Turkey: Human Rights and the Political Situation

Debate between Mike Gapes and Fabian Hamilton

Thursday 9th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) on securing this debate, and all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part on their contributions. It shows that we need a far longer debate on the Floor of the House about our relations with Turkey and the abuse of human rights in that country. I emphasise the Labour party’s historic and current commitment to upholding human rights and democracy throughout the world wherever they are abused and wherever freedom is attacked. We are and always have been opposed to oppression and autocracy.

The shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), said on 19 July, just following the coup:

“Turkey is of pivotal cultural, political and strategic importance to the world, straddling as it does the east-west divide with borders to eight countries. It is”,

as has been emphasised in this debate,

“a vital NATO ally and has important minorities, particularly Kurds and Armenians, as its citizens. Half a million people of Turkish or Kurdish descent live in the UK and they are desperately worried about their families. With 2 million British visitors a year, Turkey is greatly loved in this country, and the interests of our two countries cannot be separated.”—[Official Report, 19 July 2016; Vol. 613, c. 685.]

I hope you will allow me to make a couple of personal points, Mr Bone. My personal commitment to Turkey has always been very strong. I was chair of the all-party group for Turkey from 2010 to 2016; I organised our visits to Turkey and Turkish parliamentarians’ visits to London. I have a passion for the country and for its people, culture and cuisine. I have a personal reason for that: it was the Ottomans who in the 15th century allowed the Jews of southern Spain, my ancestors, to settle in parts of the Ottoman empire, including Salonika and Istanbul, where they thrived for 450 years until the Nazis destroyed that community. I believe that that makes me somewhat more Turkish than the Foreign Secretary.

Early this morning, I returned from a Front-Bench visit to Cyprus. This debate is not about Cyprus, but there is huge concern there about interference by the Turkish Government and about the interest of Mr Erdogan in stopping or at least slowing a settlement that is so near to being achieved after 43 years. That is a subject for a further debate, perhaps.

The contributions from so many right hon. and hon. Members this afternoon have emphasised that this country’s friendship with and closeness to Turkey are only being questioned by the coup and its aftermath.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend stresses the importance of the UK’s relations with Turkey. The Foreign Affairs Committee is carrying out an inquiry into that subject, and I was in Ankara with other Committee members in January. I hope that when we publish our report in a few weeks’ time, we will have the opportunity to debate it in Parliament properly and at length.

[Fabian Hamilton]

It was with the Foreign Affairs Committee that I first visited Turkey; I enjoyed being there and seeing my own inheritance from that country. I look forward to reading the Committee’s report, to the debate on it and to the contributions of many hon. Members to that debate.

The coup of July 2016 resulted in a state of emergency enacted by Parliament that was expected to be temporary, but as we know, it was extended in January 2017 and now appears to be indefinite. The state of emergency allows for rule by decree and the temporary suspension of many rights in Turkey. Authorities have used it to target suspected political rivals and reduce the space for civil society. As a consequence, as we have heard today, checks and balances and human rights have shrunk in Turkey as it has been pushed further away from a system in which the rule of law was guaranteed.

On 18 January, just before Donald Trump was installed as President of the United States, The Guardian wrote:

“Turkey’s regime is fast degenerating into outright dictatorship, emboldened by the imminent ascent of Donald Trump”.

The irony is that before President Erdogan and his party democratically won power, they themselves were victims of human rights abuses. Erdogan was imprisoned in 1999 for reciting a religious poem, and the fiercely secular constitution and the elite consistently attempted to undermine his mildly Islamist political forces in the country. I find that deeply ironic.

As hon. Members have emphasised, more than 40,000 people have been imprisoned and more than 120,000 public sector workers—police, prosecutors, judges, civil servants and academics—have been dismissed. Turkey temporarily derogated from many of the protections in the European convention on human rights and the international covenant on civil and political rights. As Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said:

“Instead of building on the cross-party unity opposed to the coup to strengthen democracy, Turkey’s government has opted for a ruthless crackdown on critics and opponents”.

