Human Rights in Iran

Mark Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered human rights in Iran.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I am very pleased that this debate was selected. I am grateful to have the opportunity to discuss the alarming and deteriorating human rights situation in Iran, which has been overlooked recently. This is matter of great importance to many Members, and I am pleased that Members from all political parties in the United Kingdom are here this morning.

For the past two years, discussions about Iran have focused on the country’s clandestine nuclear programme and the international concern over its purpose. I regretted Her Majesty’s Government’s decision to decouple Iran’s human rights abuses and support for terrorism from the nuclear negotiations. I believe that that was a lost opportunity, and that doing so sent the wrong message to Iran.

Figures announced by Iran’s state media and verified by international non-governmental organisations reveal that more than 2,400 people, including many juveniles and women, have been executed in Iran under Rouhani’s three-year tenure. Last year alone there were 966 executions—the highest number in the past two decades. According to the UN special rapporteur for Iran, Dr Ahmed Shaheed, the number of executions was roughly double that of 2010, and 10 times that of 2005.

In July 2015, the deputy director of Amnesty International’s middle east and north Africa programme, Mr Said Boumedouha, said:

“Iran’s staggering execution toll…paints a sinister picture of the machinery of the state carrying out premeditated, judicially-sanctioned killings on a mass scale.”

Almost one year later, the Iranian authorities have maintained a horrifying execution rate that is nothing but state-sanctioned murder. There were 73 executions, including many public hangings, across Iranian cities in May. It is clear that no change can be expected; we should expect this horrific trend to continue.

Those figures show that Iran is not only the world’s No. 1 executioner per capita, but, according to a recent Amnesty International report, one of the few countries that continues to execute juvenile offenders, in blatant violation of the prohibition of the use of the death penalty against people under the age of 18 at the time of their supposed crime. Repressions of these contraventions are enforced by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its civic unit, the Basij force, with the active support and encouragement of the Rouhani Government. The law in Iran allows girls as young as nine to be executed for crimes or to be subjected to forced marriage to much older men. That is unacceptable by any international standard, and it is more worrying when one considers the barbaric punishments handed down by Iran’s judiciary. As Iran seeks greater integration with the international community, it is appropriate that we remember those harsh realities. Amnesty International said:

“The surge in executions reveals just how out of step Iran is with the rest of the world when it comes to the use of the death penalty—140 countries worldwide have now rejected its use in law or practice.”

Today, there are those who argue that those abuses are efforts by the hardliners in Iran who control the security organisations and the judiciary to undermine the moderate Rouhani’s reform-minded Government, who seek a more open relationship with the world. I reject that view. Such an assessment fails because it suggests that there are more powerful forces in Iran than the President, which, in turn, means that Rouhani’s position is merely symbolic and that he is thus incapable of initiating reforms. Most importantly, it ignores the fact that neither Rouhani nor his Government have ever publicly condemned and distanced themselves from executions and the use of public hanging. On the contrary, Rouhani has explicitly supported the use of the death penalty. In a speech in April 2004, he described executions as the enforcement of “God’s commandments” and

“laws of the parliament that belongs to the people.”

Those comments show that Rouhani’s views on executions and human rights abuses converge with those of the Supreme Leader and the judiciary. In addition, they expose the fact that there are no forces inside the current ruling theocracy that want to abolish the use of execution and arbitrary arrests. That comes as no surprise to many of us who recognise the real problems with Iran. One should remember that the notion of a moderate force emerging from within the regime is not a new phenomenon. That illusion emerged during the Khatami era in the late 1990s when a policy of appeasement with Tehran based on incentives and economic interests was proposed.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. What he is saying is backed up by what happened to Mr Mousavi in the green revolution. Although he was no great reformer, there were glimmers of hope, and they have been dashed. I think that that gentleman is still under house arrest.

[Dr Offord]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. I pay tribute to the work that he undertakes on this important issue; he attends conferences in other parts of the country. He is correct to say that there have been people who were considered reformers, but whose efforts have been dashed and whose activities have been curtailed, and they have not been able to provide any kind of glimmer of hope. I will talk more about that later in my speech.

