Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Bob Blackman
Main Page: Bob Blackman (Conservative - Harrow East)Department Debates - View all Bob Blackman's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(3 years, 7 months ago)
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James Cleverly
The Government work on behalf of all the British dual nationals, whether they be held in detention, open prison or elsewhere, and indeed of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe so that she can come home. The UK has had some positive impact. For example, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release on furlough and the removal of her ankle tag were in response to lobbying by this Government. We want to do more. We want to ensure that the people who are held in detention are released and are all able to return home to their families. We will continue to work hard at every level of Government to ensure that that happens.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) [V]
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) on securing this urgent question and on ensuring that the family of Nazanin and the imprisonment of Nazanin herself are at the forefront of our minds in this House. Iran has a dreadful human rights record, with the largest number of executions anywhere in the world and the oppression of its native people. Does my right hon. Friend not find it ironic then that the United Nations Economic and Social Council elected Iran for a full four-year term to the Commission on the Status of Women? Will he therefore take that up at the United Nations to say that it is totally unacceptable for a country that suppresses women and imprisons them without proper process even to be considered to represent human rights across the world?
James Cleverly
The UK Government take the rights of women very seriously, and, indeed, one of the priorities as set out for our official development assistance expenditure is girls’ education. The election of countries to various roles in the United Nations is ultimately a decision for that multilateral forum, but I understand the concerns that my hon. Friend has raised about Iran’s treatment of women. We call upon Iran to do the right thing, and we will continue to lobby for the release and return of British dual nationals and also on a whole range of other issues where we believe that Iran’s behaviour is unacceptable.