UK Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order (International Relations Committee Report)

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I too greatly welcome this timely and well-judged report from the International Relations Select Committee, and particularly the recommendations to strengthen engagement with the Commonwealth, to invest more in our global diplomatic presence, to increase the deployment of our smart power assets such as the British Council and the BBC global news, and I wholeheartedly support the commitments to the multilateral rules-based system —to the UN, NATO, the WTO and other multilateral organisations, however imperfect they may be. I also welcome the recommendation to increase engagement with regional powers across Africa, Asia and Latin America. That is particularly relevant in post-election India and Indonesia. I have three points to make.

In a world where 84% of people hold religious beliefs, I would like to have seen a reference in the report to the rise in persecution, crimes against humanity and genocide. Upholding Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is directly linked to national security, displacement and migration, stability, prosperity and other strategic concerns. As the BBC’s courageous correspondent, Lyse Doucet, has said, “If you don’t understand religion, you cannot understand the world”. It is certainly an issue that is taken seriously in Washington, and that brings me to my second point.

The committee concluded that the UK’s “bedrock” relationship with the United States is under “disturbing pressure”. Past Administrations in both countries have always been able to differ, as on occasion did Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, but it is central to this country’s interests that, notwithstanding our other relationships, we should sustain this bedrock relationship and entrench our more natural alliances such as the Five Eyes. Fevered anti-Americanism is a huge error. With this in mind, in the light of plans to allow Huawei’s investment in 5G and other Chinese investment in our national infrastructure, we should pay special attention to the remarks of Robert Spalding, the former senior director for strategy at the US National Security Council, who writing in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph said that to “miss the significance” of the US position would be a “grave misjudgment”.

That brings me to China. While we should seek ways to engage with China, I am concerned that the report’s summary paragraph underestimates the serious dangers posed by China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour on the world stage combined with its increasingly repressive behaviour towards its own people. Consider, for instance, China’s influence on the UN and specifically the bodies and mechanisms focusing on the promotion and protection of human rights. In its report The Costs of International Advocacy, Human Rights Watch says:

“China has worked consistently and often aggressively to silence criticism of its human rights record before UN bodies ... the stakes of such interventions go beyond how China’s own human rights record is addressed at the UN and pose a longer-term challenge to the integrity of the system as a whole”.


Human Rights Watch cites: cases of harassment and intimidation of UN officers, NGOs, and activists; efforts to weaken key human rights resolutions; and opposition to any discussion of China’s own human rights record. In the Brookings Institution’s China’s Long Game on Human Rights at the United Nations, Ted Piccone warns that we are at,

“the start of a more wholesale campaign to reshape the rules and instruments of the international human rights system”.

More effort should be made to protect civil society organisations and activists, and to allow their safe participation at the UN. More effort should be made to radically reform the Security Council veto—a point referred to earlier in the debate by the noble Lord, Lord Bates. China’s threat to use the veto or to consider its use when looking at referrals to the International Criminal Court of countries like North Korea and Burma—I declare my interests as the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea and as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Burma—graphically illustrates how the rules-based international order, or at least the rule of law, can be so badly compromised.

All of this is happening when China’s own human rights situation is at a critical moment. Under Xi Jinping, we have seen a rapid and significant deterioration in political rights, in freedom of religion or belief and in freedom of expression. Those who defend these rights or question in any way the dominance of the party are subject to harassment, intimidation, arbitrary detention, torture and imprisonment. Thousands of lawyers, religious adherents, journalists, academics, labour activists and students have been targeted in this way. In the context of evolving UK-China relations, evidence given to the Select Committee highlights the need for the UK to remain committed to its own values and ideals. Carrie Gracie, the former China editor at the BBC, told the committee that it was,

“very important to speak up for one’s values, assert where one’s red lines are and be firm about adhering to them, because one’s Chinese counterpart expects that”.

One glaring example is that of the mass detention of over 1 million people in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Normal life for Muslims has become impossible. An excellent briefing by CSW describes what it calls the,

“already critical level of fear ... Disappearances can happen at any time, to any person, without warning. In such a climate of fear, many Uyghur Muslims have stopped public and communal religious observance and have broken off contact with relatives overseas”.

Over Easter, I met a group of Uighurs. British citizens are among the many families whose relatives have disappeared into these camps. If the UK is to remain committed to its values, we must continue to speak up about the appalling situation in Xinjiang. If China fails to respect the rights of Muslims to live peaceably within its own borders, it will place at risk its own internal harmony and, overseas, its belt and road programmes.