We have heard some excellent speeches this afternoon. It goes without saying that my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North, who moved the motion, said many important things, including that the UK Government must do better in supporting human rights; I will be interested to hear the Minister’s reply to that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) made a powerful speech. I had not realised that his constituency has the largest number of Turkish speakers in the entire United Kingdom. He made the essential point that Turkey is now a democracy in name only. I hope that the Minister will pick up on some of the issues that my right hon. Friend raised.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who has an impeccable record on human rights, raised the subject of arms sales. Will we increase our arms sales to Turkey? Labour Members hope not, but what are the Government doing to ensure that that does not happen? The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), as always, highlighted the persecution of Christians and other groups in countries where they are in a minority; we can always rely on him to emphasise that and to stand up for oppressed minorities. The hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry) said that the use of the coup as a “bloody blank cheque” to oppress opponents of the regime cannot possibly be acceptable.

I will conclude shortly, because I want to hear what the Minister has to say, as we all do. The constitutional referendum that will take place on 16 April is worrying. Many people in Cyprus talked about it when I was there this week; they are very concerned, because 100,000 people in Northern Cyprus will have a vote. The Turkish Deputy Prime Minister is currently in the north of Cyprus, canvassing support for the referendum. He is encouraging people to vote, because they believe that it is on a knife edge. The referendum is on changing the constitution to give President Erdogan huge new powers to remain as President until 2019—barring any future attempts to change the constitution to allow him to rule for any longer. That is something that Presidents in Bolivia and Burundi, for example, have attempted in the past. Is Turkey really on a par with those countries? I believe not; I believe that Turkey and the Turkish people certainly deserve better.

I will briefly mention the issue of asylum seekers. Four years ago, I went to Yayladagi, a refugee camp just on the tip of southern Hatay, almost butting into Syria, where the Turkish authorities were looking after hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees. We must take our hats off to Turkey for the work it has done for Syrian refugees, and we must give it more support, but what is currently happening makes that more difficult.

British Sikh Community

Debate between Mike Gapes and Fabian Hamilton

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment. The values of family, education and hard work bring the Sikh community together with so many others, including the Jewish community in my constituency—and long may that continue.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend mentioned sporting activities earlier. I draw his attention—I am sure it is the same in Leeds—to the excellent work done by Sikh organisations and individuals in athletics and sport, not just with the introduction of kabaddi into British society, but with the Singh Saba football club in my constituency and the 100 year old marathon runner Fauja Singh, who has just retired from running marathons.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We were all absolutely staggered at that gentleman—his constituent—deciding at 100 years of age that the time had finally come to stop doing marathons. I wish we could all do that when we are 100 years old, but I doubt that that will be the case.

In 2006, as a member of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, I visited Amritsar for the first time with my hon. Friend and the former Member for Hyndburn, Greg Pope. We were a small delegation of the Foreign Affairs Committee on our way to Lahore in Pakistan, and we stopped at Amritsar for a day and a night. It was one of the most enlightening and incredible experiences that I have ever had.

That of course pre-dated the visit of the Prime Minister, whom I congratulate on being the first British Prime Minister to go to the Golden Temple. My hon. Friend and I were there before him—of course, we are not Prime Ministers. We walked there, as he did, in our suits, barefoot with a head covering, and we admired the peace and spirituality of that holy of holiest places for the Sikh faith. That permeated through to us all. We watched hundreds of people together, preparing food for the langar, which is the free meal given every day to anyone who cares to call in and ask for it. We also experienced the serenity, the sense of spirituality and faith that that place emanates and, of course, its absolute beauty.

Time is short, so I will conclude with some brief remarks. In 2010, we re-formed the all-party group on British Sikhs. I was elected to chair that group, following the defeat of my good friend Rob Marris, the predecessor of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton South West. Through that role, we have achieved a few things. I backed, although I was not able to go to Brussels, the lobby of the European Union. The Sikh Federation UK has supported our group so well, and I want to pay tribute to it for its work, together with that of the Sikh Council UK. Those two organisations ensure that British Sikhs are well represented. I want to thank all the hon. Members on the all-party group who are here today and those who are unable to join us.

