Human Rights Violations

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I am delighted to have secured a debate on an issue that is of real importance to Members across the House. I am glad to see that representatives of other political parties are present to join in discussing such a vital issue.

The debate arises as a direct result of a report published earlier this summer by the Conservative party human rights commission, which I have the honour of chairing. I am particularly grateful to fellow members of the commission, including Members of both Houses of Parliament, Members of the European Parliament and campaigners, for their work and support in helping the inquiry that led to the publication of our report. I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), who is present, for his work in the oral evidence sessions held during the inquiry, and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who is also present, for her unstinting work in that respect.

I also pay tribute to all the organisations that submitted written evidence to the commission and to those who gave oral evidence. A wide range of organisations gave evidence to our inquiry, including Amnesty International, the British Medical Association, the Law Society, Medact, Human Rights Watch, the National Union of Teachers, the Rights Practice and the Peace Brigades. The result is the report entitled, “Professionals in the Firing Line”, which makes a number of recommendations to the Government that I shall deal with in turn.

In the ongoing debate about the state of human rights across the world, one thing is very clear: without the existence of impartial and independent professions and in the absence of proper systems allowing business people to operate with integrity, no society can truly call itself free or open. In other words, the implementation of basic standards of democracy and human rights at a political level will never be enough. Unless a country has a similar commitment to the free conduct of people offering and carrying out professional services—whether they are lawyers, doctors, teachers, journalists or people undertaking legitimate business—not only is the country in question obstructing freedom, but it is impeding its own economic and social development. Regimes in various parts of the world know that all too well, but they perceive the independence of professions or businesses within their societies as some sort of threat to their own political power.

For many years, I have been a member of a profession in England and Wales—the Bar—and its code of conduct tells barristers that among our duties must be the ability, at all times, to conduct cases “without fear or favour”. That is a phrase that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) will know well from his work as a lawyer. The words “without fear or favour” are very simple, but very powerful. They encapsulate two vital concepts for any professional holding themselves to be truly independent: first, the ability to operate freely and without worrying about any repercussions as a result of their actions; and secondly, the freedom to act without inducement or corrupt practice. In too many parts of the world, fear and undue favour are still all too prevalent in professional work.

Our report focused on several themes. Rather than taking a country-by-country approach, we considered the violations of human rights that are faced by different professions, according to the evidence that we received. We looked at the violations of human rights that are faced by lawyers and, according to the evidence, where the rule of law is weak or absent, lawyers face particular challenges. Whether they are challenging human rights abuses on behalf of political dissidents, representing communities threatened by large-scale economic development or defending people who are alleged to have infringed religious laws, lawyers face considerable infringements.

In places such as Colombia, Mexico, Nepal and Guatemala, lawyers face a range of human rights violations, including death threats, intimidation, stalking, assault, illegal surveillance and defamation. In Colombia, more than 400 lawyers have been assassinated since 1991. Shakespeare wrote memorably about killing all the lawyers but, in a different context and a different time, the lack of truly independent legal advice is a real threat to civil societies, such as that in Colombia.

I have focused on the dangers faced by lawyers. However, it is important to remember that not only are lawyers facing dangers, but the rule of law itself and the independence of the judiciary are under attack. For example, in Iran, the independent Bar Association, which was set up in 1955, was closed down after the revolution, and the majority of its directors were jailed. In the past two years, more than a dozen lawyers who had been members of that association have been imprisoned for defending political prisoners and even worse, because it is more permanent, many have been disqualified from practice.

