Jagtar Singh Johal

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti]

If the hon. Lady wants to write to me on her specific constituency case, I will ensure that Ministers look at those points and come back to her.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I know that the Minister is committed to addressing issues of human rights across the world—I have worked with him and understand that. Does he not agree that the view of the UN working group, our own FCDO and legal judgments have made it clear that the treatment of my friend’s constituent is internationally unjustifiable and that action must be taken immediately to bring Jagtar Singh Johal back home to the UK and send a clear message that the United Kingdom’s innocent citizens—British passport holders—must be a Government priority in India and, indeed, anywhere in the world?

[Rehman Chishti]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all the fantastic work that he does on freedom of religion or belief and supporting individuals who are persecuted for their faith around the world. He made a point about the UN working group on arbitrary detention, and that working group has given India until 2 November to respond to its findings. That date has been made clear to the Indian Government. The UK Government are clear, and I am clear, that we are committed to doing all that we can to support Mr Johal and his family.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

I completely agree. The Government have been clear that we must build a network of like-minded countries and flexible groupings if we are to protect our interests globally. I was really pleased when last week the Defence Secretary hosted Australian Deputy Prime Minister Marles at the commissioning ceremony for HMS Anson in my hon. Friend’s constituency, demonstrating our deep defence ties, including through AUKUS.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

The Minister’s response makes clear the importance of all of us in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland working together, and we in Northern Ireland want to be part of that, contributing soldiers, sailors and airmen. Can the Minister give some indication of whether our soldiers, be it the Irish Guards or the Royal Irish Regiment, will be part of this new security policy?

[Amanda Milling]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making sure that Northern Ireland has a voice in this. I am sure that my colleagues in the FCDO and the MOD have heard his pitch.

Telford Child Sexual Exploitation: Inquiry

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Allan]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making two important points: first that this happens throughout the country, and secondly that there is much more work to be done. He is also right to emphasise that the role of the police is vital. They can and should view the report by Tom Crowther—the Telford report—as a model to be followed, and note the way in which West Mercia police responded to its findings. That, too, can be a significant learning for many police forces throughout the country.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady. It is hard to listen to stories such as this because they are so heart-rending and personal. I think we all accept that these issues are real for the hon. Lady and her constituency, but, as she has said, they are also real throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Every police force, every authority, every public body can learn from this report. Is it the hon. Lady’s hope that this report will be dispersed across the United Kingdom by the Minister, if that is at all possible, so that all of us, everywhere, can learn for the betterment of the children?

[Lucy Allan]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman—I call him my hon. Friend—who makes exactly the point that I would like the Minister to take away from today’s debate. There is so much learning in the Crowther report that could be disseminated throughout the country.

In his report, Mr Crowther urges all stakeholders to commit to a reflective response, and refers specifically to Telford and Wrekin Council. He observes that the council has shown a reluctance to accept criticism, and goes on to say that its approach has been essentially defensive. He stresses that to foster a culture of openness and learning it is necessary to recognise and admit mistakes; but he found, instead, a long-standing culture of resistance to ever admitting that provision was imperfect. Disappointingly, that is what we saw when the council came to respond to this important report on its publication.

In a very brief statement, which was issued on the date of publication and which no one put their name to, the council did not acknowledge or recognise that any mistakes had been made, and the press release claimed that the inquiry had in fact found that the council had made significant improvements and that, in any event, the council was already carrying out many of the recommendations. The press release did say that it was sorry for the pain and suffering of the victims, but it very specifically did not make any apology for or any mention of the mistakes the council had made. There was no acknowledgement that it could have done things differently and no suggestion that the council had a responsibility for what went wrong. There was repeated reference to the fact that child sexual exploitation was a problem that dates back many years—as long as 30 years in this case—as if to create some kind of distance between what had happened and the people responsible.

Human Rights Abuses and Corruption: UK Sanctions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

First, I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their magnificent and significant contributions. They have covered many of the subject matters. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. I was just sitting here writing down a list, and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) mentioned Nigeria. Nigeria is an area where there has been barbarism towards the humanists. When the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) and I visited Nigeria back in May, we asked the question for him.