In the month after the nuclear deal, there was a wave of arbitrary arrests of human rights defenders, union activists, dissidents, journalists and dual citizens on bogus national security changes, based on propaganda. I will highlight three cases in which the victims received long prison sentences and are under severe pressure by the Iranian authorities in prison. Mr Saleh Kohandel was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to 10 years in prison for supporting Iran’s democratic opposition, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran. His crime was to support a vision of a free and democratic Iran, where torture and capital punishment is abolished. In a letter from the prison in May, Mr Kohandel wrote:

“My only crime, in their view, are my political activities, and for this reason I have on many occasions been transferred to the Ward run by the Intelligence Ministry and spent months under torture in solitary confinement.”

Another case of grave concern is that of Mr Jafar Azimzadeh, a labour activist who has been on hunger strike for nearly two months in Evin prison. He has been protesting against his unjust imprisonment and the suppression of ordinary workers, including the non-payment of their salaries. Mr Azimzadeh’s life is at serious risk, as his condition is deteriorating every day. Just last month, the judiciary in Iran sentenced the human rights defender, Ms Narges Mohammadi, to 16 years in prison. According to reports, she has been detained and denied her medication—a necessary treatment—as a means of torture.

Those three political prisoners and prisoners of conscience are at risk of losing their lives in prison if the international community does not intervene to secure their release. In fact, their condition is so serious that a group of UN human rights experts, including the UN special rapporteur on Iran, recently denounced the denial of adequate medical treatment to political prisoners as unacceptable. They said:

“The condition of several prisoners of conscience with serious health problems has been exacerbated by their continued detention and by repeated refusals to allow their access to the medical facilities and treatment they so urgently require.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Sir Edward. I again congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) on securing this important debate on the desperate human rights situation in Iran. Like him, I have attended the annual gatherings in Paris sponsored by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. At those meetings there are always many opportunities to talk to Iranian exiles from around the world. Perhaps 100,000 people go to those gatherings whose families have direct experience of human rights violations. All too often they have been denied the opportunity to communicate with family at home in Iran, for fear of repercussions; and, indeed, we meet people who have experienced persecution themselves.

The central charge made by all those who have spoken so far, and which will no doubt be made by those who speak later, is that the Tehran Government have completely failed to live up to international obligations on the most basic human rights. In 2013 Hassan Rouhani was elected—a supposed reformer. I use that word loosely, as I do the word “election”, because it is worth remembering that candidates are filtered by the Guardian Council. That was also the story of the 2016 parliamentary elections. They are not free, democratic elections as we know them. Despite the election of a supposed reformer, the situation has continued to deteriorate. According to Amnesty, nearly 1,000 people were hanged in Iran in 2015, as we have heard. That is the highest number of executions per capita in the world, and it has led Amnesty to describe the rate of executions as

“a horrific image of the planned state killing machine”.

The UN special rapporteur on Iran recently announced the rate of hangings as the highest for 27 years, exceeded only by the period immediately after the 1979 election and the removal of the Pahlavi dynasty.

A matter of particular concern—although everything we have heard is a matter of concern—is the breaches of the convention on the rights of the child, which was ratified by the Iranian authorities in July 1994. Yes, that was a welcome step at the time, if it meant anything; yet since that ratification there have been 81 identified cases—there is a strong, and I think firm, suspicion of many more—of people under the age of 18 being put to death. I reiterate the point about how the situation is escalating: 24 of those juvenile murders have happened since Rouhani came to power, including the case of Alireza Tajiki, who was arrested at the age of 15 and sentenced to death in 2013 on the basis of confessions obtained by torture in the notorious Evin prison. It was notorious under the Shah, but my goodness it is notorious under the present regime as well. Mercifully, through the actions of NGOs such as Amnesty the execution was postponed 24 hours before Alireza Tajiki was due to be hanged. Another instance was the case of Mohammad Reza Haddadi, sentenced for crimes that, again, he committed at the age of 15. He has spent 12 years on death row, and his execution has been postponed six times.

In the spirit of the belief that freedom of religion is the birthright of all of us, of all faiths, wherever we live, it is wholly appropriate to talk about the Baha’i community. As we have heard just now from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) the regime has a propensity to demonise, through the Government-controlled propaganda machine, the peaceable Baha’i community. In 2015 alone there were some 4,200 articles in the state-run media against the Baha’i community—12 to 13 articles demonising them every day. The unjustifiable sentences of 20 years in Evin prison given to seven Baha’i leaders are now in their eighth years. Their only crime was to be members of the Baha’i faith.