I turn finally to Hong Kong, and I declare an interest as a patron of Hong Kong Watch. We must not forget the ongoing importance of the UK’s commitment to Hong Kong under the Sino-British joint declaration. Last month, I met two young graduates who were among the 100,000 people who in early May joined protests against proposals to amend the city’s extradition laws. Hong Kong’s International Chamber of Commerce says that these will have an,

“adverse impact on Hong Kong as a place to live and work, and to continue growing as a major international business center”.

If we fail to act, we will be passive witnesses to the most grievous breach of the joint declaration since the handover. I hope that the Minister will make a clear statement on that in his remarks.

Not for the first time, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, has done us all a great service by giving us this opportunity to debate an important report. I join with others in expressing great admiration for his unstinting and sustained service to the House.

Attacks on Journalists

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, for the way in which he has introduced today’s debate with his customary expertise and skill.

Central to any debate looking at press freedom and the harassment of journalists is Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”.


These last three words “regardless of frontiers” remind us that this is a transnational obligation which all states are duty-bound to uphold. This obligation is given even sharper definition in the internet age, as journalists face ever more danger—intimidation, imprisonment, violent attacks and even murder—in reprisal for their work. Only yesterday, in the Times there was a report on the death of an Afghan journalist, Mena Mangal, who was shot dead in Kabul. Fifteen other reporters and media workers were killed in Afghanistan last year.

Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, is to be commended for marking World Press Freedom Day, launching a global campaign to protect journalists doing their job, and promoting the benefits of a free media and especially for hosting in July the world’s first ministerial summit on media freedom.

The urgent need for this initiative was underlined at the Legatum Institute’s Courage in Journalism award which I recently attended. It was given posthumously in recognition of amazing bravery. Poignantly, the ceremony was being held a few days after Lyra McKee’s funeral in Northern Ireland. One of the judges, the award-winning journalist, Christina Lamb, recalled the death of her colleague, Marie Colvin, killed in Homs. Reflecting on her own 32 years as a journalist, she said that the job had become much more dangerous. The judges highlighted 70 deaths during the past year. Christina Lamb said:

“From Afghanistan to Mexico, from Palestine to Somalia, and from Brazil to India, journalists on assignment were shot in the back, blown up by car bombs or died in suicide attacks”.


In 2018, according to the Foreign Office, 99 journalists were killed, 348 detained and 60 taken hostage by non-state groups. Although there are conflicting figures, all agree that 2018 was the deadliest year ever for journalists.

All of us here are too well aware of the lethal dangers in countries such as North Korea and Pakistan. I declare an interest as co-chair of two relevant All-Party Parliamentary Groups. However, this is an issue in Europe as well. In October 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta’s best-known investigative journalist, was killed when a car bomb exploded after she had reported on government corruption, nepotism, money laundering and organised crime.

The 2019 Legatum award was given in memory of a brave young man, Ján Kuciak from Slovakia. He was just 27 when he was murdered, along with his fiancée, following an investigation in which he linked the Italian mafia to the City of London and Slovakian senior government advisors. His reporting led to the fall of the Slovakian Government and rallied many in the nation to get behind press freedom.

Reporters Without Borders, reflecting on its index of 180 countries, says that the line separating physical from verbal violence is dissolving. By way of example, its index states that, in the Philippines—ranked 133rd—President Rodrigo Duterte, “constantly insults reporters”, outrageously warning that they are “not exempted from assassination”.

Even in democratic societies, the use of intemperate vituperative insults and dog whistles creates a climate of rancid hatred, and politicians need to think more carefully about their use of language.

When the Minister replies, I would like him to comment on these examples from Afghanistan, Malta, Slovakia and the Philippines, and the situations in Papua, Iran and China. Last week, here at Westminster, representatives of West Papua meeting the noble Lord, Lord Collins, me and others described,

“appalling restrictions on foreign journalists from visiting Papua and surveillance and controls on Indonesian journalists”.

On 3 February last year, three BBC workers were deported from West Papua after commenting on the humanitarian health crisis in Asmat, during which around 100 children died. My noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries, who chaired the meeting last week, will no doubt say more about this in due course. The BBC also faces restrictions in Iran—we heard about them from the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey—which has been systematically targeting BBC Persian journalists, based mainly in London.

