Death Penalty (India)

John McDonnell Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the national petition launched by the Kesri Lehar campaign urging the UK Government to press the Indian government to sign and ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which encompasses the death penalty, with the result that India would abolish the death penalty and lift this threat from Balwant Singh Rajoana and others.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to this debate, and for having considered our representations as a matter of urgency. I am also grateful to all the many colleagues from across all parties in the House for supporting the request for a debate.

The motion replicates the Kesri Lehar—wave for justice—petition launched last year. The UN motions refer to general human rights abuses, which can be interpreted as including the death penalty. The intent of the motion is clear: it calls on the UK Government to assist in every way they can in ensuring the abolition of the death penalty in India.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I acknowledge that technical point, but the motion’s heading highlights what the Kesri Lehar campaign wants us to debate and impress upon the Indian Government: the need for the abolition of the death penalty in India. The death penalty is abhorrent to the vast majority of Members, especially as we on this side of the House are, as socialists, opposed in principle to it. We want to make the call for its abolition loud and clear through the Punjabi community—I have a very successful one in Coventry—and it will be the principal burden of my remarks, if I am called to speak.

[John McDonnell]

Exactly, and this follows in the tradition of Governments of all political complexions in recent years, and of the representations that have been made to the Indian Government. I am grateful to the Government for their recent activities on this matter, which I will discuss later.

This is an historic debate, but it would not be taking place today had it not been for the dedication, hard work and commitment of the Kesri Lehar campaigners, and I wish to pay tribute to them. Last year, when we received the first inkling that India was considering ending its eight-year moratorium on implementing the death penalty, members of the Punjabi community in our country, especially the Punjabi Sikhs, came together and launched the Kesri Lehar campaign. Since then, they have secured more than 100,000 signatures to their petition to abolish the death penalty and address other human rights concerns.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

A large proportion of the Sikh community in Huddersfield passionately agrees with the motion, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. For eight years we all hoped and thought there would be no more capital punishment in India. We should note that the record on capital punishment—on the number of people killed—is far worse in China and the United States, but this is a very important debate, and I am pleased to give my full support to it.

[John McDonnell]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I hope that across the House we are all friends on this matter.

The Kesri Lehar campaign organised a mass lobby of Parliament last autumn, and it has worked with human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Liberty, to press the Indian Government for the abolition of the death penalty. On behalf, I hope, of the whole House, I want to thank all the Kesri Lehar campaigners, many of whom have joined us in the Gallery today.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

I will visit the Sikh temples in Derby on Sunday to pick up a petition to bring to this Chamber next week or the week after, or whenever Mr Deputy Speaker will allow me to. It is interesting how this issue has captured the imagination in our local areas and I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate.

[John McDonnell]

I am grateful for the work the hon. Lady is undertaking. When we visit the gurdwaras, it is interesting to see not only the range of men and women who support the campaign but the number of young people who have joined and led it recently.

I raised the death penalty and human rights abuses in India in this House last year, but I do so today with an even greater sense of urgency. Why? India has started to execute people again. When India secured its independence from Britain, it retained its 19th century penal code, which included the death penalty for murder. Until the 1980s, capital punishment was implemented regularly. From then on, although death sentences were pronounced by Indian courts they were increasingly not put into practice. In 1980, the Indian Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty should be used in the rarest of rare cases, which led eventually to an eight-year moratorium on the death penalty being implemented within India.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) and I have a large Punjabi community in Coventry, which is very concerned about the death penalty. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) agree that the British Government should be encouraging the Indian Government to honour and sign international treaties against the death penalty and, more importantly, to reform the police force? We have seen in the media instances of the police force not investigating serious crimes against women or not taking them seriously. Last night, I presented a petition on behalf of the Punjabi community not only in Coventry but nationally.

[John McDonnell]

I am grateful for the work that my hon. Friend has undertaken in this campaign over the years—his involvement is not merely recent. It is interesting that although the debate is focused on the death penalty, it has emerged that there have been extra-judicial killings, too.

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

My hon. Friend referred to the fact that the Indian authorities have recently started to execute people again. Clearly, that was in the context of a terrorist attack that caused many lives to be lost. The precedent has been set, however, and there is now a real danger that many people who had been given a death sentence that had not been applied, and their families, will undergo a period of great difficulty and stress. That applies to many communities in India and not just the Punjabis.

