Draft Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 (Amendment of List of Safe States) Regulations 2024

John McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 General Committees

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

I am not a member of the Committee and therefore do not have a vote. If the motion is carried, however, I will seek a vote on the Floor of the House at some stage, or a deferred Division.

I am the secretary of the NUJ—National Union of Journalists—parliamentary group, and the issue for us, which also relates to all the other issues raised with regard to the LGBT community, is that we have to convince ourselves that a country is safe before we pass legislation such as this. I will speak specifically about Georgia, drawing on the evidence before us. This has been raised already, but I am concerned that we have not seen a specific impact assessment for the individual countries updated by the Government.

The information that we can draw on, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon said, is the Government’s own country policy and information note from the past, which drew particular attention to the way in which the Georgian Government act with impunity, largely as a result of their influence on the judiciary. It also drew attention to the physical attacks on anyone who in any way opposes the ruling party in Government. In addition, the note draws attention to the way in which public defenders, media observers, non-governmental organisations, journalists and opposition parties are claiming that criminal prosecutions are being brought against them.

Specifically, media sites or their owners have been targeted. The Government’s own country policy and information note on Georgia is fairly stark, and argues that journalists are being

“prevented from reporting on key issues and face censorship, harassment, verbal abuse and dispersal when reporting on public events or posing critical questions”.

Georgia is certainly not safe for those who stand up for human rights or for journalists.

Reporters Without Borders, which the NUJ works with, draws up and publishes an annual world press freedom index. On Georgia, it said:

“Verbal and physical assaults on journalists are frequent, including by senior government officials, especially during election campaigns. A sustained and brutal assault on 50 reporters during homophobic counter-demonstrations in July 2021, in front of impassive security forces, marked an unprecedented setback. The lack of transparency and progress in the investigation of the event”,

and a three-and-a-half-year sentence for the director of one of the independent TV channels all point towards a culture of near-impunity for attacking journalists and putting their lives at risk in Georgia.

The Government’s original assessment in the CPIN was reflected by our partners elsewhere. The United States Department of State’s country report echoes the point about significant human rights abuses and reports on

“crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex persons and activists.”

When those crimes are reported by journalists in Georgia, they themselves get attacked. That report’s executive summary says:

“The government took steps to investigate some officials for human rights abuses, but impunity remained a problem. The government’s failure to credibly investigate and prosecute the organizers of July 2021 violence in advance of the Pride March resulted in impunity for those abuses. Lack of accountability also continued for the inappropriate police use of force against journalists and protesters during June 2019 demonstrations and the 2017 abduction and rendition from the country of Azerbaijani journalist and activist Afgan Mukhtarli.”

This is a country that our Government allege is safe, yet we see detentions and renditioning—all illegal, and specifically targeted against journalists.

Hon. Members present should note that Germany has now accepted claims from people from Georgia who are gay because they feel they have not been protected in the country and that they are being targeted. All the evidence before us leads to the conclusion that Georgia is not a safe country. It is certainly not safe for those who stand up for truth and justice, including journalists, and it is certainly not safe for the LGBT community, and the practice of the Government demonstrates that, exactly as has been said. The figures that have been cited are pretty stark. One in three claims from Georgia were accepted in 2022, under our existing system, and one in seven were accepted in 2023. If these regulations go through, we will be putting a large number of people at risk of physical abuse and detention. Indeed, with the levels of violence targeted against journalists and others in Georgia, I believe that in some instances we will be putting people’s lives at risk.

For most of us, these delegated legislation Committees take place in less than five minutes. People come along, and if they are delayed any longer, they look at their phones and do a bit of their correspondence. This one is different. This one is about life and death for some people and physical safety for many others. Therefore, we need to take this seriously. The Government need to come up with more justification if they want hon. Members to vote for this. If there is not a vote today, I hope we can secure one on the Floor of the House, because although the Government might come up with a serious argument as to the rationale for this between now and then, at the moment I cannot for the life of me see one.