Finally, I want to dedicate my few words to a very dear and close friend, the late Marsha Singh, who was the Member for Bradford West. Marsha was a good friend, and during his life he encapsulated all the values of Sikhism and of being a British Sikh. He died at a very young age and will be sadly missed, but I am sure that the values he lived for will live on.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Debate between Mike Gapes and Fabian Hamilton

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fabian Hamilton]

I agree wholeheartedly, and in a couple of minutes I shall say something about some of the survivors in my constituency. Sadly, they will not be with us in perhaps 10 or 15 years, and certainly 20 or 30 years. When the children with whom we visited the camps—thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust—are in their 40s and 50s, there will be no survivors left to speak of their first-hand experiences. It is so important for those experiences to be shared down the generations, and for us to continue, enforce and support the work of the trust.

[Mike Gapes]

I am sure my hon. Friend is aware of an extremely moving film called “Shoah”, made by Steven Spielberg. Spielberg went around the world collecting the testimonies of survivors in many different countries. It was a remarkable piece of work that took a very long time. At least the film’s existence means that those people’s voices and faces are still there for future generations.

Iran (Human Rights)

Debate between Mike Gapes and Fabian Hamilton

Wednesday 11th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

During the previous Parliament, the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs went to Iran in autumn 2007, and in February 2008 it published a report that went into considerable detail on many issues, including the human rights situation. The Select Committee concluded that Iran is a complex and diverse society ruled by a theocratic regime. My impressions are of a young country that wants to engage with the rest of the world, but is prevented from doing so by the policies of the ruling clique. However, another problem is that there is not one ruling group; that touches on the point about how the authorities sometimes move in unexpected ways, because decisions are not taken in a way that is transparent from our point of view.

How we deal with a country such as Iran is a dilemma. On the one hand, we try to encourage a process of openness and reform, but on the other, we recognise its appalling behaviour, whether in systematically breaching obligations under the non-proliferation treaty; sponsoring terrorist actions in other countries; or defending the autocratic, repressive Syrian regime, as it is doing at the moment. We and the European Union had problems with the policy of so-called “constructive engagement”, which has run into the sand. We saw the newly elected President Obama extending his hand to the Iranians when he came to office in early 2009 and being snubbed. How do we deal with a country of that kind?

[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

I, too, was in the delegation to Iran in November 2007. Would my hon. Friend agree that we were given privileged access to, among other things, some of the dissenters? Following on from the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), there are quite a number of dissidents who stand up for the things that they believe in—a free, open, democratic and pluralist Iran—despite being oppressed day in, day out.

[Mike Gapes]

I accept my hon. Friend’s point, but I think that we were not “given privileged access”; rather, our diplomats made it possible for us to engage with some people. It was a privilege for us, but those people were taking great risks in contacting us, and some of them are no longer in Iran and are not allowed to return, due to their activities at that time and because they would not be secure and safe.

I want to conclude by making a contrast. BBC journalists are not allowed to report in Iran, and the Iranian authorities make systematic efforts to jam international broadcasts and satellites, including the BBC World Service Persian television service, which has been very popular with the Iranian people. The regime tries very hard to keep from the people the truth about the atrocities in June 2009, when protestors against the rigged election were on the streets in huge numbers, and about what subsequently happened to protestors’ families. Propaganda is broadcast to Iranian homes by state-controlled Press TV, including broadcasts from London of people who claim that the demonstration against tuition fees was parallel to the protests of June 2009.

Will the Minister say something about the anomaly of the BBC not being allowed in Iran and foreign broadcasts systematically being prevented from getting through to Iran—so far as the regime is able to prevent that—when we allow representatives of the Iranian Government, through their mouthpiece, Press TV, to broadcast propaganda about this country that completely distorts what is happening in the world? Given the current crisis, and the fact that diplomatic relations are broken, I find it difficult to see why we do not take steps to prevent Press TV from behaving in such a way. Would we have allowed Nazi media to broadcast from London in 1939? I ask that question as a serious point for us to think about for the future.