Jobs and business licences are denied to the Baha’i community; members are denied Government jobs in the civil service, and jobs in teaching and law. They are denied any position of influence. The security unit of the public places supervision office—a chilling description —decrees that Baha’is

“may not be issued work permits in a wide range of businesses, including hotels and tourism, the food industry, jewellery, publishing, and those related to computers and the Internet.”

In other words, they are left to wither at the bottom of an economic heap in that community.

This has not been an orchestrated debate—far from it—but I would like to highlight the cases mentioned by the hon. Member for Hendon. The imprisoned union activist Jafar Azimzadeh has been on hunger strike for nearly two months in Evin prison. His crime was that he wrote an open letter to the regime’s deputy Minister of Labour, expressing concerns about workers’ rights. We have heard about the families of the Iranian dissidents in Camp Liberty, such as the political prisoner Saleh Kohandel, languishing in jail because of support for loved ones in the camp. That is a day-to-day reality for Iranians. I have been involved in campaigns for human rights in Iran over the past 11 years, and one of the sadnesses has been the extent to which the media in this country are not mindful of the issues and do not publicise them. There was a flurry of publicity when the green revolution supposedly was happening, which I alluded to in my intervention, but the world media are too quiet on these issues. They need to be highlighted.

The violations will be condemned by everybody in this Chamber. Every year, the United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning Tehran’s human rights abuses and making recommendations for improvement. Every year, those recommendations are routinely ignored by Tehran. There has been talk—indeed, more than talk; there is practical evidence—of Iran being brought in from the cold, but I urge the Minister to continue his work. This is nothing new; he has a sound record on championing human rights around the world, but he must continue to ensure that human rights abuses are discussed in the international arena. They should be discussed, as we have heard, at the UN Secretary Council. Those found responsible for the ongoing atrocities—there is a long list—should be referred to the International Criminal Court, to face justice. Will this Government make improvements in our relationship with Iran contingent on the end of well-catalogued human rights abuses, religious intolerance, executions and torture?

Our approach to Iran should include an active and direct dialogue with opposition groups committed to democratic change and the most basic human rights that should be common to any civilised society. The debate has moved on. I hope the Foreign Office is mindful of that; it should be. When I first came to this House, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran was a proscribed organisation. The Foreign Office justified that proscription. That proscription was lifted. It has been lifted throughout the world. People understand that the PMOI and Madam Rajavi are fighters for democratic change. That is what she has said, and it is reinforced by the 10-point programme we have heard about.

[Sir Roger Gale]

That proscription was, of course, only lifted following a High Court action. It is believed that there is an underlying concern in the FCO that, although proscription has been lifted, in fact, technically it is still there.

[Mr Williams]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on that intervention. He is right. I have said in debates in the past that there is a grudging acceptance by the FCO that the proscription has been lifted. I deeply regret that there has been a reluctance from the Foreign Office to rise to the terms of that de-proscription. One way it could rise to that challenge would be, as we have heard, to allow President-elect Maryam Rajavi at least to come and talk to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It was rather strange when a few years ago, a Committee room was booked in the name of the former Crown Prince of Iran, who came and talked to some of us. We listened to what he had to say about his democratic message, and yet Maryam Rajavi—who has a big mandate from many Iranian people in the country and in exile—has been denied that opportunity. I hope the Minister will reflect on what the hon. Member for Hendon and others have called for, with regard to a visit in the future.

Iran was once labelled “the great civilisation” by one of its former leaders. Closer analysis showed that it was not a particularly great civilisation in the years preceding 1979. If it was not a great civilisation then, my goodness, it is not a great civilisation now. Its people are denied the most basic human rights, and that must change. I think we will have the consensus of this Chamber on that, and I hope that that includes the Minister.

Western Sahara: Self-determination

Mark Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Rosindell. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) for her speech, and particularly to the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), who initiated the debate. He is a much valued member of the all-party group on Western Sahara, which I chair, and he has done the people of Western Sahara a great service in raising the issue today.

