Iran: Human Rights

Lord McInnes of Kilwinning Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, for bringing this important matter before the House, and for giving the Minister the opportunity to update the House on progress that the Government are making in trying to improve human rights in Iran. It is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, after his heartfelt and commanding speech on the human rights being abused in Iran.

It is a great shame that we still need to debate this subject this evening. I am sure that after July 2015 many of us hoped that not only would diplomatic relations be properly re-established, but that the Iranian Government would have time to reflect properly on the egregious human right abuses taking place in Iran. These result in a great stain for such a great country that, for two millennia, was known for its pursuit of civilisation. It is important that we distinguish between the great Iranian people and the current apparatus of the state. The two are very different. As the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, has already said, the people in Iran crave improvement in their human rights and are prepared to put their lives at risk to protest against abuse of those human rights.

Any passing interest in Persian or Iranian history would tell your Lordships that the Iranian-Persian civilisation was based on the diversity that any great state or nation requires. Yet we see under the current state apparatus that diversity is viewed as a threat rather than something to be celebrated. Each religious minority is picked upon and forced from the public sphere. Jews are forced to keep a low profile or emigrate. Sufis—whose tradition was a central tenet of and came from the Shia religion—are persecuted. The Baha’i—in many ways the most oppressed religious minority in present-day Iran—are pursued from the public sphere. Christians, whether Armenians, Assyrians or converts meeting in house churches, are again forced to keep a low profile and suffer discrimination. Ethnic minorities—Arabs, Azeris, Kurds—find it difficult to gain access to higher education. All these groups are minorities, but minorities that add up to a majority overall in the Iranian state, a state where gender and sexuality are the determinants of how the state views one, judges what one is worth and determines the punishment one must face if going beyond what is expected in the public or private sphere.

It would be easy for those from that state apparatus in Iran to claim that we are nothing more than cultural imperialists who fail to understand the religious and cultural context of human rights in Iran. How, though, can that be the case when Iran signed the Geneva Convention in 1957, when President Rouhani himself was elected on a platform of reform, and when the Iranian parliament discusses the need to reduce capital punishment and the use of the death penalty but the state apparatus refuses to allow the restoration of human rights throughout the country?

That state apparatus has enforced a false theology that does not reflect traditional Shia Islam or the diversity that existed under various regimes in the past. As the noble Lord, Lord Clarke, said, in the past five years we have seen a massive increase in the use of capital punishment, reaching a peak of over 1,000 deaths in 2015. The UN rapporteur reported in March 2016 that 160 juvenile offenders were on death row. That is despite a change in 2013 to the penal code to discourage judges from sentencing juveniles to the death sentence.

Torture, flogging and stoning to death have become, and remain, key elements of the penal code. This is the very torture, as executed by the then state apparatus through SAVAK, which was an important component in creating the circumstances of the 1979 revolution in the first place and it continues. In the last month, concern has been raised by the UN special rapporteur on human rights; and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has been written to by his uncle, who reprimanded him on the poor human rights record for those imprisoned for involvement in the green movement. In the last 24 hours we have seen the danger of the failure of the Iranian state to recognise dual nationality, in the case of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe. When the Minister responds, will she address this issue in particular?

I also hope that the Minister will be able to reassure the House that the Government will continue the excellent work for human rights that they have pursued directly with the Iranian Government on a bilateral basis and through the United Nations. While we will inevitably be drawn first to those suffering in Iran who have a connection to the United Kingdom, we must not forget the ordinary Iranians, whose only wish is to enjoy the same human rights as their ancestors were able to enjoy under so many different regimes in the past. The UK has a unique place in being able to speak for these people. For too long Iran was able to use diplomatic isolation as an excuse to avoid scrutiny. That can no longer be the case. As we move forward, I ask that her Majesty’s Government use all avenues open to them to improve human rights in Iran.