Human Rights (North Korea)

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Does he agree that it is important that the Government take note of the increasing number of Members of Parliament who are calling for that and expressing concern about the human rights atrocities in North Korea? The considerable number of Members in this debate has reflected that, and others regularly join our all-party group. No less than 34 Members came to an open-doors meeting recently, many prompted by cards from their constituents, and 68 have signed early-day motion 1184, which calls on the Government to consider every possible mechanism for accountability for the human rights atrocities in North Korea. Surely that should include consideration of the BBC broadcasting into the country.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. A number of known voices in Parliament have made the case for North Korea for a long time, including Lord Alton, to whom my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire has referred. I have visited South Korea and looked across the demilitarised zone into North Korea, where I had my photograph taken. The ambassador said, “There you are; you will now be on the files of the North Korean authorities for evermore, and they will know who you are.” That is the sort of regime that we are dealing with. Those of us who have been campaigning on the matter for a long time—my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton referred to Ben Rogers of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, who has done superb work on this subject—are beginning to find a wider camaraderie with people in both Houses of Parliament who want to campaign on this horrendous issue.

Uganda (Human Rights)

Debate between Fiona Bruce and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, particularly as you are my parliamentary neighbour, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate and on the sincere way in which he put his case. He is gaining a great reputation in the House for the way that he handles things. He is entirely right to raise the issue of the Lord’s Resistance Army. My understanding is that, through military activity, the LRA has largely been driven out of north-east Uganda, which is more peaceful today than it has been for many years.

As the hon. Gentleman said, Mr Kony, the leader of the LRA, is indicted for war crimes and is still perpetrating atrocities in the countries in which he operates—South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic. The United Nations has operations in those countries, particularly in the DRC, but it does not have the resources to go after Mr Kony properly, and he is committing some of the worst human rights atrocities in the world. I hope that the UK will devote more attention to the matter.

[Fiona Bruce]

Would it be right to say that we should not only devote more attention to the matter, but work in partnership with other nations who want to see it resolved? That is how we can be most effective.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend is entirely right. We do not have the resources to send troops in directly, but through the UN, we can help to bolster operations, perhaps in the DRC, so that we can put greater efforts into trying to capture a man who is, I repeat, an indicted war criminal. He is highly mobile and never sleeps in the same place, so capturing him requires considerable resources, particularly helicopters, so that our troops can keep ahead of the game and catch up with him.

As the hon. Member for Strangford said, in recent weeks and months, we have seen a rapid descent and some of the most appalling abuses of human rights under the regime of the Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni. The police and security forces now regularly use lethal force, especially during political demonstrations, and I should like to address the crackdown on opponents of the Museveni Government. Ever since his so-called re-election in May 2011, there has been a wave of opposition demonstrations, many of which have ended up in violence. Opposition politicians, their supporters and journalists all too often face harassment, beatings and arrest.

The leader of Uganda’s main opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change, Dr Kizza Besigye—a reasonable man whom I have met on a number of occasions—was recently attacked at an FDC rally, where police and military personnel surrounded him and cut him off from his supporters. They crushed his car screen and prevented him from leaving the scene.

Ever since the advent of the first multi-party elections in 2006, the Museveni Government have done whatever they can to prevent any opposition from playing on a level playing field. Before those elections, Dr Besigye was arrested on trumped up charges of treason and rape in an effort to prevent him from standing. On the occasions that I have met him, he has had to get special permission to leave the country, because he is still subject to those trumped up charges.

In another, more recent, incident, which I discussed with the Minister for Africa, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), Dr Besigye was leading a small demonstration by Activists for Change—the so-called A4C—outside a Government building, when a rock thrown from within that building hit a plain-clothes policeman, who subsequently, and unfortunately, died. The Minister for Africa told me these facts, so I know them to be correct. It seems reasonably clear that this was nothing whatsoever to do with Dr Besigye or any of his followers, yet scores of people were arrested, along with Dr Besigye, who was subsequently charged with unlawful assembly and placed under house arrest for a time.

The Ugandan Government declared on 4 April 2012 that A4C was an “unlawful society”, ahead of a planned demonstration on 5 April. The Ugandan Attorney-General, Peter Nyombi, also declared that, should members of A4C attempt to form a new group, that would also be banned—something that transpired after the members of A4C formed the new group called “For God and My Country”. The same Attorney-General said:

“If the old pressure group members are the same office bearers, the group remains illegal.”

Police and security forces continue to harass and disturb events and rallies organised by opposition supporters. At a recent meeting of the International Democrat Union’s Africa branch in Kampala, delegates—international delegates coming into Uganda—were harassed by the police force, which forced the Fairway hotel to cancel the IDU’s booking and attempted to force the Grand Imperial hotel to deny the IDU space.

Last week, several people, including a 12-year-old girl, were injured and shops closed in a one-hour battle between police and supporters of Dr Besigye, as the police attempted to stop him from accessing the Nakasero market simply to have his lunch.

Only yesterday, several women were arrested as they protested at the brutal manner in which the opposition FDC Women’s League leader, Ingrid Turinawe, was arrested last Friday. My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) has already mentioned that incident, but it bears repetition. Ms Turinawe was assaulted on Friday as the police blocked a rally called by the opposition in Nansana, outside Kampala. Ugandan television footage clearly shows that, as several officers tried to pull her out of her vehicle, she was sexually assaulted and she is heard shouting out in pain. This is all part of a downward trend in the ability of political opposition in Uganda to fulfil its basic rights and to protest peacefully.

Worryingly, a proposed Public Order Management Bill, which is before the Ugandan Parliament, could further limit freedom of expression for demonstrators, if passed in its current form. Under the Bill, public meetings will be prohibited in certain circumstances. It will prohibit public meetings that are aimed at discussing Government policies and affairs of management. For journalists, the Bill will limit their role of seeking, receiving and imparting information, which is a vital aspect of freedom of expression and democracy. Journalists, along with political demonstrators, are also increasingly coming under attack by police and security forces.

The Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda documented 107 cases of attacks on journalists in 2011, compared to 58 in 2010 and 38 in 2009. That demonstrates a worrying trend.