I want to express a few of the concerns that I have had for some time, since I visited the country with the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who used to chair the all-party group. It was my privilege to visit Laayoune, the capital of Western Sahara, in February 2014, along with the right hon. Gentleman, the director of War on Want and a constituent of mine who runs the Western Sahara Campaign Cymru. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun mentioned that visit, as a result of which we produced a report titled “Life Under Occupation”. I believe the Minister will have seen it and his predecessors in the Foreign Office certainly saw it.

I want to ask the Minister, as the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun did, for his response to Morocco ordering the expulsion of the 84 civilian and three military MINURSO personnel following the visit of the United Nations Secretary-General to Western Sahara in March. The mission complied with that request, despite the fact that it was a United Nations mission in a country designated a non-self-governing territory. In short, the Moroccan authorities had no authority to make that request. Surely Morocco cannot be allowed to dictate to a UN mission in a territory it does not have sovereignty over. I believe that that represents an unprecedented challenge to the authority of the United Nations Security Council, and I worry that it shows the Security Council is failing to live up to its responsibilities. I hope that it will strongly condemn the action of the Moroccan authorities in expelling the citizens and military personnel after the March visit by Ban Ki-moon.

I visited the mission in 2014, and we sat and talked to the officials there. Without mentioning names, I have to say that some of those UN officials expressed great frustration that they had no human rights monitoring mandate for Western Sahara. They were fully aware of the human rights violations and the street demonstrations in Laayoune, some of which were witnessed by colleagues on our visit. They were also fully aware of the great brutality with which the Moroccan authorities broke up peaceable demonstrations by men, women and children. However, they were unable to take any action because of the lack of any human rights monitoring role. They had no capacity or power to act. That was one of the most distressing things—to witness, with colleagues, those violations taking place in the streets, and to know that there was a UN capacity there with the potential to act, which could do nothing.

There was great brutality. The constituent who came with me attempted bravely to take photographs of the demonstrations. It was perhaps no surprise, given the way things are controlled in Laayoune, that his camera was stolen. It was later returned, with the offending pictures of course removed and wiped completely. While we were spending those three or four days in an unfamiliar city some way from home, it was quite clear that the powers of surveillance, under the pretext of protecting our interests, were following our every move—that is an unnerving experience. However, I had the luxury of being able to hop on a plane to return to this country. The Sahrawi people, of course, continue to be less fortunate.

The hon. member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun talked at length about human rights issues. I can only concur with what he and the hon. Member for Bridgend said. The UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Méndez, visited Morocco and Western Sahara in 2012. He found that torture and ill treatment were used to extract confessions, and that Moroccan law enforcement officials used excessive force. In 2015, Human Rights Watch noted the growing intolerance for independent human rights organisations and other critical voices. All the meetings that we had in Laayoune, whether with organisations campaigning for women’s rights, trade unions or other human rights activists, had to be conducted under the cloak of secrecy. All too often, we had to sit in dark rooms—literally—in the back streets of the city, because any public acknowledgment that the meetings were taking place would seriously implicate the Sahrawis we were meeting.

The huge natural resources in Western Sahara are clear from any visit, and their exploitation by Morocco is used as a justification for its occupation. Phosphate mining, fishing and market gardening provide jobs for Moroccan settlers—very few of those jobs go to the indigenous population, among whom unemployment rates are disproportionately high. We visited the ports and saw for ourselves how all offshore fishing is carried out by Moroccan-owned trawlers. In the phosphate mining industry, only 21% of the workforce are Sahrawis, the majority of whom are employed in the most menial jobs. Moroccan influence and money dominates the market gardening industry, its capital and its rewards.

For the indigenous population, there is very little evidence of a return on investment and improvements in their lives. We are talking about the absence of democracy and basic human rights, but in narrow economic terms, the people of Western Sahara are not being delivered a fair share—chwarae teg, as we say in Wales—of resources.

Our overwhelming impression from our visit was of deep and utter sadness—of an indigenous people being repressed, their identities being supressed and their history and culture not being recognised in school. We saw several private Sahrawi schools, which basically meant that parents educated their children in their own history, traditions and culture in their own homes. Again, that took place in secrecy, because it is illegal and the Moroccan authorities would clamp down on it.

