BBC Persian Staff

Lord Clarke of Hampstead Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I assure my noble friend that we will continue to raise this. The latest example of this was when my right honourable friend Alistair Burt, the Minister of State for the region, visited on 29 April and raised this directly. My noble friend is also quite right that in July 2017 a criminal investigation was opened into the activities of all BBC Persian staff, which includes alleging that their work constituted a crime against Iran’s national security. The result has been great hardship, the freezing of assets, and 152 named individuals linked to the BBC Persian service have been captured by this. We continue to implore the Iranian authorities to treat the situation in such a way as to ensure the freedom of the press in Iran, and we will continue to press for such.

[Lord Clarke of Hampstead (Lab)]

My Lords, obviously the House wishes the Minister well in his attempts to get this situation put right for BBC staff. But given the track record of Rouhani and his Government on dealing with the human rights of his own people, I would not hold your breath about them changing their minds very quickly. What will Her Majesty’s Government do to make sure that we get better treatment for the BBC staff than we got for the unfortunate lady from Hampstead, who is still incarcerated after repeated attempts by this Government to get her released?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord is right. The human rights situation—I speak as the Human Rights Minister—is dire not just for the people of other nationalities or joint nationality, as the case that he has pointed to illustrates, but for Iranians themselves. We have seen the persecution of minority communities, including Christians and Baha’is, continuing in Iran. Our attitude, which I think is the right one, is that we will persevere with our bilateral exchanges directly with the Iranians and we will continue to raise this matter through international fora, including the Human Rights Council, as I have done most recently.