What of China, let alone North Korea, which boasts of its complete information blockade? Reporters Without Borders says that under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China exported,

“its tightly controlled news and information model in Asia”,

enabling other countries near the bottom of its index, including Vietnam, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, to continue their suppression of criticism and dissent. RWF says that its index has never previously had to classify so many countries as very bad. That is reinforced by Freedom House, which says that only 13% of the world’s population lives in a country with a genuinely free press, while 45% of the population lives in a media environment that is not free and that global press freedom has declined to its lowest point in 13 years.

All that illustrates why the Government’s initiative, like this debate, is to be welcomed, why we must be more energetic in upholding Article 19, and why we must safeguard a freedom that is a cornerstone of open, free and democratic societies.

Sri Lanka: UNHCR Refugees

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend speaks with great experience and insights, not just on the Commonwealth but on the two countries to which he refers, which are both friends of the United Kingdom. On the important issue of freedom of religion or belief, I visited Pakistan not so long ago, and I am sure that many of us have welcomed the recent steps that the Pakistani Government have taken in this respect, in what are pretty tense domestic environments. Indeed, yesterday we had the reported departure of Asia Bibi from Pakistan, which we all welcomed. We are working with the Pakistani Government on the importance of religious freedom and, as I said, we are also going to extend our work in building communal harmony and support for religious communities in Sri Lanka.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on the role he played in helping to secure the release of Asia Bibi and her ability to travel to be reunited yesterday with her family in Canada. The persecution of that Christian woman and the Ahmadi community in Pakistan should motivate us all in promoting freedom of religion and belief, and particularly Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Can I take the Minister to Written Questions which I tabled yesterday, which I gave him copies of? One referred to the police stations where Ahmadis and Christians have been taking refuge in Sri Lanka, where, as the noble Lord has said, they are even denied basic food, humanitarian aid and assistance. Can he tell us precisely what discussions we have had with the UNHCR in making progress to help those groups? My second point was about the use of textbooks in Sri Lanka which have been criticised by UNESCO for stirring up religious hatred and the dominance of some groups against the position of minorities. Are we taking action to ensure that those kinds of textbooks are no longer available in Sri Lankan schools?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, again, the noble Lord speaks with great insight on these issues; equally, to return to the issue of Asia Bibi, I pay tribute to his efforts in that respect—I think we are all grateful for what has happened. But he is right that the real result will be not to have 1,000 Asia Bibi cases. We must work with countries such as Pakistan to ensure, first and foremost, that the long-term objective must be the overturning of these draconian blasphemy laws, which are used not just against minority communities in Pakistan but against Muslim communities themselves. I therefore assure the noble Lord that we are working closely with the Pakistani Government to ensure that we can build not just religious tolerance but understanding at a core level.

The noble Lord mentioned the UNHCR; we are engaged fully with the Sri Lankan authorities and UN agencies on the ground to see what level of support we can offer. There has been no specific request apart from the figures I quoted to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, on specific refugees who may come to the United Kingdom. On the wider issue of textbooks, the noble Lord and I have discussed this matter, and I agree with him. We have a massive aid programme to various parts of the world, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and it is important that, as regards any support we provide, the values we seek to extend are reflected in the education and training, particularly which young children receive in those countries. I assure the noble Lord that we are working closely on that very objective with DfID colleagues.

Burma (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Lords Chamber

If, indeed, the UK leaves the EU, clearly we need to have in place an effective sanctions regime. I am glad that the Government seem currently to be seeking to align themselves with the EU on this matter, but that does not map out the future. Although some may see opportunities here to strengthen what we might do, there has to be a greater risk that we will be tempted to soften our approach as a competitive advantage—and that clearly would not be leading by example.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I am very happy to support the four SIs before your Lordships’ House, and welcome the way in which the Minister introduced them. I am vice-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democracy in Burma, a founder of the Jubilee Campaign and patron of Karenaid.

When I took my seat in your Lordships’ House in 1997, the then Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers, the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Lord Weatherill—one of my two sponsors—encouraged me to take an interest in the plight of the Karen in Burma. He introduced me to our late and very much missed colleague, Viscount Slim, whose family had so many historic associations with Burma. Viscount Slim encouraged me to support Prospect Burma, the charity he established, and to take these issues seriously.

I travelled to Burma and entered the Karen State illegally on two occasions, visiting the refugee camps where, to this day, there are more than 100,000 refugees from the Karen communities; some families have been there since the 1940s and 1950s. However, it has to be said that the situation in the Karen State significantly improved during the period of transition when the National League for Democracy won the elections in Burma and started to have some say over the governance of the country. But it has become very clear in the years that have followed that whatever hopes and progress we believed there would be in Burma—not least because of the role that Aung San Su Kyi, we felt, would be able to play—have been dashed.

