Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. We discussed this on 17 July when I was here talking about Nazanin. I have to say that it would be a bit of a challenge if any group of people were to act in the way that the hon. Gentleman has described with the Government’s fingerprints all over them. I do not think that would be very helpful. Such a thing has to be truly independent. I would need to stand here at the Dispatch Box with my hand on my heart and say, “Genuinely, this is not something that is Government-inspired or Government-delivered.” But I do know that there are people and organisations that are doing what they can to improve the relationship between this country, and the international community in general, and Iran. I continue to encourage them to do that.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) for continuing to pursue this case on behalf of her constituent. I also want to say to Richard and Nazanin that the people of Glasgow Central are asking after them and hoping that they will be reunited soon.

I have had a number of constituents who have experienced significant delays in their asylum cases and in getting leave to remain in this country who are originally Iranian nationals. I also have constituents who live here with leave to remain in the UK who wish for a family member to visit them from Iran. In both cases, delays do not help those individuals. Given the particular risks of people from this country going to visit Iran, would it not make sense for the Minister’s colleagues in the Home Office to allow people to come here to visit their family, and to do so quickly and easily?

[Dr Murrison]

I share the sort of constituency issues to which the hon. Lady has alluded. I am sure that my colleagues in the Home Office will have heard what she has to say, and I will certainly draw their attention to her remarks.

Yemen

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Stephenson]

The UK is committed to ending the recruitment and use of child soldiers and protecting all children from armed conflict. We condemn in the strongest terms all grave violations and abuses committed against children in Yemen and urge all parties to the conflict to immediately cease all violations of applicable international law, including these grave violations.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I was glad to see that the International Committee of the Red Cross had facilitated the release of 290 detainees yesterday. They are among many people in Yemen who have been arbitrarily detained and whose families do not know where they have gone. What more is the Minister doing and his Government doing, because it was one of the planks of the Stockholm agreement that prisoners would be released? What more can be done?

[Andrew Stephenson]

The UK offers full support to Martin Griffiths’ UN-led process as well as the work of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In April, the Yemen Quad reaffirmed its endorsement of the agreement reached in Stockholm by Yemeni parties in December 2018. We have previously seconded an individual to the UN to support the work of the executive mechanism for agreement on prisoner exchange. Obviously we welcome the very welcome news of the release of prisoners that we have seen in the past few days, but there is clearly more that needs to be done on all sides.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

20. What recent representations he has made to the Indian Government on that Government’s policies in relation to Kashmir.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

23. What diplomatic steps he is taking to secure peace in Kashmir; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State (Dominic Raab)]

May I start by paying tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt) for the exceptional job he did as Foreign Secretary and for the professionalism and integrity with which he conducted himself?

We are concerned about the situation in Kashmir. I spoke to Foreign Minister Jaishankar on 7 August. We want to see a reduction in tensions in Kashmir, respect for internationally recognised human rights and steps taken on all sides to rebuild confidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman expresses his concerns powerfully and I understand how keenly they are felt. I have already referred to the UN Security Council resolutions and to the Simla agreement. It is not correct to say that we have not been seized of this issue. The Prime Minister spoke to the Indian Prime Minister, Prime Minister Modi, on 20 August and the Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan, on 7 August. I raised concerns about the situation with Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar on 7 August. We will obviously be monitoring the situation carefully and talking to international partners in relation to it.

[Alison Thewliss]

The large Kashmiri community in Glasgow Central are deeply concerned about their friends and relatives in Kashmir, particularly given the media blackout and the curfew that has been imposed. What has the Secretary of State done to raise both those issues, and what does he intend to do to ensure that the Kashmiri people have the right to self-determination?

[Dominic Raab]

On the issues of detentions, potential mistreatment and communications blackouts that the hon. Lady has raised, I have raised those issues with the Indian Foreign Minister. The Indian Government have made it clear that the measures are only temporary, as strictly required, and we of course want to hold them to that undertaking.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I am confident that the issue has been a high priority for the Prime Minister. She has spoken to President Rouhani about it. It is a high priority for my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who is frequently in touch with his interlocutors in the matter. It is also, and will continue to be, a high priority for me, as I have explained.