In China, as it reaches a change of leadership, there again seems to be a crackdown on all forms of political dissent, which poses a particular challenge for lawyers, mainly due to an increase in police surveillance. We think that China has shown a complete failure to respect the United Nations basic principles on the role of lawyers. We have particular concerns about several cases involving the abduction, torture and house arrest or the holding incommunicado of lawyers. Of particular concern are the cases of Cheng Guangcheng, a blind lawyer, who has spent most of the past six years in prison or under house arrest for filing law suits on behalf of women forced to have abortions under the one-child policy; of Gao Zhisheng, a human rights lawyer, who defended Falun Gong and house church Christians and has at various times in recent years been jailed and beaten and is currently still in prison; of the several Molihua lawyers, who have been detained for varying periods in the past year; of the Beihai lawyers, who have been beaten up and arrested on various occasions; and, finally, of Liu Xiaoyuan, a Beijing-based lawyer and friend of the artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained for six days in April last year at an undisclosed location. All those are pretty stark examples of China’s failure to adhere to a basic tenet of human rights.

In Bahrain last year, the prominent defence lawyer Mohamed al-Tajer was arrested without a warrant by masked security officers, who took him to an unknown location and brought him before a military court, in which he was charged with allegations of spreading rumours and malicious news and of inciting hatred towards the regime. His trial was then referred to a civilian court and he has been released from prison, but his legal status is unclear. I mentioned Iran, and it would be wrong not to refer to the case of Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was arrested in September 2010 and is now serving an 11-year sentence for representing the Nobel peace prize recipient Dr Shirin Ebadi as well as many other human rights campaigners.

As a result of the evidence we heard, we have made a number of recommendations for action by the British Government. First, we recommend that they do everything that they can to promote respect for the rule of law and protection for lawyers in all relevant public statements and bilateral discussions.

Secondly, we recommend that the Government develop and maintain relationships with lawyers, especially those at risk and those involved in defending human rights campaigners, political activists and vulnerable communities, and in conducting anti-corruption cases. Embassy staff should visit lawyers and provide opportunities and platforms to meet.

Thirdly, we recommend that all United Kingdom diplomatic missions implement the EU guidelines on human rights defenders and include the protection of local human rights defenders, including lawyers, in their contingency plans for emergency situations.

Fourthly, financial support and technical expertise should be provided to Governments and lawyers to increase understanding of the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. We also recommend that human rights violations and questions of impunity are investigated so that justice is upheld. Finally, we called for the ratification of the United Nations international convention for the protection of all persons from enforced disappearances.

We then looked at the challenges faced by medical practitioners, whether they be doctors, nurses or other medical workers. We of course dealt with the incidents that arose from the unrest in the Kingdom of Bahrain in 2011, which involved a large number of Bahraini doctors. More than 200 medical professionals were arrested following the direct intervention by security forces in an incident at the Salmaniya medical complex, the largest public hospital. The events that followed are well documented, but the evidence that we heard from a number of professions were of arrests, detention and, sadly, mistreatment. We also looked at the use of military rather than civil procedures to deal with a number of people, and of criminal proceedings to address issues that were more properly the province of professional conduct.

The commission was pleased to note that 15 criminal prosecutions against medical professionals were dropped in March and that, in the aftermath of the unrest, the Bahraini Government set up a national institution on human rights and a new human rights and social development Ministry, and are making some progress in moving their society forward from the position it had reached last year.

We urge the Bahraini Government to allow foreign journalists and human rights organisations to observe such developments, and call on Her Majesty’s Government to monitor their progress so that we do not have a situation whereby lip service is paid to human rights.

We encountered evidence of the threats being posed to medical professionals not only in Bahrain, but in several other countries. We received examples of cases from Syria, Iran and India. In Syria, we heard evidence of the arrest, torture and abuse of health professionals, Sadly, we also heard about the death of a number of professionals in that country.

According to the British Medical Association, there are reports of some doctors being used by the Syrian authorities as tools of repression. In some cases, they were instructed to abuse wounded protesters who sought treatment in state-run hospitals, which is an appalling perversion of the oath that is taken by all doctors and the ethics that surround the medical profession. It is something that any truly free society would regard as abhorrent.

We also heard about the case of Dr Binayak Sen in India. He is a renowned paediatrician and human rights activist who was sentenced to life imprisonment for sedition and conspiracy against the state before being released on bail by the Indian Supreme Court last April. His imprisonment has been condemned by a number of organisations, including Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.