Two years ago I was able to go to Naypyidaw, the capital city of Burma, and met with Daw Suu. I raised specifically with her what I had seen the day before in a village. I had been to a small village where Buddhists and Muslims had lived together alongside one another in harmony and coexistence for generations, and I saw that the madrassa in the village had been burnt to the ground. I was grateful to the Foreign Office official who accompanied me. We took evidence and gave it to Aung San Suu Kyi. I raised the issue of what was happening to the Rohingya people as well as the Kachin people and other groups among the many ethnicities in Burma who were clearly increasingly suffering. What has been happening to the Rohingya people ever since does not need to be rehearsed at any length with your Lordships. Around 1 million Rohingya are in camps, adding to the 44,000 people around the world who, according to UNHCR figures, are displaced every single day. That is creating untold misery, whether for those who take to the sea or for those who try to cross the borders into Bangladesh and have now been displaced for what is approaching years, with very little progress made to establish their rights to citizenship or to deal with the fundamental issues that led to them fleeing in the first place.

The Minister says that sanctions are a key element of our policy as a way of putting pressure on the military authorities in Burma who have brought this sad situation to pass. I agree that they are a tool in the kit, but one has to ask whether, by themselves, they are actually achieving a great deal. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is to be applauded for being the most rigorous of departments in European Union countries in enforcing the arms embargo. We have one of the best records, and that should be said. But let us be clear about what these sanctions actually do. Apart from the arms embargo, they only amount to a ban on some 14 military and security personnel in Burma going on holiday to European Union member states. When we think of that as a response to crimes against humanity and what may even be approaching genocide—a point I shall come back to in a moment—it is, to coin a phrase used in a note I received only this morning from Burma Campaign UK, “pretty pathetic”.

It is certainly disproportionate, and I remind the Minister of his reply to a Question I tabled on 19 June last year. He rightly said:

“The Foreign Secretary has been clear that ethnic cleansing has taken place in Rakhine, and that the violence of August and September 2017 may even constitute genocide, though that would be a determination for an international court to make”.


On 26 June, I pressed the same issue with his noble friend Lady Fairhead, given that trade is central to the question of sanctions. On 12 June I had asked the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, whether the Government planned to issue official guidance to companies not to engage in any form of business with companies owned by the Burmese military. The reply from the noble Baroness simply did not accord with the sort of words used by both the Foreign Secretary and the noble Lord speaking for the Foreign Office. The noble Baroness said:

“DIT continues to support trade with Burma as an important part of driving mutual prosperity”.


Who is it that we are driving mutual prosperity with? We are talking about the Tatmadaw, the military junta. They are the people responsible for what has happened in Rakhine, for what is happening to the Kachin people, and for many of the depredations of which we are all too well aware. The noble Baroness, Lady Fairhead, went on to answer my question about whether the Government planned to make a public statement of support for a UN mandated global arms embargo against Myanmar. The reply from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who dealt with that aspect, was:

“The Government continues to assess that there is insufficient support at present for a UN Security Council Resolution instituting a global arms embargo for Burma”.


Perhaps I may press the noble Lord again today as to whether that remains Her Majesty’s Government’s position and whether sometimes, even if you know you are going to be defeated—I say this for those of us who have spent our lives often being defeated—there are moments when it is right to take a stand and to put people on the spot. If we are saying that representatives of the People’s Republic of China are the ones who would veto such a resolution, let them do so and let us demonstrate the difference between their values and ours. Sometimes, I get frustrated that we use this as the first line of defence in places like North Korea, which has been described by the UN as a state without parallel when it comes to human rights violations, and in the case of Myanmar. We are saying that we will not take this forward because we think that others will oppose or veto it. Well, let them do so.

China: Religious Freedom

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right to raise the desperate situation facing Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province. I assure him that we have raised this directly, on a bilateral basis, with the Chinese Government. As I indicated in my earlier Answer, I raised the issue directly during the Human Rights Council, with specific reference to the Uighur Muslims, during our statement there. Working with like-minded partners, including the United States, we also hosted a side event during that council to draw further attention to and increase international collaboration on this priority issue.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

Has the Minister had a chance to read yesterday’s Spectator and last week’s Westminster Hall debate about forced organ harvesting from China’s religious minorities, including Falun Gong, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and, possibly, Christian dissidents along with prisoners of conscience? Fiona Bruce, Member of Parliament and chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, described it as,

“potentially nothing less than a 21st century genocide”,

and “almost a perfect crime” because “no one survives”.