Often, the issue with Iran is getting access. It cannot be taken for granted that access will be automatically welcomed, or indeed provided. I very much hope, however, that we will continue to be able to press the case with those who are in a position to influence the outcome. I have described how it is sometimes difficult to identify those who are in a position to make a decision or determination on the matter. It is not as if one were approaching a western liberal democracy; I fear things operate very differently in Tehran.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I send my solidarity, and that of my constituents, who contact me regularly about the issue, to Nazanin and her family. I have a number of constituents who are Iranian nationals awaiting decisions from the Home Office on asylum and other issues. I ask whether the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has given any updated advice to the Minister’s colleagues in the Home Office about how those cases should be treated, in the light of the serious situation emerging in Iran. I would not want any of my constituents to be returned to Iran by the Home Office to face a situation similar to the one that Nazanin and others have faced. If he has not, I ask him to speak to his colleagues in the Home Office to make sure that something is in place to protect everybody in those circumstances.

[Dr Murrison]

As the hon. Lady will know, each asylum case is treated on its own merits in the light of prevailing circumstances, so I obviously cannot comment, because I do not know the individual cases to which she refers. I do know, however, that each one is treated individually by the Home Office and that a determination is made according to the perceived risk that they face, which will clearly alter with time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

We will hear remaining colleagues if they guarantee to use no more than one short sentence each.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

One of the key aspects of the Stockholm agreement was prisoner transfers. What progress has been made on that in Yemen?

[Mr Hunt]

We have not implemented all elements of the Stockholm agreement—that is one reason why it has taken so long since the meeting on 13 December. The UN special envoy decided that the best way to break the logjam was to identify the most important part of it, which was the redeployment of troops from Hodeidah. Now that is happening, we will seek to implement the rest of the agreement as quickly as possible.

Women Human Rights Defenders

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. I thank my constituents who wrote to me about the issue and encouraged me to come along to make a contribution. For them, it is very important for the human rights of women to be defended, particularly those of women trying to defend and protect other women. The UK Government must do all within their power to take action to protect those women and to ensure that all those countries with which the UK has diplomatic contact are left under no illusion as to the UK’s position on the matter. I am sure that the Minister will respond to some of that in his speech later.

It is easy for me as a woman to stand in this place. It is relatively easy for women in this country to stand up and give voice on whatever societal ills they wish to speak up about. However, when I come into this building, I am acutely aware that many women around the world do not have that level of privilege—nowhere near it. In many countries, for people to speak out can be to sign their own death warrant, or to lose everything they hold dear. The risks of doing so are incredibly profound. Women are not able to speak out in that way without risking their families and homes.

I encourage the Minister to speak out, particularly to those regimes that are often found wanting on human rights, especially Saudi Arabia, which has not done nearly enough to change its behaviour. The most recent executions did not involve women, but they were of people who could not defend themselves properly under that regime. Where we see persecution of men, persecution of women will be doubled or trebled in severity, because women there do not even get the chance to speak out.

As the Minister knows, I have some involvement in Yemen through the all-party group on Yemen. Recently, I was pleased to meet some women campaigners who visited London. They were able to tell me more about their situation and how difficult it was to tell their stories, or even to get out of Yemen to come here and give us their testimony. It seems a lot easier for men to get to London and to make representations to groups or in front of Ministers, but if women’s voices are not heard—if women cannot even get out of their countries to give their testimony—their stories will not be told, and we will not hear about the disproportionate impact on women.

The World Economic Forum studied 146 countries and found that, of all of them, women in Yemen came last. They had among the worst circumstances in the world, and the war in Yemen over the past few years has only made that worse. In such situations, women seem to make more sacrifices than men—the cause of women and girls’ education in Yemen has gone backwards, as women are married off younger in order to get a bit of security for their families and their own lives.

Women in Yemen are compromised not only in education but in health services, because they cannot access such services without a male relative or because those services have been lost in the war—attacked in air strikes—and it is not safe for women to get to the hospitals, let alone to get the treatment they so desperately need. As for women working in those services, many civil servants in Yemen have not been paid for a considerable time, so the women cannot work to bring money into their families. They therefore cannot defend other women who desperately need health services, particularly for maternal health.