It is also known that in conflict zones, medical professionals are deliberately targeted by those involved. For example, in Sri Lanka, during the final stages of the civil war, the military was accused of intentionally shelling field hospitals, killing doctors and other medical professionals. The United Nations report of the Secretary-General’s panel of experts on accountability in Sri Lanka said:

“The Government systematically shelled hospitals on the frontlines. All hospitals in the Vanni were hit by mortars and artillery, some of them were hit repeatedly”.

In the ongoing and historic ethnic conflicts in Burma, attacks by the Burmese army on clinics and medical professionals are well documented.

As a result of the evidence we heard, we make the following recommendations for the Government: consider proposing an extension to the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health to include reporting on protection for and violations of medical neutrality; work with the International Committee of the Red Cross to develop the project “Health care in danger” to better assure the security of health care workers during armed conflict; and ensure that British diplomatic representatives are present at any trial proceedings involving doctors or other medical professionals where there is evidence that the defendants have been subjected to violations of human rights or are being persecuted as a direct result of fulfilling their professional and ethical medical responsibilities. Finally, we welcome the Bahraini Government’s acknowledgement of the abuses that were committed, and urge the Government to monitor closely the progress of promised institutional change in Bahrain.

We then looked at violations of human rights being faced by journalists and media workers. We were helped by organisations such as Article 19, which works in the area of press freedom. Since 2010, more than 500 journalists have been killed and in 2011 alone at least 97 were killed. Among the most dangerous countries for journalists are Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, the Philippines and Somalia. It is right to note that Turkey and Uzbekistan have the highest number of journalists in prison.

It is estimated that 145 journalists are in jail around the world, with 67 in Turkey alone. They are mostly being held under anti-terror laws. Media workers are also vulnerable to violence based on gender and to sudden disappearances. At least 10 journalists disappeared in Mexico in 2011. Infringements against the media take place not only in countries with conflict situations or with little or no democratic progress, but in emerging democracies. It is crystal clear that in the overwhelming majority of cases, the crimes against journalists go unpunished. In other words, there is operation with impunity by both states and third parties within those countries.

Belarus is a country of particular concern to the commission. There are a number of continuing infringements against the freedom of journalists to operate. The case of Oleg Bebenin, who was found hanged in his country home in 2010, is one of the most concerning cases. Even though Belarus is in Europe, it is ranked 189th out of 196 countries for press freedom by Freedom House, which is lower than Iran or Zimbabwe. All mainstream media outlets in Belarus are controlled by the state and after a mass media law was passed in 2008 further restrictions were introduced, including allowing state prosecutors and the ministry of information to close or suspend news outlets if they

“threaten the interests of the state or the public”.

That has resulted in the denial of many licences for media groups and an increased risk to media organisations that are hostile to or disagree with the regime.

The position in China regarding the media also concerned the commission. In particular, many bloggers and others using the internet have been arrested in the last year. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China reports that more than a dozen reporters, including representatives of international media organisations such as the BBC, CNN and Bloomberg, have been detained or beaten by security officers when they covered possible protests. Zhang Jialong, the former Caijing magazine journalist who covered the detention of the artist Ai Weiwei, went missing in April 2011 after being approached by a person claiming to represent the police. In 2009, the Nobel prize laureate Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison having been held incommunicado since December 2008.

In Iran, journalists face harassment, torture and imprisonment. They include Faranak Farid, a women’s rights activist and journalist. She was arrested in September 2011 and detained without charge. She is reported to have been beaten so severely that she is now unable to move one of her arms and has lost the hearing in her left ear.

I have already mentioned Syria in another context, but it would be wrong of me not to refer to that country and that regime again in discussing journalists. Several journalists in Syria, including Mohammed Zaid Mastou and Dorothy Parvaz, have been detained.