Will the Government attend this week’s China Tribunal hearings, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC—who prosecuted Slobodan Milošević—and modelled on the people’s tribunal into the Vietnam War, pioneered by Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre? Their interim findings say that tribunal members are,

“certain—unanimously, and sure beyond reasonable doubt—that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practised for a substantial period of time involving a very substantial number of victims”.

Will the Government ask China for its response to these deeply disturbing findings?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I read the debate that took place, not the article, but I will do so. On a number of occasions, the noble Lord and I have talked about the specific issue of organ harvesting. I assure him that we are watching and working closely on the outcomes of Sir Geoffrey Nice’s review. The detailed report will also be out later this year. Our officials have attended every evidence session and will continue to do so and update accordingly. In raising this issue directly, I am deeply concerned, like the noble Lord, particularly because there is an issue of organ harvesting not just from people elsewhere: I have heard it suggested and was briefed on prisoners in the system being used for this purpose. The situation is deeply concerning and we are raising it at all levels.

Sexual Violence

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lady, Baroness Hodgson, has consistently and tenaciously championed the cause of those who have been subjected to unspeakable violence. In her moving and powerful speech this evening, she rightly demanded more effective ways of holding perpetrators to account and ensuring justice. I think we should all express our gratitude to her for that.

I should declare that I am joint chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups on North Korea and Pakistani Minorities, vice-chair of the APPGs on Burma and the DRC and an officer of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Sudan and South Sudan. All of these are countries I have visited and all are disfigured by the use of rape as a weapon of war. I am also a trustee of Arise, a charity that works with women who have been trafficked or enslaved.

Last year, Denis Mukwege—who was referred to by the noble Baroness—with Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman I have had the privilege to meet, jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize, given,

“for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict”,

as it says in the citation. In the DRC, where more than 5 million people are estimated to have died in the long-running conflicts—a greater number than in any other conflict since World War II—Dr Mukwere has treated thousands of women who were raped, performing up to 10 operations every day. Since Panzi Hospital, in Bukavu, was founded by Dr Mukwege in 1999, it has treated more than 82,000 patients with complex gynaecological damage and trauma. An estimated 60% of these injuries were caused by sexual violence. Dr Mukwege describes how his patients arrive at the hospital sometimes naked, usually in horrific conditions, victims of different armed groups.

Throughout this discussion of international mechanisms to hold perpetrators of sexual violence to account, we should keep Dr Mukwege and Nadia Murad—tortured and raped by Islamic State militants during their genocide—at the heart of our deliberations. It is crucial to begin with one important fact: that there are not many adequate mechanisms in place to end the current culture of impunity. Indeed, the only permanent international criminal tribunal, the International Criminal Court, despite being able to deal with cases of sexual violence, genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or crimes of aggression, often lacks the jurisdiction to be able to investigate the crimes and to prosecute the perpetrators. The ICC is a treaty-bound court and its competence is limited by that fact alone. This is graphically illustrated by the genocidal campaign unleashed by ISIS against religious and other minorities in Syria and Iraq—people like Nadia Murad.

As the House knows, in 2014, ISIS, driven by its hatred of difference, instigated mass murder, torture, abuse, rape, sexual violence, and forced displacement. To this day, more than 3,000 Yazidi women and girls are still missing after they were abducted from Sinjar in September 2014 and are suspected to be in Syria. For more than four years, these women and girls have been subjected to most atrocious abuse imaginable. In her testimony, Nadia says:

“One moment I was a farm girl, going to school in my village in northern Iraq and the next I was an ISIS sex slave, ‘owned’ by militants. My peaceful existence was shattered simply because my religious beliefs were deemed sub-human by a group of men who believed they were superior. ISIS murdered my family and took me captive, exposing me to horrors which would be impossible to imagine had I not endured every moment and felt each brutal blow”.


She says she chose to speak because:

“I believed the world needed to know the truth and I wanted justice. I wanted ISIS held accountable. If we cannot achieve this, with all the evidence and our justice systems, then we are giving a green light to these groups”.


Yet, despite the level and nature of these atrocities, the ICC cannot get involved. The ICC does not have territorial jurisdiction in Syria or Iraq, and, currently, there is no other international or regional criminal court that could deal with prosecutions. Another option would be for the Security Council to establish an ad hoc tribunal to prosecute the ISIS fighters, modelled on the precedent set by the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda. The Minister knows that I have been in touch with him and the Foreign Office on a number of occasions to put forward that proposal.

