International Women’s Day

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Thursday 2nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

I wish to focus on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British citizen, charity worker, mother, daughter, sister and wife, who has been imprisoned in Iran for almost a year now. Nazanin lives 10 minutes down the road from me in west Hampstead. Her life was not very different from mine until she went on holiday to visit her parents with her two-year-old daughter Gabriella, who is also a British citizen. She was detained at the airport and, following trumped-up charges, handed a five-year sentence.

Long periods of Nazanin’s detention have been spent in solitary confinement in a wing of Iran’s notorious Evin prison. Her health has been deteriorating further and further, and her mental health has also been affected. Last week, she tried to walk to the prison clinic, but could not physically make it there and collapsed. After she came round, many hours later, she could not speak for hours on end. Doctors at the hospital in Iran have said that she needs immediate treatment to prevent long-term damage.

Nazanin’s detention, and her lack of legal representation and access to her family, fit the UN’s criteria for torture. It is therefore not a surprise that the UN has said that her detention is unlawful and arbitrary. Some 800,000 people have called for her release, and Nazanin’s family and I took a petition to the Foreign Office with the signatures of 200 MPs from different parties.

This country is not perfect in our treatment of women in prison, and more than half a million women and girls are currently in appalling conditions in prisons around the world. The excuse we often hear for criminal justice systems not having gender-specific options is that the proportion of women prisoners is too tiny to require circumstances to be changed. That is not a good excuse; we must ensure that the needs of female prisoners are met.

It was no surprise when in 2010 the UN General Assembly voted unanimously to adopt the Bangkok rules, the first international instrument to address appropriate conditions for female prisoners around the world. The rules also outline safeguards for the children of female prisoners. Iran has signed up to the Bangkok rules, but it has flouted them at each and every stage of Nazanin’s detention.

I ask the House to bear with me as I read out just how those rules have been flouted. Rule 23 states:

“Disciplinary sanctions for women prisoners shall not include a prohibition of family contact, especially with children.”

Try saying that to two-year-old Gabriella, who spent her second birthday without her parents and has not seen her mother for the best part of the past year. Rule 26 states:

“Women prisoners’ contact with their families…shall be…facilitated by all reasonable means”,

especially when they are detained in prisons located “far from their homes.” Try saying that to Nazanin’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, who has had barely any phone calls with his wife. Those that he has been allowed have been monitored by Iran’s revolutionary guards.

Iran has signed up to the Bangkok rules, and so have we. As I said, our record is not 100% positive. We need to look at our prisons and the way in which our female prisoners are treated, but that does not mean that we should shut our eyes to abuse in other countries. We should be shouting loudly to make sure that Nazanin, a British citizen, is reunited with her family and brought back to this country. I went to the Foreign Office with a Government Member, the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Oliver Dowden), but the Foreign Secretary did not come down to receive the petition, and he has repeatedly declined my request for a meeting.

I shall end on this. I am a female Member of Parliament, and I ask another female Member of Parliament, the Prime Minister, to do something to secure Nazanin’s release so that she can be brought back to west Hampstead and reunited with her family. The Prime Minister has said that she wants to be a compassionate leader; if there was ever a time to show compassion, this is it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jess Phillips]

I shall be incredibly brief. I thank the Backbench Business Committee—I am thanking myself—for allowing us to have the debate. I thank everybody who spoke in today’s debate with much passion and consensus.

One of the names I had to read out today was that of Jo Cox, my friend and colleague. Her voice should always be heard in this place, so I shall let her have the last word. When Jo Cox was asked what sort of feminist she was, with the idea that we are all terribly divided, and that “I’m this sort of feminist, you’re that sort of feminist”, her answer was, “a massive one”.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes International Women’s Day as an important occasion to recognise the achievements of women; and calls on the Government to join in this international event and pledge its commitment to gender parity.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. This week, the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) was in my constituency. To his credit, he informed me that he was going to be in my constituency for a Conservative fundraiser. I offered to go with him, but he rejected my advances. Today I opened my local paper, the Camden New Journal, to read that he had described the “pygmy” nature of the Opposition. Do you, Mr Deputy Speaker, think it was appropriate for him to use the term “pygmy” when he was in the constituency of the shortest MP in Parliament? I await your guidance.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

The hon. Gentleman is normally a very courteous Member, and he did give notice. I know the hon. Lady will have a quiet word in his ear, but knowing the Member I am sure there was no intent. If there was, she will need to come back to me.