All Members who have spoken today have agreed that such violations occur as a direct consequence of the UN’s failure to fulfil its duty to provide self-determination through a referendum for the people there. I know that, as the years go by, that becomes more of a challenge. Concocting an electoral list when the population is so split is, of course, a huge challenge. It is not helped by the concessionary tax and housing rights that encourage people to migrate from Morocco into Western Sahara, which the hon. Member for Bridgend mentioned. I strongly encourage the Minister to do whatever he can, because there is an expectation that countries such as ours should take more of a lead, to ensure progress towards the referendum and a continuing UN presence with a human rights monitoring role. Nothing less will do.

Finally, I want to talk about the case of a Sahrawi campaigner, Mr Brahim Saika, who fell into a coma and died last Friday after being arbitrarily detained by the police and accused of organising protests for self-determination. He was a co-ordinator of a group of unemployed Sahrawis and was arrested on 1 April. According to reports, he was detained and tortured in Gulemin police station. He was then transferred to a hospital in Agadir in Morocco from Bozakarn prison, where he had been held. His sister stated that he had been hit on the head, which is why he fell into a coma and subsequently died. After he was arrested, he went on hunger strike in protest against his detention and maltreatment. A few days later, his condition deteriorated significantly, which was when he was transferred to hospital. The reports we have heard suggest that no serious attempts were made to save his life. The hospital authorities are now refusing to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of his death, despite his family’s demand for one. The family have been told that the cause of death was poisoning due to a rat bite.

I would appreciate the Minister raising the case with Morocco, and the all-party group would very much like to hear back about that in due course. The sad reality is that brave people such as Brahim Saika are by no means the only victims of the continued occupation of Western Sahara.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fabian Hamilton]

I will continue with my speech, if I may. There is not too much left. I had just quoted from the text of resolution 2218.

The international community must never seek to impose a solution on the dispute over Western Sahara. Whether it remains part of Morocco or becomes a self-governing territory or an independent state, Western Sahara will always have to rely on a very close relationship with Morocco. Whatever the outcome, Western Sahara will need to trade with Morocco, particularly if it is to benefit from the significant investment currently going into it from the Moroccan state and Moroccan companies.

We must also recognise Morocco’s role in providing security in an increasingly unstable area with rising levels of extremism and sectarian conflict. However, the difficulties of achieving a long-term solution should not mean we forget the human rights of the Sahrawi population and their political and economic situation.

I was pleased to see from written answers that the Government have repeatedly raised the Western Sahara issue with the Moroccan Government, including with His Majesty King Mohammed VI. I am particularly pleased that the Government made successful representations to ensure that the UN Secretary-General’s personal envoy to Western Sahara was able to gain access to the region. I hope the Minister will be able to tell the House whether his discussions with the Government of Morocco have included the human rights situation in Western Sahara and the human rights issues facing the Sahrawi people in Morocco. I also hope the Minister will tell us what steps the UK is taking unilaterally and through the Friends of Western Sahara group of nations, of which the UK is a member, to improve the economic and civic participation of the Sahrawi population.

I want to press the Minister on the mandate for MINURSO. I understand that, as has been said this afternoon, it is the only mission in the world without a human rights remit. As the mission is about to have its mandate renewed, or at least reviewed, is it not time to include human rights within its remit and to ask it to report back to the UN Security Council on its findings? Is it also not time to set a date for a free and fair referendum in Western Sahara, with an option for independence on the ballot paper, consistent with the established international legal norm of self-determination?

Is the Minister prepared to demand an end to the extraction of natural resources from Western Sahara through deals that disregard the interests and wishes of the indigenous Sahrawi people? In particular, I hope he will set out the UK’s position on the sale of products from Western Sahara within the EU. I understand that the European Court of Justice ruled to exclude waters off the Western Sahara from the EU-Moroccan fisheries agreement, but that is subject to an appeal from the EU.

[Mr Mark Williams]

Would the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that there is a problem with labelling? We have just had a debate on agriculture. Many of the products produced in the occupied territories, which is how some of us refer to the area, are labelled as products of Morocco when clearly they should be labelled as products of Western Sahara.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will finish what I was saying because it may cover the point he has raised. Will the Minister explain the UK’s position on the current appeal? Will he also explain what the judgment will mean for the sale of other Western Sahrawi produce within the EU if the appeal fails? In particular, will he explain whether Western Sahrawi goods, such as phosphorus and tomatoes, will be excluded from EU-Morocco trade agreements or require special labelling? I hope that covers the point raised by the hon. Gentleman.