Under Security Council Resolution 2379, an investigative team is already mandated to collect, preserve and prepare for future prosecutions the evidence of the crimes perpetrated by ISIS in Iraq. As the next step, the Security Council could establish the international criminal tribunal for ISIS, modelled on the ICTY or the ICTR, with a tailored mandate.

In June 2018, work in this direction was initiated by Pieter Omtzigt, a Dutch MP, who convened a meeting between the Iraqi Government’s representatives and experts to explore the need to assist Iraq in prosecuting ISIS fighters and looking into the available options. The Iraqi representatives agreed that as the issue of ISIS is not only a problem of Iraq but of international concern and an international responsibility, Iraq would need assistance with the prosecutions. More than 850 people from the UK travelled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS and were directly involved there in every aspect of the genocide, including systematic rape and enslavement. The UK clearly needs to be involved in prosecuting the fighters. Stripping them of citizenship is not the way to bring about justice, a point I raised during Question Time recently. It merely makes it harder.

For months, I have I have been urging the Government to explore the initiation of international or regional prosecutions, especially as the investigative team has just begun the excavations of the first mass grave in Sinjar. The international option is crucial if there is to be justice. Survivors of rape and sexual violence are not involved in the proceedings of Iraqi domestic courts, giving little hope that justice will be served. How can we ensure justice if the very people affected by the atrocities are not even asked to testify, to tell the stories of what happened to them, and do not have the opportunity to see justice being done or to hear an apology?

Considering the territorial limitations of the ICC, it may be crucial to reconsider whether we need a new mechanism that would be better suited to address the growing impunity. If the Minister would be willing, I would be most grateful for a meeting to discuss this troubling situation and possible ways forward.

Let me also briefly mention Pakistan, which I visited in November, and where the Minister also was recently. At least 1,000 women belonging to religious minorities, some of them minors, have been abducted, forcibly converted and often married to those very abductors. They come from the very poorest sectors of society and are easy targets for the perpetrators of sexual violence. The law-enforcement agencies often show little or no interest in helping aggrieved parents to register a police case against the kidnappers. Even if the parents persist and somehow reach the courts and the abductors are forced to bring victims to the court, the abducted are threatened and told that if they tell the court about their kidnappings, their parents and siblings will be killed. Thus they have no option but to admit in the court that their conversion was voluntary.

In the past few weeks, there have been at least six such cases, which I have drawn to the Minister’s attention. These include a 13 year-old Christian girl, Sadaf Masih, who was kidnapped, forcibly converted and married on 6 February, in Punjab. On 20 March, two teenaged Hindu girls, Reena, aged 15, and Raveena, aged 13, were similarly kidnapped, forcibly converted and married within a matter of hours, in Sindh. The kidnappers were married already, with children, but that that did not prevent them from forcibly marrying those girls. In the worst-case scenarios, the kidnappers after sexual and physical abuse, sell them into slavery and they are sent to brothels.

We give Pakistan £383,000 in aid each and every day—£2.8 billion over 20 years. Surely we can use our aid programmes with leverage to ensure justice for the victims and to save many broken lives and families. The noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, is to be thanked for encouraging us to address this important issue this evening, and I reiterate my gratitude to her.

Yemen: Giving Peace a Chance (International Relations Committee Report)

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 1st April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in the aftermath of António Guterres’s assertion that Yemen is,

“the world’s worst humanitarian crisis”,

the International Affairs Committee has provided the House with a succinct, brave and timely report. Yemen’s victims are disfigured by grinding poverty, caught in a cycle of declining GDP, the collapsing Yemeni rial, accelerating food and fuel prices and, as the United Nations Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs described in a recent report, it has,

“A higher percentage of people face death, hunger and disease than in any other country … Eighty percent of the entire population requires some form of humanitarian assistance and protection … Twenty million Yemenis need help securing food and a staggering 14 million people are in acute humanitarian need … Ten million people are one step away from famine and starvation … Seven million, four hundred thousand people, nearly a quarter of the entire population, are malnourished, many acutely so … Two million malnourished children under five and 1.1 million pregnant and lactating women require urgent treatment to survive ... Conditions are worsening at a nearly unprecedented rate”.


In what is, increasingly, a breeding ground for the next wave of ISIS recruiting sergeants, it is reported that in western Yemen hidden landmines have taken the lives of 267 civilians, also claiming the lives of five charity workers who were demining the area. Aid agencies estimate a 63% increase in gender-based violence, 1.3 million suspected cases of cholera—the worst outbreak in modem history—with coalition airstrikes destroying water treatment facilities, crippling access to clean water. In a war crime warranting prosecution, five medical facilities run by Médecins Sans Frontières have been bombed since 2015. Despite the three-month-old truce in Hodeidah, according to UNICEF,

“At least one child dies every 10 minutes in Yemen from malnutrition and preventable diseases”.