There are abuses across the world. There are the Sunnis and the Shi’as in the middle east, the Baha’is in Iran, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow and Russia, and the Uyghurs and Falun Gong in China. I asked a question in business questions about the issue. The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned all those people too. We have Hindus in Pakistan, Muslims in India and Buddhists in Tibet. I know the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) is always interested in that issue, and I met some Buddhist people from Tibet this very week on Tuesday morning, and they reiterated the clear issues for them. They were very interested in the kidnapping and disappearance of the Panchen Lama, and the hon. Gentleman knows that case only too well. We have Baptists in Ukraine. Where Russia has taken over, Baptist pastors have gone missing, and we do not know where they are. The churches are destroyed. It is a catalogue of pure evil and wickedness across the world. It is not just one place.

In the short time I have, I will refer to the international ministerial conference that took place just a few weeks ago with 80 countries. It served as a forum where Her Majesty’s Government encouraged international co-operation to protect and promote freedom of religion or belief for all. Six pledges were made, four of which are pertinent to today’s debate. They were: to raise awareness of the current challenges to FORB issues across the world and of best practice in preventing violations and abuses; to speak out bilaterally, as well as through multilateral institutions; to look for opportunities to work more closely together with international partners to implement practical solutions; and to reinforce global coalitions for collective action.

The hon. Member for Rhondda and the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) have spoken out a number of times about freedom of religion or belief, and one of the strongest tools we have is Magnitsky-style sanctions. We want to see them working. We must work with other countries like us to champion the rule of law and equal rights for all members of society. These regulations are vital to protect vulnerable minority communities, to stop perpetrators profiting from these crimes and to punish those responsible. We must not forget that it is often minority religious and belief communities who are the canary in the coal mine.

[Chris Bryant]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise the phrase “seamless garment”? It refers to Jesus’s robe when it was taken off him and they decided to cast lots for it rather than cut it up. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that human rights are a seamless garment in that we cannot separate one category of human rights from another? Would he therefore also seek to condemn the execution in Iran of Mehrdad Karimpour and Farid Mohammadi for homosexuality in February this year?

[Jim Shannon]

I certainly would, and I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analogy of the seamless garment. I believe that human rights and religious belief work together and that when we attack one, we attack the other, so I have absolutely no compunction in agreeing with him on that. I will say that and put it on the record.

During the ministerial conference, numerous violations of freedom of religious belief were highlighted. For those cases, the threshold of evidence needed for Magnitsky sanctions was more than high enough. I want to raise one case in particular. Even though it has already been mentioned in today’s debate—the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green has been to the fore in this matter—the situation in Xinjiang deserves special attention, especially as this House, the Home Secretary and our closest allies recognise that there is overwhelming evidence of genocide against Uyghur Muslims.

Since 2003, the Chinese Communist party has sought to eradicate—I use that word on purpose; the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) used it as well—the Uyghur culture from China. For nearly 20 years, there has been a systematic approach to Uyghurs that has led to mass forced labour, forced relocation, the detention of up to 2 million people, arbitrary torture, forced sterilisation, executions and even organ harvesting on a commercial basis. As China commits these crimes, it also seeks to profit from the detention of the Uyghur Muslims, and as the arrests have increased, so has the economic output of the region.

This is where Magnitsky sanctions can make a real difference and where the UK can start to implement its duty to prevent genocide under the 1948 genocide convention. This is exactly the kind of situation the regulations were put in place for. Indeed, in 2020 Her Majesty’s Government announced co-ordinated action with the EU, the US and Canada to introduce sanctions on four Chinese Government officials and the public security bureau of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which runs the detention camps in the region. However, unfortunately and disappointingly, the UK Government have refused to impose sanctions on senior Chinese Government officials who are known to be directly involved in perpetrating the abuses, including the six perpetrators who have been sanctioned under near-identical legislation in the United States of America. This is part of a trend where the UK is getting slower in protecting global human rights. I say this disappointedly and very respectfully to the Minister, who I know has the same level of interest in protecting global human rights as I have. I am proud of our country’s commitment to upholding human rights on the world stage and that we are seen as global leaders in this field, but this reputation should not be taken for granted.

