Sri Lanka

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on leading the debate, and it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), with whose remarks I agree wholeheartedly. I declare my interest as an officer of both the all-party parliamentary groups on Tamils and on Sri Lanka, and as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the Council of Sri Lankan Muslim Organisations UK.

The reality is that Sri Lanka was blighted and torn apart by a terrible, bloody civil war. Twelve years on from it ending, there are still many people who are unaccounted for. We do not know what happened to them: whether they were killed, they are in graves somewhere or they dispersed around the world. Nine years ago, I joined others in visiting Sri Lanka, ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, and I saw at first hand the work that was being done in Jaffna. That heralded the visit by former Prime Minister David Cameron, which was a deeply historic visit. I saw at first hand the mine clearances going on and also the clearance of areas for fishing, so that the Tamil people could return to being able to farm and to fish for their own population and for exports.

My constituent, Ambihai Selvakumar, who has been referred to earlier, lives in Kenton in Harrow and has been on hunger strike in her bid to seek justice for the Tamil people. I hope that her campaign will be successful, but I caution her that her life is more important at the moment than ensuring that we get the British Government and others around the world to shift their views.

I commend the Amnesty International report, which highlights the abuses that minority religions experience in Sri Lanka. I commend as well the report by Real Other, which put together the position in Sri Lanka. It took 32 days writing the report and it draws attention not just to the forced cremation issues, but to the other suffering that the Muslim minority are experiencing in Sri Lanka right now. We should remember that all sorts of atrocities are being inflicted on the minority Muslims across Sri Lanka.

The reality is that deeply religious persecution is going on in Sri Lanka, where there is a big majority of Buddhists against all the minority religions. Recently, I led a virtual delegation to the UNHRC on behalf of COSMOS and drew to the council’s attention the atrocities being visited on the Muslim minority in Sri Lanka. It is key that the resolutions of the Human Rights Council are strengthened. When my hon. Friend the Minister rises, I urge him to give a deep commitment to ensuring that we act as a country to strengthen the resolutions and to make people, particularly the leadership in Sri Lanka, face up to their responsibilities and ensure that religious persecution ends and that minority rights are protected. After all, that is one of our fundamental areas of international concern and I hope that we will be leading the way rather than following.