As a commission, we recommend that the Government take several steps to increase protection for media workers and to promote press freedom. We urge the Government to work to uphold and enforce UN Security Council resolution 1738 on the protection of journalists; we urge the Government to support activities to promote world press freedom day each year; and finally, we ask the Government to help to ensure that press freedom and the protection of media workers are raised in all bilateral and multilateral forums, with specific attention paid to the EU and the UN, and particularly with reference to the Governments of China, Iran, Mexico, Pakistan, the Philippines, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

The report then turns to the violations of human rights that are being faced by teachers. Once again, maintaining the integrity and independence of the teaching profession is vital if future generations are to have access to the truth and understand the world around them in an objective way. It is sad and concerning to note that in far too many regimes and countries teachers themselves are facing oppression and the use of violence by third parties within those countries. We are grateful to the National Union of Teachers for the evidence that it provided.

In countries such as Colombia, Ethiopia and Iran, the situation is particularly concerning. The position of teachers in Colombia remains grave. In 2010, 49 trade unionists were assassinated, 27 of whom were teachers and members of the Colombian teaching union. As I say, the position of teachers in Colombia remains very serious. In 2011, the killings continued; in fact, 29 trade unionists were assassinated last year. And so far in 2012, 16 trade unionists have been assassinated.

In 2009, Education International published a report on political violence against the education sector in Colombia. The report said that between 1991 and 2006 more than 800 Colombian teachers and education workers were murdered. Those killings were carried out primarily by right-wing paramilitary organisations, and once again they were committed with impunity—that means that there was no punishment, no comeback and no consequence as a result of those murders.

One example of such killings is that of Jorge Eliécer de los Ríos Cárdenas, a teacher who was responsible for an environmental education project. In June 2011, he was shot several times outside his school. He had publicly denounced the effects of open-cast mining on his local community and he paid for that with his life.

In Ethiopia, teaching unions have been restricted and teachers who have been active in illegal union activities have faced intense persecution. Teachers who have criticised the Government’s educational policies have been dismissed. In 2008, a new union, the National Teachers’ Association, was established but it was not recognised by the Government. In November 2011, an Ethiopian teacher burned himself to death in protest against human rights violations, having been jailed for helping to organise demonstrations against corruption in government.

In Iran, members of teaching unions have faced arrest and detention, and teachers belonging to religious minorities have faced severe persecution. Last year, the authorities in Iran tried to shut down the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education, which is the only higher education facility for those adhering to the Baha’i faith. As a result, dozens of academic staff were detained. Other cases from Iran that we heard about include that of Farzad Kamangar, a 35-year-old teacher who was imprisoned and charged with “enmity towards God”. He was sentenced to death and executed in 2010. Furthermore, meetings of the Iranian Teacher Trade Association have been prevented from happening and many teachers remain in detention.

After the protests in Bahrain that took place early last year, we have heard examples and received evidence of the violation of human rights of teachers and university professors in that country. In particular, we heard evidence about the case of Jaleela al-Salman, vice-president of the Bahrain Teachers Association. We are concerned about her arrest in March 2011, which took place in her own home in front of her children. We are also concerned about the dissolution of the Bahraini teachers’ union, which happened in April 2011. A new union was established but it was established by a Government ministry, and therefore there are concerns about the integrity and independence of that organisation.

Having considered all the evidence about teachers that it received, the commission makes the following recommendations: we urge the Government to seek systematic protection of the human rights of teachers across the world; we ask the Government to promote the implementation of fundamental labour standards, including the International Labour Organisation conventions 87 and 98; we ask the Government to promote the right of teachers to form trade unions; we ask the Government to seek accountability for crimes committed against teachers and teacher trade unionists around the world, particularly in Colombia and Ethiopia; and finally, we call upon the Government to seek the release of all teachers imprisoned in Iran.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this very important debate. He has asked the Government to take certain steps, but does he agree that we also need to urge other countries to establish a body similar to our Joint Committee on Human Rights? I serve on that Committee, which considers whether all legislation is human rights-compatible. Does he agree that we need to encourage other countries to have such a committee, to ensure that all legislation is looked at in the light of human rights?