These steps could be important in addressing many of the issues in Western Sahara that we have heard about today and could facilitate further progress. It is precisely because Morocco is such a close ally of the United Kingdom and a significant diplomatic player in its own right that we should work with the Moroccans to welcome a bigger role for the United Nations in finding a long-term and sustainable solution for all the parties involved in Western Sahara.

Persecution of Christians (Middle East)

Mark Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who called for a public voice on this issue. She has been the instigator of that public voice this morning, and we are grateful to her for securing this opportunity.

Like other hon. Members, I want to talk about Iran. According to Open Doors, a charity that supports Christians living under some of the most repressive regimes in the world, Iran is ranked eighth on the world watch list, and there are 450,000 Christians there. I hope that that figure is wrong, and that what the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) said is true—that the figure is growing, despite the huge challenges of living in a country in which Christians are routinely detained for no reason other than the fact that they hold different beliefs from those of the country’s leaders. Christians are not allowed to express their faith openly, whether through the written or spoken word. Indeed, it is illegal to publish the Bible in Farsi, which means that Christians are forbidden from worshipping in their own language.

A couple of weeks ago, my church celebrated Bible Sunday; in Wales, we were celebrating the translation of the Bible into Welsh. I find it difficult to imagine what it must be like to have to practise religion in a foreign language. That brings home the Bible verse in which the apostle Peter calls on his readers to

“live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear.”

That is particularly apposite. Christian men and women in Iran are treated as foreigners in their own land, particularly converts from Islam, who are considered more than simply foreigners or second-class citizens; they are considered traitors and are routinely sentenced to death or face trumped-up charges for converting. It is no small wonder that so many have been forced to flee Iran. One of the greatest exoduses of people across the modern world has been people fleeing Iran.

The Iranian regime has long sought viciously to repress anyone who espouses views different from its own, whether those views come from political opponents or the Baha’i community, which has been ferociously persecuted. Mr Ataollah Rezvani was shot in the back of the head, and his body was abandoned by a railway near Bandar Abbas, in August simply for being a member of the Baha’i community. Such persecution has led our Government to condemn Iran’s human rights reputation as “appalling” and to note that Iran’s treatment of religious minorities is “shocking.” We have heard that 80% of acts of religious discrimination across the world are directed at Christians. This has been a thorough debate, and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Congleton for securing it.

Finally, I dedicate my brief remarks to Maryam Zargaran, who was arrested on 15 July and is still languishing in Evin prison for activities and propaganda against the Iranian regime, for creating unrest and for establishing church houses.

UK Trade and Investment

Mark Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

I am pleased to have secured this Adjournment debate on the performance of UK Trade & Investment. The last time we had a debate on UKTI on the Floor of the House was last March, when it was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). I very much regret that there are not more opportunities for Members to scrutinise UKTI’s performance.

I very much welcome the work done by Lord Green and his colleagues at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but it is regrettable that so few Members of Parliament seek opportunities to scrutinise UKTI’s performance. We debate a great deal in this Chamber about how to slice up and apportion the cake, but exports are about making the cake bigger. I spent most of my working life before entering this House in exports, and I feel passionately about their importance in bringing wealth and prosperity to our nation.

As the European Union continues to diminish in importance vis-à-vis British exports, so I turn to the middle east and north Africa. I pay tribute to my American intern, Mr Justin King—it is entirely plausible that one day he will become a congressman, and I very much hope so. He is helping me greatly to interview hundreds of small British companies. They are coming from all over the United Kingdom to my office in the House of Commons to show me their evidence and experience of UKTI, and of trying to interact with it.

Before I continue with my speech I want to give three examples of why the MENA area—middle east and north Africa—is so important. I am chairman of two all-party two groups: the Saudi Arabia all-party group, and the all-party group on Libya. When we went to Saudi Arabia, the Saudi King himself admonished me saying that the lack of British exports to that country was regrettable. He said that all our European Union competitors were motoring ahead, and that it was regrettable that the United Kingdom is falling behind our main competitors in exports to Saudi Arabia.