[John McDonnell]

Exactly. I am sure that other Members will raise the question of what is happening with the Dalits and other groups.

The eight-year moratorium lulled us into a false sense of security. Naively, many of us thought that although India retained the death penalty on the statute book the continuation of the moratorium was an indication that it would eventually be abolished once and for all. Unfortunately, that was a naive judgment and our hopes were dashed in the spring of last year when reports emerged that the Indian Government were moving to execute Balwant Singh Rajoana and, possibly, to authorise the execution of Professor Devinder Pal Singh Bhullar. That caused widespread concern among the Punjabi community in the UK, across many of our constituencies and across the world.

I want to refer to the two cases, as they have been prominently mentioned in the media and carry immense significance around the world, the Rajoana case for its historical context and the Bhullar case because it is almost now a symbol of the injustice meted out to so many Sikhs in recent decades.

Let me deal first with Balwant Singh Rajoana, a former member of the Punjabi police. He has publicly acknowledged his role in the killing of the chief Minister of the Punjab, Beant Singh, in 1995. He has refused to defend himself and refused legal representation, and he has not asked for mercy. However, Sikhs and Sikh organisations in gurdwaras have appealed for mercy on his behalf, and urged the Indian Government to appreciate the context of Balwant Singh’s actions and the feelings of the Sikhs at that time and now.

Balwant Singh was party to killing Beant Singh, the chief Minister of the Punjab. We now know that Beant Singh personally commanded the police and security forces in the killing and disappearance of possibly more than 20,000 Sikhs—men, women and children. Faced with the failure of the Indian authorities to take action against the former chief Minister for his crimes against humanity, Balwant Singh and a co-conspirator took the law into their own hands. Nobody, including Balwant Singh, claims that he is innocent of the killing, but Sikh organisations, human rights lawyers and human rights groups are urging the Indian Government to take into account the context of his actions, the scale of the human suffering that the Sikhs were enduring at the time, and the anger that young men such as Balwant Singh felt at the failure of the Indian state to bring to justice the chief Minister responsible for the atrocities against the Sikhs in the Punjab. On that basis, they plead for understanding and mercy on Balwant Singh’s behalf and that the death penalty is avoided at all costs.

If Balwant Singh Rajoana symbolises the suffering of the Sikhs in that period, Professor Bhullar symbolises the injustice meted out to Sikhs, to be frank, over the years at the hands of the Indian police and the judicial system. Professor Bhullar came to the attention of the Punjab police because he investigated the abduction and disappearance of a number of his own students. The disappearances were linked to the Punjab police. The resultant persecution of his family, with the disappearance of his own father and uncle and others, led him to flee to Germany for asylum. Tragically, the German authorities believed the assurance of the Indian Government that he would not face the death penalty, and he was returned to India.

The German courts have now ruled that that deportation was wrong. Professor Bhullar has been in prison for 18 years. He has been convicted of involvement in an attempted political assassination solely on the basis of a confession, which he retracted, with not one of more than 100 witnesses identifying him at the scene, and on a split decision of the court judges. In split decisions in India, the practice of the courts is not to impose a death penalty, but Professor Bhullar has been sentenced, held in solitary confinement for eight years and, despite his deteriorating health, his plea for mercy has been rejected. Despite a further petition to the Supreme Court, the fear is that the Indian authorities could move to execute him at any time. This is a shocking miscarriage of justice waiting to happen unless we can intervene effectively.

The fears for Balwant Singh Rajoana and Professor Bhullar prompted the launch of the Kesri Lehar campaign last year. Our fears were compounded when on 21 November India ended its moratorium on the death penalty and executed Ajmal Kasab. In December the United Nations voted for the fourth time for a resolution calling for a global moratorium on executions; 111 countries voted for the moratorium, but India voted against. That is another clear indication of its intent at that time to return to the implementation of the death penalty.

A further execution by hanging took place on 9 February this year. There is a real risk therefore that, with more than 40 people now on death row in India, with 100 more sentenced to death each year, many more executions are likely to follow unless action is taken.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman just mentioned the UN vote. The Prime Minister has just come back from India and the UK Government and Governments around the world have high expectations of the future for India. What message does the hon. Gentleman think it sends to the rest of the world that India voted against the moratorium at the UN?