When talking about women’s voices, I ask the Minister to consider who is around the table in his meetings when he goes to and engages with other countries. Are women allowed to go to such meetings? Are they allowed to give voice to the issues that they might wish to raise? Are they able to give a full account, or are they being screened away by the men with the power? Will he consider that in relation to his meetings and the groups he is meeting? Where are the women in such conversations, and are they present and able to give voice to their concerns?

I also want to remark on women in this country who have come from other countries to claim asylum. In my casework, I encounter women who have been trafficked or come here under some kind of coercion—I can think of one woman who came here as a married woman but came out as gay when she got here, because it felt safer here—but all such things are often counted against them in the immigration process and in their asylum interviews. I sat in on that particular woman’s asylum interview, and the Home Office official said, “Well, you lied about your sexuality to your husband, so you must be lying here today. How can we say that you are not?” Women need to be believed—their stories and testimonies must be believed. In a lot of circumstances, for a woman to be able to tell her story, she has come through a hell of a lot to get there in the first place. Telling that story in front of her husband, her children or whoever it happens to be—in front of a male person from the Home Office—can be incredibly traumatic. A lot of the women I see in my surgery have not been believed but should be. I believe them very much when they tell me their stories.

I would like the Minister to pass on to his Home Office colleagues that when women have been trafficked to this country in difficult circumstances, we should do everything in our power to make sure that they have sanctuary and safety here, even if they could not feel safe in the country they came from.

Saudi Arabia: Mass Executions

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Human rights abuses, executions, airstrikes in Yemen killing 100 in March alone, including 19 children—if the Saudis continue to fail to listen to the Minister’s pleading, why does he extend to them the veneer of respectability?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The hon. Lady mentions Yemen. I have spent many decades taking an interest in Yemen. I hope we will now see some progress towards a political settlement. We have to give our full support to Martin Griffiths, our UN representative. Part of the message we have to send to the Saudi Government is that bombings in Yemen do not achieve any of the objectives they have set out to achieve, and we need a political settlement as a matter of urgency.

Sri Lanka

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

What we call countering disinformation online is an area in which this country has been taking a lead internationally. We spent £20 million on it last year and we have huge expertise. Unfortunately, we do not have to go as far as Sri Lanka to see these problems; they are also here in Europe—many of the eastern European countries are dealing with propaganda being pumped out into their social media systems, for example—and we absolutely do make that expertise available to our friends around the world.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I should like to put on record my condolences to all those affected by this awful attack. In the practical sense of supporting the Sri Lankan diaspora in the UK, what communication has the Foreign Secretary had with the Home Secretary about the current status of applications from people from Sri Lanka for asylum or leave to remain in this country? Some of them will wish to have the reassurance that they are in a place of safety and that they can stay here.

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. The Home Secretary was with me this morning when I briefed the Cabinet on the situation in Sri Lanka, but I will take up the specific concerns that she has raised.

Jallianwala Bagh Massacre

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Hanson. I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing this afternoon’s debate. He set out the background very well. It is clear from the Hansard transcripts of the time that there was uncertainty about the events as they happened, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. As the truth emerged, some of the things that people had said at the time did not reflect what had actually happened on the ground.

The Jallianwala Bagh massacre is a particularly awful event to read about, because it was a methodical and disturbing mass murder of innocent people who were peacefully protesting in a public square. Many of them had come on their way back from worship at the Golden Temple, and there were also children there. The exits were blocked and unarmed people were shot at over and over, as we heard, until the ammunition was all but exhausted.

The incident changed the course of history, but as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) said, it certainly was not an isolated crime by the British empire. The massacre came in the context of the repressive Rowlatt Act 1919, which permitted political cases in India to be tried without juries and included internment of suspects without trial. That in turn led to protests and an escalation of violence, to martial law and the forbidding of gatherings. The massacre was followed by other events, such as public floggings and forcing people to crawl in the streets just to humiliate them. Mahatma Gandhi said that he had no doubt that

“the shooting was ‘frightful’, the loss of innocent life deplorable. But the slow torture, degradation and emasculation that followed was much worse, more calculated, malicious and soul-killing, and the actors who performed the deeds deserve greater condemnation than General Dyer for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre. The latter merely destroyed a few bodies but the others tried to kill the soul of a nation.”

