Human Rights Abuses and Corruption: UK Sanctions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on securing this debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee. I will not be taking part in the Sir David Amess Adjournment debate, so I want to place on record the thanks of my party to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker and the wider team of staff, for all you do to support the House. I hope everybody has a good recess.

It is a sad fact that human rights abuses are taking place everywhere in the world, every day. As an MP elected in 2019, I find the information we get on this subject—the wide variety of places where it is happening and also what we hear from constituents—almost overwhelming. I am very grateful to my constituents in North East Fife for raising such issues with me. Like others, I want to refer to some of the campaigns and issues that have caught my attention.

First, I want to talk about political prisoners in Belarus, where there are currently 1,260 persons classified globally as political prisoners. These include bloggers to business owners, politicians to peaceful protesters—hundreds of people imprisoned in politically motivated persecutions, simply because they have exercised their right to freedom of expression and political participation. Through the #WeStandBYyou solidarity campaign, I am one of a number of godparents to one such political prisoner, and his name is Pavel Drozd. He was arrested on 3 November 2020 for alleged computer hacking and was tried earlier this year—a trial held behind closed doors without any due process. He has been sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony. We sadly know very little about his welfare because his family, quite understandably, have distanced themselves from the campaign for his freedom. They are at threat themselves for speaking out, so I do have sympathy with their position.

Will the Minister say what steps the Government are taking to support political prisoners such as Pavel, and to put pressure on the Belarusian Government to free such prisoners and reinstate proper democratic practices? I would also like to invite the Minister, and indeed anybody else in the House as a whole, to join me in solidarity by becoming a godparent. I am happy to send over information to anyone who expresses an interest.

Like others, I would like to talk about Bahrain. I know that it was mentioned this morning and that concern for the plight of prisoners in Bahrain is shared across the House. Indeed, I highlight my early-day motion on the issue and thank Members who have signed it. Dr al-Singace is serving a life sentence for his role in the 2011 pro-democracy uprising in Bahrain. His trial did not meet any of the standards of fairness that we would expect. He has been tortured and denied medical treatment, despite having chronic medical conditions. His work, which was apolitical, has been confiscated and his calls to his family have been stopped. In response to the conditions that he and others are suffering, he has been on hunger strike and has refused to eat solids for over a year. One can only imagine the impact of that on his physical and mental health.

Last year I met with Ali Mushaima, who was on hunger strike outside the Bahraini embassy calling for the release of Dr al-Singace and his own father, Hassan Mushaima, who has also been sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in that uprising. Mr Mushaima is 74 and is in remission from cancer. For the past year he has been held in a medical facility, but the authorities continue to deny him medical care. These are men who are facing life in prison without health care and are being subjected to degrading treatment simply because they believe in democracy.

The Government have continued to hold high-level meetings with Bahraini officials, and Prince Nasser continues to freely attend high-profile events such as Royal Ascot. Just two months ago, it was reported that he met with the Prime Minister. I very much hope those discussions involved highlighting what I have just described. I hope the Minister will join me in denouncing the treatment of Bahraini prisoners, and indeed the anti-democratic rule of a country where freedom of speech and assembly is repressed and the torture of dissenters is widespread.

As I have said, human rights abuses are taking place all the time. As we have seen from the war in Ukraine, where there is the political will for sanctions, then they are applied; but as others have highlighted, for other countries and other places, this Government are strangely reticent. I am conscious that, just last weekend, the “Home of Golf” in my constituency hosted the Open. Golf is not a sport that has been devoid of controversies in this area. It makes it difficult for us to feel that we can make a stand and speak out about the support for potentially repressive regimes if the Government do not do things to support that.

More recently, the situation in Sri Lanka has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds, as the Rajapaksa Government force their country into crisis with unsound economic policies, corruption and draconian police powers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) recently called in the House for an international arrest warrant to be issued for President Rajapaksa. I reiterate that call and hope that the Minister can respond to that point.

Finally, I want to highlight the fact that the Iranian hostage takers have failed to have any action taken against them through Magnitsky sanctions. We are all grateful for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori and Morad Tahbaz in March, but the Government’s refusal to use the sanctions regime available to it arguably emboldened their captors. All three went through unthinkably awful experiences before their release that could have been avoided if we had actually taken action. I hope that the Minister will explain to the House and to Nazanin, Anoosheh and Morad why that was not done at the time.

As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said in his opening remarks, tools are available within the FCDO. We must properly utilise the taskforce and Parliament must be fully sighted on this. On the last day of term, there is clearly an interest in this topic in the House—please act.