[John McDonnell]

The message was clearly interpreted by our communities, our constituents and the Kesri Lehar campaigners as showing that India is now intent on the restoration of the death penalty with its full force. That is our fear. The executions that have taken place have confirmed those fears.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate, which concerns many of our constituents throughout the country. Was not the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) also making the point that this campaign is important because India’s own standing in the world will be severely jeopardised if it proceeds in this way, and that it is in India’s own interests that the Indian Government change course?

[John McDonnell]

I could not concur more strongly. I shall discuss that point later in my speech.

There is also concern that India is expanding the scope of the death penalty: new laws passed in 2011 provide for the death penalty for those who are convicted of terrorist attacks on oil and gas pipelines that result in death and, in Gujarat state, for those who are found guilty of making and selling illicit liquor.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The list of crimes that attract the death penalty in India now also includes honour killing and, more recently, rape that leads to death, but campaigners against violence against women in India have not been impressed by those additions, because they do not provide the protection that vulnerable women need but are a reaction by the Government to the horrific violence meted out to a young woman on a bus in Delhi recently.

[John McDonnell]

That is the specific point I was about to make. We all abhor and condemn that appalling crime, but it should not be used as an excuse to implement the death penalty.

The manner in which the Indian authorities have dealt with executions has also raised concern across the human rights community. The two recent executions were announced to the public after being carried out, which violates all international standards on the use of the death penalty and makes timely interventions and final appeals before execution almost impossible.

Amnesty International points out that the use of the death penalty in India is “riddled with systemic flaws”. According to the briefing Amnesty International provided to Members for this debate, of particular concern under anti-terror legislation is the broad definition of terrorist acts for which the death penalty can be imposed. In addition, there are: insufficient safeguards on arrest; provisions that allow confessions made to the police to be admissible as evidence; obstacles to confidential communication with counsel; insufficient independence of special courts from Executive power; insufficient safeguards for the presumption of innocence; provisions for discretionary closed trials; sweeping provisions to keep secret the identity of witnesses; and limits on the right to review by a higher tribunal.

In its briefing, Amnesty succinctly sums up why we abhor the death penalty and urges India to join those nations that have rejected its use, stating eloquently that the death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. It violates the right to life as enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights. It is arbitrary, discriminatory and can be inflicted upon the innocent. I would add that all the international evidence demonstrates that it is also ineffective as a deterrent to crime and can often result in terrible, irreversible miscarriages of justice. For all those reasons and as a friend of India—someone who has close family ties and community links with India—I urge the Indian Government to join now that community of nations that have renounced the use of the death penalty and have abolished it once and for all.

I hope today that we can speak with one voice on this issue. By doing so, we may be able to impress better on India the need for change. So many MPs have supported the campaign not only because of their own personal conviction, but because they are reflecting the views put to them by many of their constituents. Somebody from the media argued that the reason so many MPs support the debate is they have Punjabi and Sikh constituents. Well, that is undoubtedly true. MPs are simply doing their job in representing their constituents’ views—that is what we are elected to do. It is also worth understanding why so many Punjabis and Sikhs have made representations to us. First, there is of course a real fear on their part that a number of their compatriots could be executed, and on humanitarian grounds they wish to prevent that.

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate, and on doing so at the right time. As he said, the reason all of us here support this cause is not that we are anti-India. We must kill the myth that we are anti-India or that we are interfering in India’s internal affairs. We are taking a matter of principle and fighting for the rights of the people living in India and abroad.

[John McDonnell]

I fully concur with my hon. Friend.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[John McDonnell]

You, Mr Deputy Speaker, are rightly concerned about the length of time I am taking, so this is the last intervention I will take.

[Mr Bailey]

My hon. Friend talked about Members representing their Punjabi constituents. I have a petition with over 1,200 names on my desk, and what is significant about it is not only the number of Punjabi names, but the number of names of English origin, which I think reflects how the whole community in this country regards this policy in India. Does he agree that, if pursued, it will be damaging within not only the Indian diaspora in this country, but the indigenous and long-standing white community?