In December, UNICEF reported:

“Over 6,700 children were verified killed or severely injured. Nearly 1.5 million children have been displaced, many of them living a life that is a mere shadow of what childhood should be. In Yemen today, 7 million children go to sleep hungry every night. Every single day, 400,000 children face life-threatening severe acute malnutrition and could die any minute. More than 2 million children are out of school; those who are in school often have to settle for poor quality education in overcrowded classrooms”.


As the conflict and the humanitarian crisis rage on, the estimated cost, as we have heard during this debate, has reached staggering sums of billions of dollars. In evidence to the committee, the then Minister Alistair Burt—an old friend of mine—described Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s,

“huge existential fears for their states”,

but, as the report says, he also said that,

“Opponents of the Saudi-led coalition had used a ‘very easy narrative’ that had ‘misunderstood the nature of this conflict’”.


He insisted that the UK was,

“not a party to the military conflict as part of the coalition”,

but this is a very elastic definition. Last week, as we have heard, national newspapers reported:

“Members of the Special Boat Service … were shot while fighting in the Saadah area in the north of the country”.


How is that not taking part in the military conflict?

However, it is far worse than that. Over four years, the coalition has carried out over 19,000 air strikes—one every 106 minutes. In 2019, the UN panel of experts on Yemen said that precautionary measures to protect civilians are “largely inadequate and ineffective”. The UK has provided training in targeting weapons, along with liaison officers at Saudi headquarters, resupplied Saudi air capability and provided technical maintenance and spare parts. We have licensed £4.7 billion of arms exports to the Saudis, along with a further £860 million of arms to their coalition partners. As only second to the United States in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, we have stoked the fires of this conflict by selling arms to a country which has exported terror and ideology. We have acted as quartermaster to the conflict and then salve our consciences by boasting about how much aid we have given to the suffering people of Yemen.

Although Ministers have played a constructive role in promoting United Nations Security Council Resolution 2451 and encouraging the work of the admirable Martin Griffiths, special envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General, in brokering the Stockholm agreement our own credibility in this process is damaged when, as the report says, in their licensing of arms sales to Saudi Arabia the Government are “narrowly on the wrong side” of international law,

“given the volume and type of arms being exported to the Saudi-led coalition”.

The report goes on to say that these sales,

“are highly likely to be the cause of significant civilian casualties in Yemen”.

When he comes to reply, I hope that the Minister will respond to the call of the 25 Yemeni and global NGOs which have called on Germany to extend its moratorium on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and tell us whether he is comfortable that we have not done the same. The UK’s response and that of France—countries which both produce arms that require parts and components of German origin—has been for the UK to actively lobby Germany to lift its moratorium. This demonstrates again how we are stepping over the line, and it risks weakening international standards for arms control. Indeed, it may violate our obligations under the Arms Trade Treaty including:

“Respecting and ensuring respect for international humanitarian law”,


and preventing human suffering. I might add that, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, the US Congress has voted to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen—although the White House has signalled that, if necessary, it will veto this.

Knowing of the attacks on civilians and atrocities in Yemen while still providing the weapons to Saudi Arabia makes Her Majesty’s Government complicit in those atrocities. Your Lordships may recall that both Yemen and Saudi Arabia are accused of having committed war crimes; hence, Her Majesty’s Government could fall within the ambit of complicity. Contrary to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Her Majesty’s Government are subject to the International Criminal Court, and Ministers should urgently seek the advice of the Government’s law officers on this matter. If they seriously want to see an end to the carnage and suffering in Yemen, the Government should immediately end their complicity in this disgraceful business and make it clear that this appalling campaign of killing is not to be conducted in our name.

