Iran (Human Rights)

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy]

We oppose the use of the death penalty in any circumstances, but the crucial starting point is that information on executions that are carried out should be transparent. We should know the figures for what people have been convicted of and how many executions have been carried out—half the executions I mentioned were carried out secretly, and most people would regard it as inappropriate that offences such as drugs trafficking should carry the death penalty. The issue is significant, and one on which we should continue to put pressure on the Iranian Government.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

The hon. Lady is giving a good overview of the difficulties. Does she concede that, because of its role as a state sponsor of terrorism and other activity in the middle east, in particular in support of despotic regimes, Iran is in many ways exporting human rights abuses throughout the region?

[Kerry McCarthy]

There is certainly concern about the international role played by Iran. I do not want to stray into the territory of its foreign policy, particularly because Iran does not fall under my brief in the shadow foreign affairs team, but I share the hon. Gentleman’s concern about the influence of the Iranian regime, in particular in the region, and the wrong message being sent to other regimes.

We have not debated in much detail today the impact of human rights abuses on women in the country. Officially, under article 20 of the Iranian constitution, there is equality between men and women. It states:

“All citizens of the country, both men and women, equally enjoy the protection of law and enjoy all human, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, in conformity with Islamic criteria.”

As a recent report by the UN confirms, however, Iranian law provides an insurmountable barrier to gender equality. To give a few examples, under Iranian law, a woman’s testimony is worth only half a man’s testimony; the age of criminality starts at the age of nine for girls, whereas it is 15 for boys; mothers may never have guardianship of their children, even if they are widowed; and women do not have equal inheritance rights. For some time there has been growing concern about the crackdown on women who fail to adhere to the traditional dress code in public. For example, the number of women applying to university has declined since measures taken by the regime to enforce the dress code there.

Disturbingly, Iranian authorities blame women who have been raped for inducing their attackers to sexually assault them. In June 2011, 14 women were kidnapped and gang-raped, but the Government claimed that the women had brought the attack on themselves and that the manner in which they had been dressed was reason enough not to bring the attackers to justice. Recently, we have seen the imprisonment of women’s rights activists who signed the “One Million Signatures” campaign to repeal discriminatory laws. One activist was sentenced to nine and a half years in jail for assembly and collusion against the regime and to a further two years for participating in a protest against laws discriminating against women. Another women’s rights activist was given three and a half years in one of Iran’s most notorious prisons in May 2011.

Three gay men are known to have been hanged in Iran in 2011, and two teenage boys, in a case that drew widespread international attention, were hanged in 2005 for the same offence. Some observers report that that is only the tip of the iceberg, because in many cases the families are not prepared to make public the fact that their relatives were executed under the sodomy laws.

I finish with a few words about the role of social media in Iran. We heard from the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) about how a fairly well organised, well educated opposition movement exists in Iran, and how it is struggling to break free from the regime’s grasp. According to Harvard university, the rate of growth of internet usage is higher in Iran than in any other country in the middle east. An estimated 700,000 active blogs come from the country. In 2009, the regime was quick to blame the use of the internet, social networking sites in particular, for the outbreak of protests following the disputed presidential election. Today, the regime does all it can to block access to websites promoting democratic change. For example, in September last year, a blogger received a nineteen-and-a-half year prison sentence for propaganda against the regime, and the UN’s recent report on the state of human rights in Iran gives numerous examples of bloggers and journalists imprisoned for similar activities.

It has now been reported that internet cafés have been asked to record customers’ online footprints and to install security cameras. As recently as Monday this week, the Iranian regime announced that it intends to introduce its own internet operating system, to enable it to block websites considered unsuitable and to monitor online activity. As we saw in other countries during the Arab spring, social media are incredibly important in spreading democratic ideas and in enabling people to mobilise opposition to human rights abuses and undemocratic practices. I urge the Minister, in his discussions on human rights in Iran, to stress that freedom of expression is an important human right, and that access to the internet and to social media is now a fundamental freedom that should be protected.