In the first year of the UK’s Magnitsky sanctions regime, 102 perpetrators were sanctioned for human rights abuses. However, the following year this fell to just six perpetrators. In the same period, the United States sanctioned more than 130 individuals or companies, again under near-identical legislation, when the threshold of evidence was met for both the UK and US regimes. The major question that everybody is asking is: if the American Government can do it, why can’t we?

The Government’s own impact assessment for the global anti-corruption sanctions legislation stated that the policy envisaged the UK working

“more closely with international partners, including the US and Canada”.

Clearly we are failing to keep pace with sanctions designations. This lack of co-ordination not only weakens the impact on perpetrators but encourages sanctioned individuals to use the UK as a safe haven to profit from corruption or human rights abuses, as many Members have said today. It also sends a message that the UK is unwilling to condemn such behaviour. As of today, the UK has sanctioned only 20% of those sanctioned by the United States. We need to do better. When I and others in this House raise specific questions on sanctions in this Chamber we always get the same response—namely, that it is the policy of the Government not to discuss specific individuals before sanctions are enacted. For goodness’ sake, just do them! Just follow what everybody else does. More transparency is needed from the Government and there is need for increased parliamentary oversight.

I will finish with four questions to the Minister, and I am sorry that I seem to be rushing. That is “rushing” as in rushing my words, not as in Russian. I have questions I want to ask the Minister. What steps have the Government taken to co-ordinate or share evidence of abuses with the United States and the other 22 countries with Magnitsky sanctions legislation? Does the Minister agree that Magnitsky-style sanctions can be an appropriate tool to help to prevent genocide and other crimes against humanity? Will the Government expand the sanctions on perpetrators of atrocities in Xinjiang province? Finally, will the Government use evidence presented in the international ministerial conference on freedom of religion or belief, held just a few weeks ago, to enact sanctions on perpetrators of egregious abuses of the rights of religious minorities? I know that the issue is close to the Minister’s heart, and we are looking for a substantial response. No pressure, but I want the right answers today.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We now come to the Front Bench contributions.

Nigeria: Security Situation

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) on securing this debate and on setting the scene so well. I declare an interest as a chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. The APPG speaks up for those with the Christian faith, those with other faith and those with no faith. Nigeria encompasses all three.

Nigeria is a topic very close to my heart; as many Members know, I had the privilege of visiting Nigeria five or six weeks ago, during my time as chair of the APPG. That visit happened to take place in late May. In Nigeria, we met people of Christian faith who had been displaced. We met those of Muslim faith who had been displaced. We met those who are humanists and had no faith at all. We took that opportunity to interact with all of them. I am pleased to see the spokesperson for the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara), in the debate. He and I were part of that deputation.

Shortly after we came back, the Minister responded to an urgent question on Nigeria. I think it was to do with the murder of Christians. It is hard for us to believe that we came home on a Thursday, and on the Sunday there was an absolutely terrible, horrific attack on Christians worshipping in their church, where 40 men, women and children were murdered. If we needed any reminding, that brought back to us with great force what it means to be a Christian in Nigeria.

During that recent visit I spoke, through the APPG and through the deputation, to people who had suffered at first hand the horrific consequences of the deteriorating security situation in Nigeria. They shared stories of unimaginable violence and intimidation, of family members murdered or mutilated, of women and children who were subject to all sorts of abuse, who had their property stolen, had lost their education, their opportunities and their jobs, and were in the internally displaced camps. We visited one of those camps where there were both Christians and Muslims; they had been there for eight and nine years. I find it hard to take that case in, to be honest. It was one that left a lasting impression on myself and others, because there were many who just wanted to do something and achieve something in their life but they were in a displaced camp and when they got there, they seemed to be forgotten about. They were there and food and water had been set down for them, but that is not okay because what they need is an education.