India is a country that has contributed greatly to the world in culture and faith, despite enduring such horrific events in its formation. The Indian diaspora, of all faiths and none, who I have known in my constituency show compassion and kindness to others. The Scottish Sikhs who I marched alongside in Saturday’s Vaisakhi celebrations have made a huge impact on their community, providing free meals, running soup kitchens and providing education services for people both at home and abroad. They stand up for human rights abuses and show solidarity for persecuted people around the world. They have invested time, energy and money in Scotland—they are Scottish. They are building in Glasgow two purpose-built and beautiful gurdwaras. We owe it to them to ensure that their legacy is acknowledged and this is not just swept under the carpet.

Of course, it was not just Sikhs who were killed that day; there were Hindus and Muslims, as we have heard, and a peaceful gathering of a cross-section of India’s peoples, who were indiscriminately murdered. A poster featured in a book about the atrocity by London historians Amandeep Singh Madra and Parmjit Singh reads:

“Those who sacrificed their lives for their country, live forever. Brutality crossed all limits at Jallianwala Bagh, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh—everyone cried in grief.”

The Minister knows, as we all do, that there is no justification for what happened. Even 100 years on, that flame of injustice still burns brightly in people’s minds.

Burns said:

“O wad some Power the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!”

At this particular time in history, with the UK leaving the EU, amid the radicalisation of right-wing extremists and the pompous rhetoric about the rebuilding of the British empire, we need a meaningful acknowledgement of the horrific legacy that that empire left behind. It must be for schools everywhere to learn of that legacy, not just for gurdwaras to teach it when people choose to come and visit. Everybody should learn in school of how the peoples of the empire were treated.

[Martyn Day]

I find myself in full agreement with everything that has been said today, and I echo the calls for a formal apology. It has been said that if we do not learn from history, we are destined to repeat the mistakes of the past. We cannot allow those mistakes to ever be repeated, so we need a clear and unequivocal apology from the Government on behalf of us all.

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. As elected Members of this Parliament, if we allow notions of empire to go unchecked and unchallenged, we fail to acknowledge the pain of that past—the pain for countries all around the world, but particularly in this case for the people of India. It is beyond time for Her Majesty’s Government to apologise and take responsibility for one of the worst crimes of colonialism. An apology for those events is a very good place to start.

Opportunities for apologies or acknowledgements of the events at Jallianwala Bagh have been missed in recent times. As hon. Members have said, David Cameron visited the site and described the incident as “deeply shameful”, but did not use that ample opportunity to make a formal apology. A visit from Her Majesty and Prince Philip in the 1990s managed to create even more ill-feeling, when Prince Philip said that the Indian Government’s figure for the death toll at the site was over-exaggerated. William and Kate chose not to visit the site on their official tour of India. Those are all opportunities missed, adding to that sense of pain.

It is well beyond time to stop side-stepping the issue and to show some humility and regret for the horrors of the past. I ask the Minister to go back to the Foreign Secretary and encourage him to take the steps that successive Governments have not been brave enough to take.

Libya

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank my hon. Friend for his observations. Let me make it clear that the international community stands behind the Government of national accord, the elected Government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj. There is clearly speculation as to whether there was any nexus between our intervention in Libya and the Manchester attack, but we are aware that there were Libyan nationals involved and we will obviously do our best to ensure extradition and justice at an early opportunity. However, the experience of what happened in Lockerbie means that we will have to recognise that this may take some time.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I have a number of Libyan constituents who have left Libya for reasons that the Minister will understand, and some of them have been waiting for decisions from the Home Office for quite some time. He alluded to the travel advice issued by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Is there any other advice that is shared between the FCO and the Home Office that could bring closure to my constituents?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady represents a city centre seat, as I do, and I am well aware of the issues faced by people who want to make their lives in the United Kingdom and who would make a great contribution here. Those people want their situation to be regularised, but these are inevitably issues for the Home Office. I am sorry—I am not trying to get out of this matter, but I think it would be useful for her to contact the Home Office with the specifics.