[Mr Buckland]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. He makes a very proper point about the need for more effective political mechanisms for legislators, so that every possible step is taken to ensure that human rights legislation is passed in the country in question. I think that he will agree with my fundamental point that that, in and of itself, is not enough and that more needs to be done at the professional and civil levels to propagate standards of independence, integrity and freedom. Without that kind of culture developing in countries with poor records, such countries cannot be judged to be truly free.

[Rehman Chishti]

My hon. Friend has briefly touched on the overall aspect, which is the separation of executive and judicial powers. The fundamental point is that it is great to have lawyers who can carry out their jobs, but it is important to have a judiciary that will give them impartial hearings. The countries that he mentions are affected by that, and unless the situation changes one will not get proper human rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the key importance of an independent judiciary. So many countries do themselves a disservice by not guaranteeing free and independent legal processes. They damage their own trade prospects by not giving businesses the confidence that any dispute with which they might become involved can be resolved properly by an independent judiciary. That challenges the viability of contract law, and we know plenty of examples of other countries that use English contract law, with its long reputation for integrity and reliability, as the way to do business. That is great for this country, commercially as well as politically, but other countries will do well to adopt the principles that for so long have applied in countries such as ours.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his thorough report, and I urge those who have not read it to do so. The excerpts from the report that he has drawn upon in his speech today are heartbreaking, and illuminate what goes on in the rest of the world.

Has my hon. Friend thought about the fact that the United Nations was set up in the wake of the second world war, to try to prevent such enormous atrocities as happened in that war from ever occurring again? Has he also thought about the fact that some of the UN’s institutions are not as effective as they might be—in particular, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which often has principal members who themselves have pretty dubious human rights records? What more could our Government do to urge the UN to be more effective? Many of my hon. Friend’s recommendations involve human rights resolutions.

[Mr Buckland]

My hon. Friend is right. The answer that I would give him today is that I think that the United Nations has brought together Governments but perhaps has a long way to go to bring together other levels of society. For an organisation such as the UN to make true progress, more work must be done at differing levels of society, more effectively to bring together professional organisations, for example. We are lucky in the United Kingdom to have organisations, such as the Law Society and the Bar Council, with international relations committees that do a lot of this work, by working with lawyers in other countries to spread best practice, share principles of freedom and justice and encourage other societies to work in a similar way. Without the support of member Governments of the United Nations, and of the institution itself, that work will always be too ad hoc to have universal application. That is my view about how the United Nations should now develop, nearly 70 years after its foundation in San Francisco in 1945.

I am grateful to my hon. Friends the Members for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) and for The Cotswolds for their interventions. Reference has been made to the integrity of contract law and to the rule of law, and that brings me on to the final area that we considered: the difficulties faced in many countries by people who are trying to carry out business or are in some way involved in representing people in business. I have made the fundamental point that threats to the integrity of business practice threaten not only freedom, but the commercial and financial viability of many countries. In particular, we looked at what is happening in Russia, and we are gravely concerned that the Russian state is either condoning or actively taking part in endemic corruption. There are two cases that we consider to be examples of the baleful effect of state corruption on the lifeblood of an economy.

The Sergei Magnitsky case has been well documented and the subject of debates, not only here but in countries across the world. A debate in the House some months ago highlighted the continuing concerns of both Government and Opposition Members about the role of the Russian state in the killing of the lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky. Putting it simply, Mr Magnitsky was arrested, imprisoned and ill-treated, and he died for having blown the whistle on the massive theft of tax revenue from the Russian state by its own officials. A simple recitation of those facts underlines the seriousness of the position that the Russian state now finds itself in and the danger to freedom that such cases reveal.

We believe that in recognition of the unique position of London as a destination of choice for many senior Russian officials, the Government should, as soon as possible, introduce measures publicly to restrict visas and to freeze the assets of Russian officials involved in serious corruption and human rights abuses. We were delighted by the reference to the issue in “Human Rights and Democracy: The 2011 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Report”:

“Where there is independent, reliable and credible evidence that an individual has committed human rights abuses, the individual will not normally be permitted to enter the United Kingdom.”

