Human Rights: Iran

Steve McCabe Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I am particularly pleased that you are chairing this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I know your profoundly held views on the issue of human rights in Iran. Many colleagues are attending the debate tonight and, as I am having great difficulty in pronouncing some of the names that I need to read out, I would be grateful if they could intervene to help me with that exercise.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk about Iran’s human rights record, which is an absolute disgrace. The record of the clerical regime’s 34-year rule includes the execution of 120,000 of its political opponents, yet the world remains silent. It also includes the catastrophic repression of women, oppressed nationalities, and followers of various religions; the destruction of the majority of the middle class; the obliteration of the private sector; the falling of at least 40 million people below the poverty line; unemployment standing at 35%—an absolute disgrace—and a 40% inflation rate; and the plunging of the nation’s official currency.

At the same time, Iran’s regime is sowing the seeds of discord right across the middle east, not least in Syria, where the mullahs are lending huge assistance to the dictator Assad, who is a very wicked man indeed. The regime is also attempting to eliminate Iraq’s democratic opposition leaders, as well as the 3,300 Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty. The mullahs are a particular concern, owing to their dangerous pursuit of nuclear weapons. Let there be no doubt in the House that those nuclear weapons would be directed towards the destruction of the entire world.

I shall keep my remarks brief, as I hope to be able to give my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe at least a couple of minutes in which to respond to the debate. I shall focus on the regime’s brutal efforts to suppress a Persian spring, which stopped the possibility of democratic change occurring organically in Iran. Iran’s fundamentalist regime has embarked on a brutal campaign of mass executions to terrorise its people and prevent a resurgence of the protests calling for regime change.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the regime has simply run out of chances and that it has to go? Does he also agree that the one constructive thing that we could do would be to let the legitimate leader of the Iranian opposition, Mrs Rajavi, come to this country to talk to British politicians and the people in our media, so that they could see the alternative?

[Mr Amess]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, I stand shoulder to shoulder with him on this issue.

On 13 November, 44 people in Iran were sent to the gallows. At least 450 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2012, according to the tally publicly announced by the authorities, which we can hardly believe. The true number is far greater.