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.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

Of course I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s last remark about the time. First, as I indicated earlier, there is no link between the debt owed by the UK and the dual national cases. Secondly, it is not appropriate at this stage to deal with the detail of any particular type of contact between the embassy and the Iranian Government. On escalating the matter still further, the Prime Minister has already raised the matter, which is being handled at the highest level by the British Government.

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

As a result of Nazanin’s treatment in prison, Redress has written to many of us asking for the intervention of the UN special rapporteur on torture. What action will the UK Government take to protect Nazanin from any further torture and ill treatment and to ensure she receives an independent medical examination and any necessary treatment in compliance with international law? Does the Minister agree with Redress that the UN special rapporteur should intervene?

[Alistair Burt]

No.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Alex Sobel Excerpts

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

And that Committee has been able to develop its expertise around some very complex issues. We will not have such expertise in the future without the kind of Committee that we are advocating. It will be spread across a range of Departments, as is the case with our sanctions, so there is a need for a group in which expertise can be built up among Members. Surely that is enormously important.

As the Minister said, new clause 8 would bring forward the timetable for introducing a public register for foreign-owned property in the UK, but it would do so only in relation to the Government’s current proposals. It would actually be behind the initial timetable that we were given by the Government for introducing such a register, according to which we should have seen developments last month, given that today is 1 May. I will not rehearse all the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West).

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

Global Witness has found that there are 86,000 anonymously-owned properties in the UK, many of which are empty. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should legislate so that we will know who owns these properties, and therefore be able to bring them into use by people in this country?

Internally Displaced People

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

I suspect that the hon. Gentleman’s point will be made over and over again. One of the long-standing principles of international development is that, as far as possible, assistance should be given in the region so that people can remain in the region and rebuild war-torn places. However, when it comes to IDPs, that principle meets with the most incredible difficulties, and that problem must not be underestimated in any way.

The pictures that we see of both Syria and Iraq—sadly, those of us who have been to the conflict zone in Sudan will have seen similar things—show that when IDPs return to their homes, those homes are nothing more than a pile of rubble. Debris fills the streets and makes it difficult to navigate through the communities that IDPs used to live in. Sadly, uncleared and unexploded ordnance can cost lives, and certainly limbs, among those who return to these areas. They remain a very dangerous environment to return to.

The Government of Iraq and the UN agencies are working hard to try to make these areas safe, but given the level of destruction in a place such as Mosul and the high risk of unexploded devices, it cannot happen all that quickly. People are being secondarily displaced by the lengthy clean-up operation; on their return, they find that they cannot stay, and they are displaced all over again to camps or host communities while they wait for the area to be made safe so that they can return and start to rebuild something that looks a bit like normality. In January and February of this year, more than 23,000 people in Iraq were secondarily displaced to IDP camps.

Even for the IDPs who can make the journey home, and whose houses have not been destroyed, their return is often far from straightforward. They often encounter disputes over property; it is a common problem. Often, they are unable to provide the necessary documentation, and the relevant authorities are so overwhelmed by trying to resolve the large number of land rights disputes that many IDPs remain unable to return. Property disputes are an issue shared by refugees returning from other countries in which they have sought refuge, but because IDPs have not crossed an international border, their status is not as clear cut. These issues are therefore more hidden and more complex.

I want to touch on the plight of women and girls as IDPs. In the 100th year of our hard-fought battle for women’s suffrage in the UK, it is entirely appropriate to dwell for a moment on how women are disproportionately affected by internal displacement. They are at greater risk of sexual violence and trafficking. Girls suffer higher levels of early marriage. In many contexts, women have weaker property rights than men, or no property rights. Those things make returning or seeking compensation for land losses even further beyond their reach. For displaced women, even simple activities such as going to fetch firewood or water can see them fall victim to physical or sexual attack.

It is important to note that women often do not find personal security following displacement. Instead, they suffer violence as they flee and frequently continue to experience high levels of violence while living in displacement. I am sure Members will remember the haunting pictures of Yazidi women in the Upper Waiting Hall. They reminded us all, in their brief life stories, of what they have had to cope with. Estimates suggest that at least one in five women IDPs have experienced sexual violence in displacement. In South Sudan’s IDP camps, UN investigators found that 70% of women had been raped, typically by soldiers and police officers. The one place where a woman is hoping to find safe refuge can turn out to be a dangerous environment for her to reside in. Given the great work that the Government have been doing to support women and girls in developing countries, I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Minister could assure me that IDPs are firmly on the Government’s radar. Given the sheer number of IDPs today—there are more than 40 million globally—we must take steps.

