Crisis in Iran

Debate between Alyn Smith and Gillian Keegan

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I am glad that you granted this urgent question today, Mr Speaker. I commend the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for securing it and the Minister for her answer. The SNP and all of us stand in solidarity with the brave protesters in Iran in their actions against a brutal regime. I grew up in Saudi Arabia; I struggle to sound rational about any morality police anywhere. I am familiar with these men, I am familiar with what they do, and I stand shoulder to shoulder with the UK Government in their efforts to hold them to account.

The protests were triggered by the femicide—to our mind—of Mahsa Amini. There is a clear gender aspect, as I think we can all agree. Writing in The Sunday Times, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has a greater familiarity than anyone with the Iranian regime’s brutality, put it best:

“Mahsa’s death is the latest blow to the people of a country long abused… Women in Iran are desperate. They are furious and restless. They cannot take it anymore.”

I commend the Minister for her statement, but what more can the UK Government do to ensure accountability for the perpetrators of femicide? Do His Majesty’s Government view the murder of Ms Amini as femicide? Further to the point that the hon. Member for Harrow East made about closing the UK mission, may I take another view and say that closing the mission would shut down dialogue when actually we need to continue those efforts in-country?

[Gillian Keegan]

Yes, we need to continue efforts and dialogue in-country. That also holds for continued discussion on the nuclear deal, which has been mentioned. We will always continue to work with our like-minded partners to ensure that Iran is held to account, including via the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN General Assembly in New York. At its 51st session, our permanent representative to the UNHRC in Geneva, Ambassador Simon Manley, raised the death of Mahsa Amini and called on Iran

“to carry out independent, transparent investigations into her death and the excessive violence used against subsequent protests.”

We have joined 52 other countries in issuing a joint statement to the Human Rights Council, urging restraint and accountability in Iranian law enforcement. The European Union, Canada and the United States have also sanctioned the morality police and certain individuals, and we will continue to work with those like-minded countries, but we cannot of course comment on any future designations or sanctions.