Iran: Human Rights

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for initiating today’s debate and keeping these issues very much in the public arena. His record on standing up for the rights of oppressed people throughout the world is second to none. Certainly, his record in doing so as a trade unionist is one of which I am particularly proud.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said, it is just over a month since we last debated Iran and its human rights record. Sadly, little has changed apart from one significant change which has been referred to in the debate—namely, the developments in the case of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe. We heard only yesterday that a court in Iran has rejected an appeal against her five-year prison sentence, originally handed down in September by a revolutionary court. Although official charges were never made public, she was accused of allegedly plotting to topple the Government in Tehran. According to her husband, the appeal was dismissed in a secret hearing of an Iranian revolutionary court on 4 January, but announced only yesterday. He added again that the precise charges against her remain secret, although apparently two new accusations were made at her appeal. One was that she had been head of recruitment for the BBC’s Farsi service when it was launched in 2009. The other charge, apparently, was that she was married to a British spy.

Monique Villa, the chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had never worked for the BBC Farsi service and that her husband,

“is not a spy but a reputable accountant”,

and that she is fully convinced of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s innocence.

As was mentioned in the last debate, we have heard that the Prime Minister raised strong concerns about the case directly with the Iranian President in August. Have any further representations been made at the level of Heads of Government? Can she confirm whether the UK Government have called for Mrs Zaghari- Ratcliffe’s release in all discussions with Iranian counterparts?

As we have heard in the debate tonight, the problem is that Iran does not recognise dual nationalities, meaning that those detained cannot receive the consular assistance and access that we would normally expect with British citizens. As we have also heard in the debate, other dual nationals are in prison in Iran. We need better to understand what the Government will do to represent our country’s citizens who are deserving of our fullest support. I hope that the noble Baroness will outline those actions tonight. I also hope that she will support a meeting between the Foreign Secretary and the families of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Kamal Foroughi to update them on exactly what action the United Kingdom Government have taken to date and on their upcoming plans.

In the last debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, reminded us that since the UK reopened the embassy in Tehran in 2015 and upgraded our diplomatic ties to ambassador level, we have seen the relationship between the two countries grow stronger. In addition to the FCO designating Iran as one of its human rights priority countries, the noble Baroness assured the House then that the Government were using the improved relationships as best they could to urge respect for human rights. As we have heard in the debate, the key to bringing Iran back into the international community, with all the obligations and responsibilities which that entails, was the Iran nuclear deal. The new, improved diplomatic relations with Iran have also enabled a dialogue not possible before on tackling security concerns around al-Qaeda and Daesh.

Whatever the gains of such an improved relationship, they must not be at the expense of our responsibility—as my noble friend Lord Judd said—to challenge Iran’s obligations under international law on human rights. We need to hear from the Minister, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, suggested, what steps the Government are taking in our improved relationship to highlight abuses of human rights. The Foreign Secretary has made it clear that he is determined to ensure that human rights remains a key element in the United Kingdom’s foreign policy. We need to understand that engagement works and we need to make clear our position. We must not make concessions on human rights.

As my noble friend Lord Clarke highlighted, sadly the truth is that, since July 2015, opponents of the regime have continued to be executed, religious minorities continue to be persecuted and, as I said in the last debate, LGBT communities have been victimised and murdered with impunity. The additional challenge, highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, now faced by the Government is that in the US presidential campaign President Trump repeatedly dismissed the joint comprehensive plan of action and the nuclear deal. In the forthcoming meeting with President Trump, which the Prime Minister will be undertaking shortly, I hope that the questions of human rights in Iran are raised, along with the role of engagement and improved diplomatic relations in addressing them. Our responsibility is to remind our longest standing and strongest ally of the needs to uphold those international obligations. As we have heard in the debate, following the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the resolution on human rights in Iran at the end of last year, and the earlier renewal of the mandate of the UN special rapporteur, we need to ensure that that pressure is constantly maintained. What representations have the Government made to the Iranian authorities to allow greater access for the UN rapporteur to undertake their duties properly?

We have heard that there are no fair trials, certainly not to international standards of fairness. The regime persistently attacks and harasses lawyers—and this is something I want to highlight—who act in defence of political activists or those fighting for minorities. At the end of the day, we need—and this is a responsibility of all of us in this House—to ensure that we expose those constant violations and that everyone fully understands exactly what is going on in Iran.