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

The right hon. Lady is making an eloquent case about the situation of women, but is it not true that people with disabilities are also affected? They cannot make the long journeys to other countries, whether they have been disabled because of the conflict or were already disabled. Do we not need to make a special case and special provision for people with disabilities?

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

The hon. Gentleman makes a poignant point. I will never forget, during the war in Afghanistan, going to see internally displaced people and those who had fled just over the border into the federally administered tribal areas, sometimes to completely unofficial camps. Some were carried on the backs of their relatives. A person can move only very slowly if they are carrying another human being, especially an adult, to a place of relative safety. Those with disabilities are particularly vulnerable. Sadly, they often get left behind and fall prey to all the threats to life that pertain to any conflict zone. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the plight of the disabled in this debate on internal displacement.

There have been some notable successes in tackling internal displacement over the past 20 years, such as the Kampala convention, which was agreed in 2012. It was the world’s first continental instrument that legally bound Governments to protect the rights and wellbeing of people forced to flee their homes from conflict, violence, disaster and human rights abuses. However, much more needs to be done. Not everyone has signed up to the Kampala convention, including some of the countries we would very much like to see as signatories to that commitment.

The Department for International Development is certainly a leader in trying to promote other countries signing up to the convention. It is also a leader in its longer-term country programming in places suffering drawn-out, protracted, complex conflicts. For example, in answer to a written question relating to humanitarian operations in South Sudan, the Minister of State wrote:

“The UK is at the forefront of the international response to the crisis. Through the Humanitarian and Resilience Building in South Sudan programme, the Department for International Development will provide £443 million in humanitarian aid between 2015 and 2020 to support the provision of food, emergency shelter, and nutrition and health services, including our response to famine and severe food insecurity.”

Famine and food insecurity is a big problem in South Sudan. That level of support for IDPs is very welcome, and I commend DFID for it, but beyond the provision of aid, will DFID consider developing a broader strategy for IDPs that sets out how they can be supported and their status safeguarded globally? Such a strategy would stand DFID in good stead to be a global leader on the issue of IDPs and displacement more broadly.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development recently spoke of her support for a high-level panel to look into IDPs at the United Nations, and I was delighted to hear that. It would go some way towards addressing the lack of global oversight of IDPs in the current drafts of the global compact on migration and the global compact on refugees. It is worth noting the comments of Foreign Office Minister, Lord Ahmed. He said:

“The UK—alongside partners—remains committed to the UN process to develop both a Global Compact on Migration and a Global Compact on Refugees. The decision by the United States to withdraw from the former does not alter the UK Government’s commitment to engage fully and work towards the successful delivery of these compacts. We believe that the Global Compact on Migration should offer an effective international framework to ensure that migration is safe and orderly and that it should balance the rights and responsibilities of both states and migrants.”

Those are incredibly important words for anyone who has seen the general chaos and risks associated with people fleeing at speed from conflict. It is incredibly important to try to bring order to that chaos and safety for the most vulnerable among those who flee.

I encourage the Secretary of State for International Development to join such countries as Denmark, Sweden and Austria in supporting the calls for an expert report on refugees and IDPs to be commissioned by the UN Secretary-General. Such a report would serve as a useful precursor to any high-level panel on the topic. Furthermore, the UN has set up a plan of action around the 20th anniversary of the guiding principles this year. That multi-stakeholder plan of action aims to resolve and reduce internal displacement through prevention, protection and solutions for IDPs. Its purpose is to strengthen and galvanise support around the guiding principles and to add greater weight to them. I urge the Government to consider supporting that initiative alongside other such UN processes, including the high-level panel and the expert report.

I conclude by thanking my right hon. Friend the Minister for attending the debate today. I look forward to hearing what he has to say. He is knowledgeable on this subject matter, but so are those who have taken the time to come to the debate, and they will make other useful contributions to the discussion.

Council of Europe

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the work of the Council of Europe.

It is a great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Hosie, for this important debate. I thank the Minister, who I know is very interested in this work, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood). I also thank all the members of the UK delegation to the Council of Europe, some of whom have worked there for decades—I have worked for just months, so I defer to their knowledge and expertise in this area. I pay special tribute to the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), who has been an excellent leader of the delegation and has been very helpful to us all, as has my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who leads the Labour delegation. Much of that work goes unrecognised.