Sixty British companies operate in Tunisia, compared with 1,800 French companies. I will repeat that—60 compared with 1,800. I was the first British Member of Parliament ever to go to Mauritania since its independence in 1960, and almost no British companies export there. We are good at exporting to countries that speak English, but the French-speaking part of the world is almost a vortex for British interests, particularly commercial interests. If this week has shown anything, given the problems in Algeria and Mali, it is that it is essential that we engage with those strategically important countries of north Africa, primarily by assisting our own companies to interact with those countries, and help them with exports, and—vitally—technology transfer.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he also agree that there is a role for promoting our higher education institutions in those countries? My hon. Friend does a great deal, and as Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Wales Office he does a lot for Wales. I am sure he will be aware of the significant and important businesses we could be exporting that originate in our universities in Wales.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

I concur with my hon. Friend and he reminds me of an important point. Whenever I go to the middle east I see that the British brand is so strong. Because we are British we tend to hide our light under a bushel, but overseas the British brand is incredibly strong—it is sterling, A-plus, gold standard—and people are desperate to buy British.

My hon. Friend is correct. Shrewsbury school, one of the best private schools in the world, is so popular that we cannot accommodate all the foreigners who wish to study there. They have had to build a Shrewsbury school in Bangkok, and there are current negotiations to build another in the middle east. I completely concur with my hon. Friend.

Let me say how important advertising is. I understand there are constraints on Government budgets, and that the Cabinet Office is obviously not keen to loosen the purse strings. There should, however, be a significant increase in the budget for UKTI. I want a nationwide campaign in this country, through the television, media, newspapers, and even product placements in soap operas, by which we constantly inform small and medium-sized companies throughout the country that UKTI exists and that there are opportunities to engage with it and for them to receive support to export.

I still remember the “Tell Sid” campaign in the 1980s to try to get us to buy British Gas. I want such a campaign now—a campaign that people talk about and get excited about.

The best campaign I have experienced in my seven years as a Member of Parliament was Joanna Lumley’s Gurkha campaign. She revolutionised the campaign when she took it over. The media suddenly became extraordinarily interested. I want a national figure—somebody of renowned business intellect and experience, whether Richard Branson or Alan Sugar—to have a programme on television. It could be called “Export Apprentice” rather than just “The Apprentice”. They should also be a guru and a champion and spearhead a nationwide campaign to ensure that our small and medium-sized companies are passionate about exporting.

Human Rights: Iran

Mark Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Amess]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; yet again the world remains silent.

In 2008, following arrest by the Intelligence Ministry, Khosravi was given a six-year prison term for providing support to the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, the largest Iranian opposition group.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his leadership of our parliamentary group in highlighting many of the abuses of the Iranian regime. He talked about how the situation is escalating. It is escalating as we speak, as the Iranian Parliament is trying to pass a law to prevent single women, the dissidents to whom he refers and people who have been championing human rights, from leaving the country without the consent of a guardian. Barring people from leaving is being used as another means of repression. Does he agree that the Government should put pressure on Tehran on that point, too?

[Mr Amess]

My Welsh hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. Again, we need to ensure that the Foreign Office do something other than utter endless platitudes, which I am absolutely sick to death of.

Khosravi was tortured and subjected to extreme duress in solitary confinement for a period of 40 months, and following two retrials, sentenced to death after conviction on a fresh charge of “enmity against God”. In 2013, that is crazy.

Iran (Human Rights)

Mark Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Ellman]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Those comments show how the situation is escalating. They should lead not only to increased concern but to increased action. I intend to refer to that comment later, and will say what I think should be done to address the situation.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s work on behalf of the Baha’i community. We are both members of the all-party friends of the Baha’is group, which tries to advance the cause of the Baha’is. Does she agree that one of the big problems with Iran is raising awareness of the human rights issue in Iran? I am thinking of the case of Madam Ashtiani, of the 600 people who have been executed over the past year, and most definitely of the Baha’i community in general. That is where contributions from Canadian senators and others are particularly important. There has been a huge awareness deficit across the world of the extent of human rights violations in Iran.

[Mrs Ellman]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is extremely important to raise awareness, knowledge and consciousness of these atrocities. It is important that people take action to prevent or stop persecution, but unless they become aware of it, it is less likely that action will be taken. Contributions such as his are important in increasing that awareness.