That statement is particularly important in the context of a recent development in Russia: the decision by the authorities to withhold the identities of all 12 prosecutors involved in the posthumous—yes, posthumous—trial of Sergei Magnitsky. The man not only suffered indignity in life; he now faces it in death. The reason for withholding the identities, it seems to me, is simple. If legislation, which is being considered by the United States Congress among others, is passed, those individuals would face losing visa rights and having their assets frozen if their identities were revealed. That lamentable state of affairs further reflects the difficult and troubled situation that we face with human rights in Russia.

The other Russian example that we looked at was the Khodorkovsky case. Without going into the full details of that troubled history, the individual remains in prison, after eight years, and the case has still not been satisfactorily resolved. We regard it as yet another example of double standards being applied, rather than equality under the law, which has to be a basic tenet of all countries that hold themselves out to be free. That is important, because bilateral trade between the United Kingdom and Russia has been growing by an average of 21% every year since 2001. In 2010, exports from this country to Russia increased by 51% to nearly £3.5 billion, which shows the importance for British business of the integrity of the financial and business systems in countries such as Russia. Without that integrity, there is a direct threat to British business and the integrity of trade between our two nations. That is why, at a practical level, it is important that the British Government’s message to regimes that indulge in such practices is clear.

We urge the Government to introduce measures to support civil society in Russia, by encouraging and facilitating British professional bodies to engage with their Russian counterparts. We emphasise that Russia’s membership of European and global organisations such as the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the World Trade Organisation carries a significant responsibility to operate according to international rules.

A foreign policy that involves not only the use of political pressure to achieve change but investment in developing professional skills and capacity, with the direct input of British professional organisations in sharing best practice and providing training, will do much to help build a freer and more stable world.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I sense that my hon. Friend is coming to his peroration, but has he considered how our international development assistance might be used to persuade countries that have a less than perfect human rights record that they need to improve their performance?

[Mr Buckland]

Yes, I have. I firmly believe that the role of our international development programme is not only to give direct monetary help, where appropriate, but to facilitate and allow professionals and professional organisations to spread best practice and train professionals in emerging countries, by providing the appropriate funding for those programmes to exist.

As a country, we produce thousands of qualified professionals every year, and this is not an easy time for many of those professionals to go immediately into full-time practice because there is a lot of competition in the market. I believe that there is a great opportunity for some of our younger professionals and, indeed, for professionals who wish to take a mid-career break to put something back into the society from which they have benefited. What better way to do that than by embarking upon properly funded, properly structured programmes in countries with poor human rights records to spread good practice and freedom?

Our greatest invisible exports are freedom, the rule of law and freedom under the law. Let us ensure that fellow professionals in other countries can genuinely enjoy the freedoms that I and other professionals have enjoyed in this country so that they, in all their walks of life, can operate without fear or favour.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) not only on securing this debate but on the way in which he has chaired the Conservative party human rights commission since taking up that post nearly a year ago. His dedication is shown in the high quality of the wide-ranging report and its in-depth recommendations. It is a privilege to be identified with the report and with his work.

[Mr Buckland]

I pay tribute to commission member Mr Ben Rogers, whom my hon. Friend and I know well. He has played an important part in bringing together the strands that form the report.

[Fiona Bruce]

I will augment the report by referring to additional examples of human rights abuses against professionals uncovered by a contemporaneous inquiry.

Since April, the Christians in Parliament all-party group has conducted an inquiry into human rights abuses in Iran, and my speech will focus on professionals who have suffered human rights abuses in that country. With the help of Elam Ministries and Eighteen07, the all-party group is currently cataloguing those abuses, particularly abuses against the rapidly growing Christian community,

A range of human rights abuses has been described to us, from job discrimination and the withholding of passports to false arrest and subsequent sleep deprivation, false information being given to families while those arrested are in detention, beatings, lengthy interrogations, mock executions and actual killings. I will highlight three examples given to us by professionals.