All the parties in this House are represented in the Council of Europe, and the way we try to work together is a great tribute to us all. We do that because we know the importance of the Council of Europe. I was interested in introducing this morning’s debate because I have been in this House for 20 years and, to be frank, before that my understanding of the work of the Council of Europe was limited. The British public’s understanding of it is probably even more limited, which is no criticism of them. We all need to think about how we can raise the profile, not only in this country but across Europe, of the important work that the Council of Europe does. That is the purpose of today’s debate.

The Council of Europe calls itself the democratic conscience of greater Europe, which I think is true. I am not a cynical person—cynicism is the great enemy of politics today. That statement is a fundamental aim of the Council of Europe. Let us be clear: this is not about the UK saying that we have everything right, and that we will tell the rest of Europe and the world what to do. We have our own challenges, as we can see from some of today’s newspaper headlines regarding anti-Semitism and the Windrush generation.

Let us reflect on Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee and the great leaders of the past who set up the Council of Europe in the aftermath of the destruction and terror of world war two. Make no mistake: I am not comparing the situation today to world war two. However, I strongly believe that if Winston Churchill or Clement Attlee were alive today and could see what is happening across Europe, they would think, “Goodness me, there is still a long way to go, even some decades after we proposed the establishment of a council of Europe that would work towards the establishment of democracy, the rule of law, freedom of expression and tolerance across our continent, as well as the rest of the world.” That is why it is so important.

Sometimes such rhetoric—stating and restating the principles in which we believe—is seen as remote, and not dealing with the practical realities of the modern world. I say that we should never take for granted the way in which the Council of Europe stands up for and speaks out on the principles on which democratic societies must be based, which it does exceedingly well.

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

Yesterday I wrote to the Foreign Secretary about the proposed Polish holocaust law, which revises history and is clearly anti-Semitic. Does my hon. Friend agree that it needs to be raised in the Council of Europe with the Polish Government, as do the issues with the Hungarian Government regarding anti-Semitic tropes in the recent election?

[Vernon Coaker]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. He is absolutely right about those issues in Poland and Hungary, but there are numerous other areas in which the Council of Europe continues to stand up and speak out. We should not shy away from that, which is why the statement that the Council of Europe acts as the democratic conscience of Europe is important. When the Council of Europe was established by Churchill and others with great words, they believed that within 20 or 30 years some of those problems could be defeated. Yet my hon. Friend reminds us of something that all of us who participate in such debates, both here and abroad, know: battles that we thought would be won are having to be refought. Things that we thought would be taken for granted are having to be fought for again.

Some of this is difficult, and there is so much to discuss. The Minister gave us an exposition of his efforts with Turkey. We in the Council of Europe would think that much of what happens in Turkey is not right, but what did the Minister do? He did not shy away from it. He went there, talked to them, and tried to say, “You are a democracy and part of NATO, and you were talking about becoming a member of the EU. We know that there are difficulties, but you cannot fight what you regard as terrorism or prejudice by resorting to measures that we regard as authoritarian and anti-democratic.” Such measures, however, do not mean that we turn our back on those countries. The Minister was absolutely right to remind us about how he went to speak in Istanbul—he will correct me if I am wrong—straight after the attempted coup, not to support the Turkish Government but to say to them, “Look, you may deal with these things, but you need to deal with them in a democratic way that adheres to the principles we all share.” That is exceedingly important.

As a body, we are looking at and dealing with many issues of real difficulty. I cannot believe that in 2018 I am speaking in this Chamber about how it is still important for the Council of Europe, which may become particularly important post-Brexit as an inter-parliamentary assembly where we can come together, to stand up for democracy and freedom under the law. From research by Amnesty International, we can see how in individual countries across Europe political sanctions are being introduced, people are being imprisoned for what they say, and people are being denied freedom of expression, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, and gender equality. I am not saying that we all ought to live a life of gloom and pessimism, but part of the role of the Council of Europe is to talk to those countries and stand up for the principles that we hold dear.

British Nationals Imprisoned Abroad

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 13th March 2018 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill]

As my hon. Friend suggests, lots of individuals have approached many Members, from all parts of the House, stating that they are very concerned about visiting India, given what has happened in Jagtar Singh Johal’s case. I therefore ask the Minister whether the Prime Minister will raise Jagtar’s case with Narendra Modi when she meets him next month in London, given that she spoke to the BBC and showed interest in Jagtar’s case within days of his abduction and torture.

