use of rape as an instrument of terror”.

Amnesty International has reported sexual violence as “rampant”. Those abuses are perpetrated not solely by fighters from the army or rebel groups, but by UN peacekeepers and sadly, on some occasions, by aid workers too. For women in places such as South Sudan, there are few safe places left. It is no surprise that a report from Plan International last week revealed that one in four South Sudanese women has considered suicide.

South Sudan also holds the grim title of the most dangerous place in the world to be an aid worker, as the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) pointed out. While delivering life-saving assistance to 5.4 million people in South Sudan in 2017, 30 aid workers were killed. Their work is routinely obstructed by both Government and opposition. Aid workers are intimidated, supplies are looted and arbitrary fines are applied to those seeking to travel around the country.

Through those statistics, we glimpse the horrors facing South Sudanese people, but I want to tell the story of a woman who lived in Malow village in the north-west of the country, as reported by the UN Human Rights Commission earlier this year. When the army of the Government of South Sudan arrived in Malow in July 2017 it destroyed the schools, the water points, the local hospital and even the local church. It abducted local aid workers and destroyed humanitarian compounds. The village had seen women with their eyes gouged out by soldiers as they sought to protect their children and mutilated men lying in the mud. This woman watched as her husband was castrated in front of her, trying to shield her new-born child from the violence. Three Government soldiers then raped her 70-year-old mother and forced her 12-year-old son to have sex with his grandmother at gunpoint. This is a truly horrific, true tale. The soldiers later shot her mother, and the new-born child and her husband would later die from their injuries. The report makes for very grim reading as it details countless tales of brutal violence from all parties to this conflict, inflicted on innocent civilians.

The violence led the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan to draw some stark conclusions, of which two stood out for me. The first stated:

“Rape, mutilations of sexual organs and other forms of sexual violence, targeting girls, boys, women and men, are often committed in front of children”.

The second stated that all parties to the conflict are

“deliberately targeting civilians on the basis of their ethnic identity…Those acts constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The South Sudanese people know better than anyone that the only sustainable route to preventing human rights abuses and providing security and prosperity is through peace.

I will now turn to the ongoing peace process, which the hon. Member for Henley gave us some encouragement about earlier, before asking the Minister a few questions about where we go from here. I acknowledge the commitment and skill of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s South Sudan unit, which is ably led by the UK special envoy Chris Trott. It faces an incredibly difficult task, but the UK is rightly at the forefront of the international effort to promote an inclusive peace in South Sudan. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development, which is made up of regional Government representatives, has convened the high-level revitalisation forum in Addis Ababa since June 2017. Last month, the last round of those peace talks achieved little, with no sign of an agreement.

The cessation of hostilities agreement, which was signed in December 2017, has been repeatedly violated by all sides, and the monitoring mechanism that was set up to find and punish spoilers has failed to do so. As it stands, leaders on all sides of the conflict have refused to make the compromises necessary to make peace in South Sudan, but hopefully, if they say they will make it different, they will follow through with those promises, otherwise those promises have no value to the South Sudanese people.

Faced with this truly desperate situation, I would be grateful if the Minister would respond to the following questions. First, following the breakdown of peace talks in Addis Ababa last week, what concrete steps will the UK Government take to punish the spoilers through sanctions, arms embargoes and other measures?

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As well as imprisoning his own parliamentarians, President Museveni of Uganda has promised to supply the South Sudanese regime with arms, in spite of the arms embargo imposed by the EU, including us, the US and other countries. Does my hon. Friend think that the Government also need to act on Uganda?

[Nic Dakin]

I am sure that the Minister will have heard my hon. Friend’s intervention and will quite appropriately want to pick up on that in her response.

Specifically, how will the UK Government use the powers in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 to increase pressure on key individuals to encourage them to participate seriously in the peace process talks?

Secondly, how will the UK Government leverage their political capital in the region, which is not insignificant, to bring about decisive change in the conflict? In particular, will the Minister outline how the UK intends to escalate its diplomacy with President Museveni, including through direct discussions with the Foreign Secretary?

Thirdly, how is the UK supporting the Church’s peace-building work in South Sudan? The South Sudan Council of Churches has been invited to lead a new peace initiative in South Sudan. How can the UK best support those efforts?

Fourthly, what support are the UK Government providing to the ceasefire and transitional security arrangements monitoring mechanism? It is vital that that body is responsive to violations to ensure that perpetrators are held to account.

Fifthly, what steps are the UK Government taking to ensure that the hybrid court is set up as soon as possible in South Sudan? Tackling the culture of impunity for South Sudanese leaders will be crucial in preventing future atrocities.

Finally, what is the UK’s view on the current plan of the Government of South Sudan to hold elections in the near future? It is impossible to imagine free and fair elections taking place in South Sudan, and the result risks conferring credibility on the Government of South Sudan while they continue to commit human rights abuses.

In closing, I pay tribute to all the activists and campaigners in South Sudan who are rising above the dreadful violence to fight for peace in their country. After decades of conflict, their resilience is truly inspirational. They risk their lives on a daily basis to speak out against the horrors that they have sadly witnessed. They have been let down by their leaders for far too long and have paid too high a price for a conflict they do not deserve to be caught in the middle of. I look forward to the Minister’s response, and to working with her to help to bring about a long overdue peace in South Sudan.