Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for leading this debate, because the Magnitsky sanctions are an incredibly important tool for democracies, and the story he told about Ryan is heartbreaking. I do hope that Mohammed Shaibani faces penalties of some sort at some point. The penalties are a deterrent but, for the deterrent to work, they must be applied without fear or favour. That is where I think the sanctions perhaps fall down. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans was absolutely right to say that sanctions have shortcomings, but they are a tool that we can use to show just how much we care about human rights and issues of democracy.

The issue that I should like to raise with the Minister is that of how Hong Kong has abused the pro-democracy newspaper, the last one existing, Apple Daily. The Government froze its assets and it has had to close. It was interesting that the people of Hong Kong massively supported the newspaper. It normally prints 80,000 copies; on the day that it closed, it had to print 1 million to keep up with demand. That is how much the people of Hong Kong wanted it to survive.

The Government closed it because, they said, it had gone against the national security Act. It came into force in 2020, but the Government said that it had printed some stories back in 2019 which were illegal. When the Government brought in the national security Act, they said that it would not be retrospective, but here, apparently, it is. I would argue that the Government have committed an illegal act, and it is time for sanctions against Hong Kong.

What plans do the Government have to start implementing sanctions more widely, including over Hong Kong? What are the problems with placing such sanctions on every human rights abuser? I really do not want to hear that it is politics, because that is not a good answer. What is the process? How quickly can the Government impose sanctions after a human rights abuser has been identified? Quite honestly, if we do not make a stand in some of these cases, we look out of step with our allies and other democracies. It is time that we were a little braver about this and actually believed in democracy.