On a broader level, I would like the Minister to give an update on the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Once again, Nazanin has had no access to consular services. She was placed in solitary confinement for eight and a half months in a cell measuring just 1.5 by 2 square metres and has been subjected to maximum psychological pressure, with the intention of demoralising her and putting her in a completely powerless situation. She has faced prosecution for the charges levelled against her in a secret and unfair trial. Her treatment has had a severe impact on her mental and physical health. As hopes for her release were dashed over Christmas, what action are the UK Government taking to ensure that she is protected from any further torture and ill treatment, and that she is released as soon as possible?

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

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. On the point about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, does she agree that we need to review the support given to dual nationals to ensure that we offer them protection when travelling to hostile states?

[Preet Kaur Gill]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point about dual nationals and making sure that they have the rights they are entitled to. In Nazanin’s case, she should have had access to British consular services.

Finally, I would like to raise the case of Andy Tsege, a British national who has been arbitrarily detained in Ethiopia since 2014, when he was kidnapped and rendered to Ethiopia on the command of the Ethiopian Government, as part of a brutal crackdown on political opponents and civil rights activists. After being kidnapped, Andy was held in secret detention in solitary confinement for more than a year. He has been paraded on Ethiopian TV looking ill and gaunt. Andy is held under a sentence of death that was handed down in absentia while he was living in London, in a trial that was lacking basic elements of due process. He has no contact with his family in London, despite promises from the Foreign Secretary over a year ago to facilitate a family visit, and he is not receiving appropriate medical care.

These three individuals represent just a fraction of the number of British nationals imprisoned abroad. Although I do not call for the Government of this country to interfere in the internal affairs of another sovereign state, or proclaim that due process should not be followed, we cannot sit idly by while British citizens are deprived of some of the most basic rights that we hold dear. An integral part of being a responsible member of the global community is to conduct oneself in accordance with international rules and norms, none more so than the 1948 universal declaration of human rights, which states that human rights should be protected by the rule of law. The Government are obliged to ensure that all British citizens are subject to this protection, and I call on them to use every legitimate means to ensure that no British citizen should have to suffer such unlawful and inhumane treatment.

Refugees and Human Rights

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am glad to see you back in the Chair.

I will start by sharing with the House the case brought to me by the Leeds Asylum Seekers Support Network, a charity that works tirelessly to support asylum seekers in Leeds and for which I used to be a short-stop host for asylum seekers who were destitute. Network staff told me about a freezing cold Friday afternoon in December when they were phoned anonymously by a member of Home Office staff, tipping them off that the Home Office had just sent a woman on to the streets of Leeds, where she was wandering around crying. When they arrived they found a woman named Akifa holding a piece of paper in her hand with a map of Croydon, which was some 230 miles away.

After some effort by LASSN and other charities, they managed to locate an interpreter and they heard her story. Akifa did not know where she was. She spoke of looking for a maternal aunt in the Netherlands, but the person who had brought her to the UK was no longer around. This was a story that LASSN had heard many times before—a textbook case of trafficking. Because of her unclear immigration status, no social or homelessness services could take her and keep her safe. Some hours and 20 phone calls later, the police arrived. To their great credit, they did not arrest Akifa for illegal entry to the UK, but instead took her to a place of safety, which was a great relief as arrest was a very real possibility.

Akifa was Eritrean. She was trafficked into the United Kingdom, where she did the right thing and reported to the Home Office. She was then turfed out on to the street and left to fend for herself. How did we get here? How do we end up in a situation where a vulnerable person is abandoned first by her own nation and then, sadly, by ours?

Eritrea, like so many other countries across Africa and Asia, has experienced a sharp increase in the number of people attempting to flee in recent years. Despite there being no ongoing war in Eritrea, huge numbers of men and women trying to escape national service in the country resort to routes that take them through war-torn countries and deserts and across deadly sea crossings. That is because, unlike military conscription, boys and girls aged 16-plus are often expected to serve indefinitely, with many refugees equating conscription to a life sentence of forced labour.

Physical abuse, including torture, occurs frequently, as does forced domestic servitude and sexual violence by commanders against female conscripts. There is no redress mechanism for conscripts. Attempts to flee are sternly punished. On 3 April 2017, new conscripts trying to escape from a convoy in Asmara were shot at by guards, killing several. President Isaias rules without institutional restraint. There have been no elections since 1991 and no legislature since 2002. The judiciary is subject to Executive control and the constitution is unimplemented.

UNHCR reported 475,000 Eritreans globally to be refugees and asylum seekers—that is 12% of the population—yet the UK policy has been to pass the buck to countries already facing problems of their own, shirking our own responsibility under international law. As The Guardian reported last year, Home Office documents obtained by the Public Law Project detail efforts by the Government to seek more favourable descriptions of human rights conditions in Eritrea. The notes relate to a high-level meeting that took place in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, in December 2015 between senior Eritrean Government officials and a UK Government delegation. A diplomatic telegram, written by the then UK ambassador to Eritrea, said that a meeting was held to “discuss reducing Eritrean migration”, and sought to find evidence on human rights

“to evaluate whether we should amend our country guidance”.

