British Nationals Detained Overseas

Marie Rimmer Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered British nationals detained overseas.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Ms Ali. The first duty of the British Government is to protect their citizens at home and abroad. Being arrested or detained abroad can be a difficult and traumatic experience. Often the detained are unable to see their friends and family, sometimes for years. I am sure that we were all moved by the scenes of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe being reunited with her husband Richard and their daughter Gabriella.

Iran has shown itself to be a serial offender of detaining British passport holders. Morad Tahbaz, a British-American citizen, is still detained there. It has now been over five years. It was only last month that Tahbaz was taken out of Evin prison, the infamous home to many political prisoners of the autocratic regime, and placed under house arrest. Yet this occurred only after America agreed to a prisoner exchange and to allow the Iranian regime to access almost £5 billion of frozen assets in South Korea. In other words, the Iranian regime was using foreign prisoners for ransom. The situation with Nazanin was the same: she was released only after the Government paid £400 million to Tehran.

Mehran Raoof is another dual British-Iranian national who has been detained. At 66, he was detained in Evin prison for supporting and campaigning for workers’ rights. In his own letter, Mr Raoof says the Iranian regime is treating dual nationals as “a valuable commodity”, and the evidence backs him up.

The UK Government must look at the actions of Iran and label them for what they are: state hostage taking. Quite frankly, it is working. The Iranian regime is getting vast sums of money to release foreign or dual nationals whom they have arrested on trumped-up charges. The Foreign Office needs to take a much stronger stance within our role in the UN to call out state hostage taking.

Iran is not the only country guilty of unjustly detaining British citizens. Jimmy Lai, a British national and long-time critic of the Chinese Communist party, was arrested in Hong Kong over three years ago.

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady for securing the debate and highlighting these important issues and individual cases of concern. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on media freedom, I share her specific concern about the case of Jimmy Lai. Does she agree that Mr Lai’s case is not only one of appalling consequences for him personally, having served nearly 1,000 days in prison, but emblematic of the Hong Kong Government’s crusade against free media and freedom of speech?

[Ms Rimmer]

I certainly agree with the hon. Gentleman’s comments. Mr Lai is accused of violating the new national security law in Hong Kong. Leaving aside our Government’s failure to properly hold China to account for reneging on the Sino-British joint declaration, there is still a duty to protect British nationals. Mr Lai awaits trial this month, yet the Chinese Communist authorities are trying to block his attempt to hire a British defence lawyer.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend raises an important point about people’s access to justice and consular services when detained illegitimately or even legitimately. Other countries require a minimum level of support from their Foreign Offices and consular services, including the provision of approved lawyers. That would mean lawyers approved in other countries but certified by Britain. Is that something that we should consider doing in order to ensure that our consular services are protecting our nationals wherever they are?

[Ms Rimmer]

I agree with my hon. Friend; of course we should be doing that. It is about justice, not rigged justice.

The use of foreign lawyers by both prosecution and defence is a long-established tradition in Hong Kong. Only last month, the Foreign Secretary met the Chinese Vice-President, Mr Han, known as the architect of China’s crackdown in Hong Kong. The Foreign Secretary raised the case of Mr Lai, but did not go far enough. It is British values that are on trial: the values of freedom and democracy, which we signed a treaty to uphold. The Prime Minister should raise this with the Chinese regime at the highest possible level.

Cases of British citizens being detained abroad are not limited to the middle east and Asia. In 2021, Mr Nnamdi Kanu, a British citizen, was abducted by Nigerian security forces in Nairobi, Kenya. Since his detention, he has been subjected to torture and many other unpleasantries. A United Nations Human Rights Council report released a damning assessment of the Nigerian Government’s treatment and called for his immediate release.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) has worked tirelessly on behalf of Mr Kanu and is urging the Foreign Secretary to do more to secure his release. Nigeria is a Commonwealth nation that receives tens of millions in UK aid; it is one of the biggest beneficiaries. As part of that aid support, there must be a commitment to human rights and upholding the right to a fair trial. Mr Kanu must be given access to a fair and due process. A British citizen travelling on a British passport should not be kidnapped in a third country and dragged to a Nigerian prison. The Government need to get much tougher.

Another case I will raise is that of Alaa Abd-El Fattah, a British-Egyptian activist who was detained in Egypt. Once again, he has been detained and denied fair and due process. He even took to hunger strike in prison to protest against his treatment. The Egyptian authorities also denied his British citizenship and refused British consular support. Our Government need to insist that Mr Abd-El Fattah gets that assistance.

Only this week, the Foreign Office was told by the parliamentary ombudsman to make a formal apology to Matthew Hedges, who was accused of spying and tortured in the United Arab Emirates. The Foreign Office failed to do its duty to Mr Hedges, a British citizen being tortured by a country we consider one of our closest allies in the region. The chief executive of the ombudsman’s office, Rebecca Hilsenrath, described Mr Hedges’ experience as a “nightmare” that was

“made even worse by being failed by the British Government.”

Quite frankly, that is not good enough, and it calls into question whether the current guidelines need reviewing.

The cases that I have raised are examples. There are many others that I could have gone into, and I am sure that other colleagues present may well do so. I appreciate that these cases are often complex and no country is the same when it comes to Foreign Office engagement. However, there is much more we can do, especially with countries that we financially support. We can also work with our allies to take a much tougher stance on state hostage taking in countries such as Iran.

Many British citizens detained abroad do not even get the necessary consular assistance. That is why Labour is looking to introduce a legal right to consular assistance, which I am sure that the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), will go into in further detail. Consular support to British citizens must be a given. After all, it is the first duty of Government to look after their citizens.

[Rushanara Ali (in the Chair)]

I remind all hon. Members who wish to speak to bob. I call Daniel Kawczynski.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Rimmer]

I thank everyone for contributing today because this is an important matter and something that has deserved the attention it has had in this debate. Hopefully we can get some movement from the Government and we can get this man’s citizenship sorted. I think he and his family know his citizenship better than anyone—far better than the Chinese would know. It is surely a con, isn’t it? I thank all Members who have contributed to this debate. We need to keep going. We need to do this as soon as possible. Please grab hold of it, Minister. We would congratulate you if you got things started now.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered British nationals detained overseas.