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Written Question
Chechnya: Homosexuality
Wednesday 26th April 2017

Asked by: James Berry (Conservative - Kingston and Surbiton)

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations Ministers of his Department have made to the Russian Government on reports of arrests of gay men in Chechnya.

Answered by Alan Duncan

​I refer the Hon. Member to my response to written question 70842, and the answers I gave when replying to an Urgent Question in the House on 20 April 2017. Since then, the FCO Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia has written to the Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom setting out our concerns and calling for the Russian authorities to undertake an investigation as a matter of urgency.

Speech in Westminster Hall - Tue 28 Feb 2017
Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

"I beg to move,

That this House has considered human rights in Sri Lanka and the 34th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes, not only because it will be wonderfully fair and impartial but because I know that …..."
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Speech in Westminster Hall - Tue 28 Feb 2017
Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

"I could not agree more with the right hon. Lady. I am sure that the Minister will listen to the all-party group’s concerns about human rights in Sri Lanka. I have not just my own concerns as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group but concerns that my Tamil constituents …..."
James Berry - View Speech

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Speech in Westminster Hall - Tue 28 Feb 2017
Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

"The reports by Freedom from Torture, whose No. 1 referral group is Tamils in Sri Lanka, are shocking. I know that the Government of Sri Lanka dispute what Freedom from Torture says, but even if we do not necessarily consider that, we must consider the recent report by the UN …..."
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Speech in Westminster Hall - Tue 28 Feb 2017
Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

"As I just outlined, the all-party parliamentary group for Tamils has indeed recognised the progress that has been made, but it is right to scrutinise the areas in which there has been a lack of progress and, as I will explain, a clear policy by the Government of Sri Lanka …..."
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Speech in Westminster Hall - Tue 28 Feb 2017
Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

"I agree. That brings us to the nub of the issue: the concern that the Government of Sri Lanka intend to turn up to Geneva this week and over the next few weeks to dazzle the international community with a list of clauses in the resolution on which they have …..."
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Speech in Westminster Hall - Tue 28 Feb 2017
Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

"I well understand the domestic political situation in Sri Lanka, but the fact is that President Sirisena signed up to the resolution in order to bring Sri Lanka back in from the cold on the world stage. He received congratulatory comments at the time from a number of world leaders …..."
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Speech in Westminster Hall - Tue 28 Feb 2017
Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

"I entirely agree. The last pronouncement made on the issue by my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire), when he held the ministerial brief that my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West now holds, was that Sri Lanka had not yet met its commitments …..."
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Speech in Westminster Hall - Tue 28 Feb 2017
Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

"I would agree with the hon. Gentleman, were it not that in this case we are not demanding anything of the Sri Lankan Government that the UN Human Rights Council has not already demanded and that they have not already agreed to. We are only trying to get them to …..."
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Speech in Westminster Hall - Tue 28 Feb 2017
Sri Lanka: UN Human Rights Council

"I accept that the immediacy of the terrible situations in Syria and in Yemen will preoccupy the UN Human Rights Council, and rightly so. However, having failed to act in the closing stages of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009, which may now seem a long time ago but …..."
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