We should be ashamed of those actions. It took a tribunal case to overturn that guidance.

We accept that there is a problem, yet we have failed to provide a solution. The case of Akifa and Eritrea presents a broad problem with British refugee policy. Akifa should never have been left at the mercy of dangerous traffickers. She should never have been able to escape death only to risk her life. Akifa should not have been abandoned in Leeds—she should have been able to reach the UK through safe and legal means. The UK needs to stand up, not just for Eritreans but for all those fleeing conflict and oppression. The refugee crisis is bigger than Britain, but we can work with the UNHCR and other organisations to fulfil our moral, legal and human obligations. Let history remember our country not as the one that chose to look away but as the one that worked hard to create a better alternative and encouraged other countries to follow suit.

Oman, UAE and Iran

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

Both the Prime Minister and I have made it clear that we do not agree with what President Trump said about Jerusalem. We do not agree with his decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and we do not agree with his decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. What the Prime Minister said was welcomed in the region. I found a wide measure of knowledge and appreciation of the UK’s position. We want to encourage our American friends to come forward with the long-awaited plans, which have been gestating, for the middle east peace process. That is the symmetry that the world wants to see from the Trump Administration. In the context of this recognition of Jerusalem, now is the time to bring forth those plans and to do something symmetrical to advance the middle east peace process.

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

Although we welcome the progress that the Foreign Secretary reported this weekend, may I ask him whether he pressed the Iranian authorities to allow Richard Ratcliffe into Iran, so that if Nazanin cannot be home for Christmas, he at least will be able to visit her and see the state that she is in?

[Boris Johnson]

Tempting though it is to go into the details of our discussions on each of these consular cases, given the sensitivity and difficulty of our conversations, it would be better if we just said that we continue to ask for the cases to be treated in the humanitarian way that they deserve, and for those people to be released as soon as possible.

Yemen

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Alistair Burt]

Two or three things are worth mentioning. One of the problems in the region has been the non-payment of public health workers. I have had three conversations with the current President of Yemen in which I have urged the Yemeni Government to make finance available to pay the workers whose job is to try to assist those who may be likely to get cholera. I know that some of the aid agencies have stepped into the breach and paid people to do the same, which has been magnificent. However, the United Kingdom has played its part. We have given £27 million to UNICEF to treat children with severe acute malnutrition, provide safe water supplies and critical hygiene items and support mobile health clinics, and £6 million has been specifically allocated to cholera response. We have been supporting the vaccination programme to try to make a difference. Of course access is vital, but we work through partners, and that is the way to help tackle the cholera epidemic.

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

May I, like my hon. Friends, condemn in the strongest possible terms the missile attack on a civilian target in Riyadh? There have also been many attacks on civilian targets in Yemen. What plans have the Government to apply the arms trade treaty to Saudi Arabia in future licensing decisions?

[Alistair Burt]

As has been mentioned before, arms licences in the United Kingdom are subject to strict controls. Everything is done on a case-by-case basis. I stress that we regularly raise the importance of compliance with international humanitarian law with the Saudi Arabian Government and other members of the coalition. Saudi Arabia has publicly stated that it is investigating reports of alleged violations of international humanitarian law, and that lessons will be acted on. The coalition’s Joint Incidents Assessment Team has announced the findings of a total of 36 investigations, and the most recent were released on 12 September 2017. It is all being taken very seriously. However, the hon. Gentleman was right to condemn that missile attack.

Korean Peninsula

Alex Sobel Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

I do. The hon. Gentleman has caught my sentiments exactly.

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

I do agree that this crisis has been created by the missile tests and thermonuclear test last week by the North Korean regime, which clearly is not acting like a rational nation state. I thank the Foreign Secretary for his approach and for using the UN Security Council to put pressure on China and to restart the six-nations talks. However, on Sunday, the President of the United States made a public statement on Twitter, as is his wont, saying:

“South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!”

Is that our approach? Are we saying that the approach of regional nations such as South Korea amounts to appeasement? The “one thing” he mentions is clearly military action. Are we pressing all the other options on the United States?

[Boris Johnson]

It is not so much that we are pressing all the options on the United States—though of course we are—but that those are the options that the United States itself massively prefers and wants to bring about.