War Criminals: International Mechanisms for Prosecution

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hylton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will make proposals for international mechanisms to identify and prosecute suspected war criminals, in particular in the Middle East, in consultation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other relevant parties.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Hylton, and with his permission, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom helped to secure a Security Council resolution in December 2017 to establish a UN investigative team to support domestic efforts by Iraq to hold Daesh accountable by collecting, preserving and storing evidence of Daesh crimes. The UK also co-sponsored the United Nations General Assembly resolution in December 2016 that established the international, impartial and independent mechanism for Syria, a step forward in ensuring accountability for atrocities committed in that country.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. With the fall of ISIS at Baghuz, and as the investigative team established by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2379 begins its first mass grave excavation in Sinjar, will the Minister say how the evidence of genocide will be used? What consideration is being given to establishing an international or regional criminal tribunal to ensure that the trials are conducted with due process? Will he reflect that it is inevitable that the removal of citizenship from perpetrators will make it even harder to bring those responsible for genocide to justice?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the noble Lord raised the issue of the first mass graves. Some noble Lords may have seen the many images; I have read the reports. It is poignant that those graves have been found where Nadia Murad used to live. She had to go through many tragic circumstances and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I agree with the noble Lord about the importance of ensuring that, through the passing of Resolution 2379, the first step is collection and preservation. In many cases, prosecutions will be best left to national authorities, and we continue to work with Iraq. I know that the noble Lord is particularly keen to ensure that local or regional justice is served. It may be that in future some form of international hybrid justice mechanism is used to try those most responsible for crimes of international concern. It is too early at this stage to suggest where each crime will be tried, but we are looking at all options.

On the issue of the prosecution of perpetrators of genocide where the removal of citizenship has occurred, I am sure that the noble Lord would agree that we all share the Government’s priority of the safety and security of our own citizens. Those who joined Daesh will face justice, whether in Iraq, once mechanisms are set up, or through international tribunals. If foreign fighters return here, that will be a matter for the CPS and police to judge.

China: Uighur Muslims

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My noble friend makes some important points. On organ harvesting, I am fully cognisant of the issue of Falun Gong, which I know the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has raised several times. As my noble friend may be aware, Sir Geoffrey Nice conducted a report on this matter, the preliminary findings of which have been made available; the final report is still due. Foreign Office officials attended the launch of the preliminary report and will attend the follow-up meeting. On the other issues she raises, let me assure her that in all our interactions with the Chinese Administration, we have made it very clear that their actions are disproportionate, discriminatory against particular communities and, indeed, counter- productive in the longer term for China as it seeks to establish its position on the world stage. I assure my noble friend that we will continue to raise these issues through all avenues.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in the aftermath of the death in detention of the Uighur poet and musician, Abdurehim Heyit, how does the Minister respond to the Turkish Foreign Ministry—referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia—calling on China to close the camps, alleging, in its words, “torture and brainwashing” and calling them “a shame on humanity”? Can we expect to see the United Kingdom Government not only press again the human rights point with the Security Council but raise with China the danger to its whole belt and road initiative, which is in jeopardy if many countries with large Muslim populations decide to follow Turkey’s lead and start imposing sanctions, preventing the development of those capital projects?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

Like the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, the noble Lord raises the issue of Turkey and other countries. I assure them that we are working with all international partners on this important priority. I agree with the noble Lord about the camps. First, China claimed that they did not exist. Now the claim is that they are there for re-education. About 10% of the whole Uighur community is being held in these camps. It is clear that the camps are extrajudicial and are held so that people can change their faith. We are aware of the various reports and we will act to ensure that they are verifiable. That does not mean that we are sitting back and doing nothing; we are working with all like-minded partners. As I said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, I shall seek to take this up during Human Rights Council meetings as well.

Sudan

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 15th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I will certainly follow up on what the noble Lord suggests. He mentioned IGAD at the end of his question. The returns that we have seen from the IGAD relationship demonstrate directly the benefits of Uganda and Sudan working for the betterment of near neighbours, including South Sudan.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, has the Minister had a chance to look at the information that I sent him in the past couple of days about the disproportionate use of force by the Bashir regime in firing bullets and tear gas into a hospital? Is this not in line with precisely what this regime has done in Darfur, where 2 million people were displaced and 200,000 killed, and in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, to which my noble friend Lady Cox referred? Is this not also in line with a Government who are in debt to some $40 billion and are using that money on violence and internal repression rather than to lift up the standard of living of people who are often living in gross misery, fuelling the exodus from that country and therefore fuelling all of the deaths that we see in the Mediterranean?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I have seen the detailed assessment that the noble Lord sent, and I thank him for it. We are acutely aware of, and of course deplore, the attack that took place on the hospital, firing into those people and actually targeting those who were assisting people who were already injured. It was appalling, and I assure the noble Lord that we are taking it up in the strongest terms. On the wider issue of Darfur, during my visit to Sudan I did visit the region. With the UN mission actually pulling away from Darfur, we remain deeply concerned that any gains that have been made in bringing peace will be lost.