[John McDonnell]

I fully concur. I think that it will definitely be seen as a setback for us all.

Secondly, there is understandable concern among the Punjabi community because of the abiding sense of injustice within the community about the historic human rights abuses endured in the 1980s and 1990s, for which there has been no proper redress, and the ongoing human rights abuses experienced in recent times, such as physical abuse by the police, evidence of torture in cells and deaths in custody. That has also been experienced, as I have said, by the Dalit community and others.

Thirdly, people should also understand that the Sikh and Punjabi culture abhors the death penalty and human rights abuses. When the Sikh nation was established and the Darbar Sahib, or golden temple, was founded, the Sikh religion instilled in Punjabi culture a profound respect for life. Sikhs are always portrayed as warriors, but they were only warriors to defend their religion. During the period when there was an independent Punjabi nation, the death penalty did not feature in the law or governmental system and no one was put to death. That tradition of abhorrence of the death penalty and respect for life is reflected now in the Kesri Lehar petition calling for the abolition of the death penalty.

What can we do to bring about reform? We must first recognise that the historical relationship between India and Britain means that the UK Government are uniquely placed to urge the Indian Government to end the death penalty. Therefore, I call upon the UK Government to use every forum and every mechanism of communication established with India, formal and informal, to press the Indian Government to halt the executions now and sign up to the UN convention opposing the death penalty.

I wrote to the Prime Minister before his recent visit to India to urge him to raise the issue with the Indian Government, and I hope that today the Minister can report back on that and on the continuing pressure that successive Governments of different parties have put on the Indian Government. To add weight to the British Government’s representations, I urge them to raise the issue again with our European partners and to seek a joint representation from Europe on the subject. I urge the British Government, working with other Governments, to raise this call within the United Nations. With the UN Commission on Human Rights meeting imminently, this is an ideal time to put this back on the UN agenda.

My final words are addressed to the Indian Government. I said in the debate last July that India is the largest democracy in the world, yet it now stands alone in the developing world by still supporting the death penalty. Since then, unfortunately, it has stepped backwards and recommenced implementing the death penalty. I appeal to India, the country of so many religions and value systems that value life, the country of Gandhi and non-violence, the country that now seeks to be a world leader, and to our Indian brothers and sisters in government there to embrace humanity by ending the state killing once and for all.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

I am grateful to the hon. Members who have made such valid and thoughtful contributions today. I know that many have been dragged down to Eastleigh for the by-election to pester constituents to no effect whatever, but I am grateful to those who have come along today, because it has demonstrated that this House speaks with one voice on this matter, and that voice is the plea to India to end the current threat of the implementation of the death penalty and move towards its abolition.

The tone was struck by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and reinforced by the hon. Members for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) and for Bedford (Richard Fuller), my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma). We are speaking as friends of India. We recognise and respect the sovereignty of India as an independent state, but our historic links give us the opportunity to speak as friends.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) explained the background and the historical human rights abuses that unfortunately have still not been addressed, and described how they are being compounded by the threat of the death penalty that now hangs over Balwant Singh Rajoana and Professor Bhullar. The Minister has explained the history of representations that we are pleased that the Government have made and continue to make. The right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley and I have offered other practical ideas and opportunities for further interventions to try to move this issue along to fruition.

We thank the Kesri Lehar campaigners who brought this issue to us and made this debate fundamentally important in the campaign to save the lives of the two individuals we have referred to, but also to end the death penalty once and for ever.

The last word in this debate should be from the family of one of the men. During the debate, a letter came in from relatives of Professor Bhullar. They say that they can only pray that people are listening and that everyone will do everything they can to stop this inhuman execution of an innocent person and a terrible miscarriage of justice. They beg the House today to please help Professor Bhullar to be saved from the death penalty and to help them immediately. That message goes out not only from that family, but from all of us. We want to ensure that no one else suffers the death penalty in India. We want a peaceful and harmonious society to be constructed, and such a society cannot be constructed on the basis of the death penalty.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the national petition launched by the Kesri Lehar campaign urging the UK Government to press the Indian government to sign and ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which encompasses the death penalty, with the result that India would abolish the death penalty and lift this threat from Balwant Singh Rajoana and others.