Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting

Barry Gardiner Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)]

In 2012, the FCO identified Sri Lanka as a country of concern in its annual human rights and democracy report, admitting there had been some “negative developments”. The report highlighted the number of abductions and disappearances, as well as the intimidation of human rights defenders, members of the legal profession and the media. Meanwhile, President Rajapaksa has repeatedly rejected demands for an international inquiry into alleged war crimes, including from the Prime Minister.

In August 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, visited Sri Lanka and noted the country’s worrying “authoritarian turn”. What concerns me is that there is a sense of complicity on the part of our own Government with what is going on in Sri Lanka, where we see the deepening and embedding of corruption, injustice and violence. I say that because Freedom from Torture has claimed that, despite the Sri Lankan Government’s claims of new-found peace, the post-conflict torture of Tamils is ongoing. The UK Government appear to be complicit, because they have forcibly removed Tamils back to Sri Lanka, where they know those people have been met with torture and ill treatment.

Following a freedom of information request in February, the UK Border Agency now admits to granting refugee status to up to 15 Sri Lankans who had been forcibly returned to Sri Lanka and subsequently tortured or ill treated, and who had then come back to the UK. That is deeply worrying.

Furthermore, Home Office solicitors are suggesting to judges in our courts that evidence of torture—scars, wounds and broken bones—is actually self-inflicted. They are saying that to push the courts into agreeing that people should be deported from this country. That is desperately worrying.

I have a constituency case of a 24-year-old man whom I will call Mr P. He came to the UK in April 2013 on a student visa. He subsequently applied for asylum on 26 April. He held pro-Tamil separatist political opinions, which he expressed in Sri Lanka and in the UK. His asylum application was refused by the Home Office, but it was won on appeal in July.

Mr P is a journalist, and he had previously worked on a newspaper in Sri Lanka in a minor capacity. In April 2011, he was detained and assaulted. He was released with the help of the newspaper’s circulation manager. In November 2012, he was admitted to Jaffna general hospital with multiple soft-tissue injuries to his body, lip laceration and teeth fractures—he had been beaten with rifle butts. The medical-legal report concluded—

[Mr David Amess (in the Chair)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) mentioned the Freedom from Torture freedom of information request and the UK Border Agency’s reply in February. In its 2011 “Human Rights and Democracy” report, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office referred to allegations of torture of people who had been sent back to Sri Lanka and were subsequently given asylum in this country, but stated that there was no substantiated evidence that people returned there had been tortured. Interestingly, neither the allegation nor such a statement appeared in the FCO’s 2012 “Human Rights and Democracy” report. The Foreign Affairs Committee has questioned that, but we got no answers from Baroness Warsi when she gave evidence to us. Our report recommended that the FCO

“state whether it still holds the view that there is no substantiated evidence of torture or maltreatment of people who have been returned by UK immigration authorities to Sri Lanka.”

Will the Minister short-circuit the process and give us an answer today? Do the British Government still hold the view that people returned to Sri Lanka are not tortured, and that there is no substantiated evidence, or is their view—given the increasing concerns, and the compelling evidence of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and others—that there is evidence that calls into question the UK Border Agency’s policy of returning to Sri Lanka people who we know have been mistreated since 2009?

In those circumstances, when the Prime Minister meets President Rajapaksa and his several brothers, who run the Government in Sri Lanka, will it not be time to make it clear that the British Government and British parliamentarians expect answers to our questions about people sent back from this country to Sri Lanka and then mistreated, and to the questions asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) and others about the mistreatment of British citizens in Sri Lanka?

[Barry Gardiner]

Is my hon. Friend aware that Judge Lobo has referred to the assistance offered by country guidance cases? In an appeal in the first-tier tribunal, he has said that the people at risk are those who have outstanding charges against them—journalists associated with publications critical of the Sri Lankan Government, and those who are aligned to pro-Tamil separatist movements and are working towards the destabilisation of the unitary state. That relates specifically to risks to people who are returned to Sri Lanka.

[Mike Gapes]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but I will not respond to his intervention.

Finally, it is all very well to say that the Government should be there—that the Commonwealth is so important that the British Prime Minister, the heir to the throne or the Foreign Secretary should attend the meeting—but let us look at the history of the Commonwealth and where it is now. Many years ago, the Commonwealth agreed the Harare declaration, which set out human rights values and how institutions should work. In the past, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and other countries have been suspended from or have walked out of the Commonwealth because human rights issues were raised.

I must say that I am extremely disappointed with the Commonwealth secretary-general—I know him personally, because he was previously the Indian high commissioner in this country—and the way in which he has run the organisation. There has been a downplaying of human rights issues under the current Commonwealth secretariat. I am not giving away any secrets when I say that the British Government tried to raise these issues in 2009 and subsequently. In a vote in the Commonwealth, 50 votes were in favour of going to Colombo and four were against. That is the problem that we have to confront in the organisation. If the Commonwealth does not change, it will become irrelevant.