Issa Dibaj is the eldest son of Mehdi Dibaj, who a generation ago in 1994 was killed in Iran for his Christian faith. Almost 20 years later, Issa is still suffering as a result. He explained several forms of abuse that he has experienced. Although perhaps not as major as the abuses experienced by others, I cite the example of job discrimination. He is a teacher:

“I graduated with a first class degree in English literature from Tehran university, the country’s best educational institution. Despite being highly qualified, despite the fact that the university was in desperate need of instructors in English, and despite having the full support of the academic members of the board of the English department, my application for a teaching position in Tehran university was rejected with the vague explanation that ‘at present we cannot offer you this position’.”

I turn now to the evidence gathered for our report from the alarming testimony of another professional, Hossein Jadidi. A lawyer, Mr Jadidi was a devout Muslim who converted to Christianity. In our hearings, he reported enormous resistance from the authorities to his attempts to provide professional services to his clients, many of whom are also Christians. He discussed two clients in detail as an example.

On reporting to the Iranian intelligence ministry to be registered as his clients’ lawyer, Mr Jadidi experienced intimidation and threats and was not permitted to visit his clients, in contravention of Iranian law. Eventually, his clients were granted bail, but once the bail had been paid they were not permitted to leave the prison. The prison authorities then refused to receive Mr Jadidi’s written protest on their behalf. Mr Jadidi reports that he himself eventually became the subject of human rights abuses and persecution, which began with monitoring by the Government. He became aware of telltale sounds on his phone calls that indicated a third person was listening in, and he noticed that people were always watching him when he got out of his car.

In December 2010, the Iranian Government organised a large-scale programme of human rights abuses against Christians, taking hundreds of people into custody and questioning them. On their release, many reported back to Mr Jadidi that he had been the repeated subject of their interrogations. One said that an interrogator had told him, “We know what Hossein is up to, and he’s playing with fire.” Another interrogator used the interrogation to threaten Mr Jadidi indirectly by asking, “Isn’t he afraid that when he drives his car he will have an accident?” As a lawyer, Mr Jadidi knew the authorities needed to gather substantial evidence before arresting him, and because of the number of people detained who had reported back to him that he had been the subject of interrogations, he realised the authorities were putting together a file on him.

Mr Jadidi was a member of Iran’s religious minority committee of the human rights commission of the lawyers’ centre. He learned that other members of the committee were also being systematically arrested and taken into custody. At that point, he felt compelled to leave his profession and flee Iran to avoid his own arrest.

My third example involves a journalist and is equally disturbing, as it relates to BBC employees. We heard highly disturbing evidence from Sadeq Saba, editor of BBC Persian, which is part of the World Service. Other witnesses told us that an enormous number of people in Iran listen to BBC Persian. It carries great authority, as we all appreciate.

Mr Saba testified about what he termed a

“campaign of harassment and intimidation against BBC Persian staff and their relatives”.

He stated that although reports are widespread of journalists being persecuted throughout the world, it is extremely unusual to hear of journalists working in Britain being attacked through the intimidation of their families in another country. That is a particularly disturbing approach and creates serious worry for BBC staff based here, far away from vulnerable relatives who have no connection with the work of the BBC other than through a family member.

One journalist was instructed to report for interrogation via the internet, and was told that if they did not comply, their family members in Iran would be in danger. Most alarming in Mr Saba’s testimony was the number of people who had been approached in that way, or whose families had been approached. Over a six-month period, no fewer than 30 to 40 of Mr Saba’s staff on the BBC Persian service told him about such threats or intimidation. Their families had been contacted by the authorities. The regime suggests to family members, for example, that it might be best if the journalists give up their jobs or give information about the BBC to the Iranian Government. Families report being extremely scared of grave consequences if they do not comply. I put on record my admiration for Mr Saba’s staff and his leadership role. It is remarkable. He told us that to his knowledge, no journalist has succumbed in response to threats to them or their family.

I am pleased to have had the opportunity to highlight those additional examples of the sufferings of professionals for their role in society. It is critical. I look forward to the Minister’s response, particularly to the recommendations of the report that my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon discussed. We in this country are in a unique position to make a difference.