We went with a charity called Bellwether International. They provided finances so that we were able to take some food to those in the camp and to take some things for the children’s education. Within that camp—I know that the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute was moved by this, as I was—we had some people who were trying to provide education for the young people. Others were trying to find job opportunities. There was a very rudimentary medical centre; to be honest, it was like a garden shed that had fallen into disrepair over a number of years, but the important thing was that there were people trying to do something. What we need to do, and what I hope we can do through our Minister and Government, is to reach out to those non-governmental organisations that reach out to people and give them the opportunity, hope and vision that they need, and which we have seen through the eyes of those who were there.

On many occasions, we met people and we did not actually have to ask them what their stories were; we just had to look at their eyes. Their eyes told us their stories. Their stories were stories of pain and agony. All those stories were made all the more bitter and unjust due to the lack of impunity and the inaction on the part of the Nigerian Government. Three million people have been displaced in Nigeria and we met some of them—from academics to NGO workers and victims. Many of the people I met in Nigeria shared concerns about impunity from the ongoing violence, where the army and the police on many occasions just stood aside and did nothing. There needs to be a strong-arm approach to dealing with terrorism, and the army and the Government need to push that very hard.

I heard, for example, that the Federal Government built a local primary school in the new region and named a school after a Fulani chief, in an area where numerous Fulani attacks have resulted in the murder of many people. If that does not spit in your eye, I would like to know what would. Again, this shows that Government in Nigeria seems to be out of touch and seems to have an unwillingness or an uncertainty when it comes to reducing the level of impunity, which has heightened in recent years as the violence in Nigeria has increased and spilled into southern states that were considered safe.

We had hoped to visit north-east Nigeria. That was not possible because of the security situation, but what we did do was to bring people from north-east Nigeria in planes down to Abuja. We met church leaders and community leaders. We were able to hear their stories and we tried to help out. Buhari’s positioning of Muslims in senior Government roles also makes it even more difficult for Christians and other minorities to speak out, thereby perpetuating a culture of impunity and a sense of being left behind. It is so sad to see a country of the magnitude of Nigeria, which has a population of 200 million and has great potential, great reserves and great economic opportunities, now lagging behind in the world watch list. Nigeria is No. 7 in the Open Doors world watch list. That means it is the seventh worst country in the world to be a Christian, with Christians facing severe levels of persecution.

The situation in the middle belt of the country is particularly concerning. Violence in the middle belt has become one of Nigeria’s most serious security challenges. Reportedly six times deadlier than Boko Haram in 2018, Fulani militant violence has displaced hundreds of thousands of Christians, and intensified religious and ethnic divisions in the country. The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute said that everything in Nigeria seems to be measured by religious status, which tells us that everything is coming from that thrust; that is what we need to address. It is true not only for Christians, but for those of other beliefs—indeed, for Muslims and those belonging to ethnic groups.

Connected to the Nigeria visit, we heard from Leo Igwe, founder of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, who told us that, due to the extremely precarious situation of humanists in Nigeria, they do not always know where fellow humanists are and that trying to get in contact with them poses a serious threat. The APPG delegation made contact with Mubarak, a humanist who had been in prison for some 24 years. We felt that the Government were making some steps in the right direction. We would all be very happy if the Minister could properly reassure us on that.

To conclude, I will share the remarks of a Boko Haram survivor. Martha, a Christian from Gwoza, Borno state, told the delegation:

“Sometime in 2014, we were home when information reached us that a group of armed men were attacking houses and killing men in our village. My family and I tried escaping when my father-in-law and husband were caught by the Boko Haram men. The two were murdered, while my life and that of my 8 children were spared.”

Although it is a blessing that Martha managed to survive, eight years later this lady is still in a camp for internally displaced persons and has no stable source of income. Not too far from the IDP camp where we were, they had identified a portion of land where farmers—because they were farmers—could have produced their goods. It could have given them a reason to get up in the morning and a way to become sustainable. There are things that can be done.

If the security situation is not improved, however, and attacks by extremist groups are not prevented, more people will face this devastating situation. We were aware of attacks in the south-west of Nigeria, and in the middle belt where we were. I hope that this debate goes some way to communicating the gravity of the situation to our Government, so that they will do what they can to ensure that no one else has to suffer in a such a way.

We met some of the Nigerian authorities, including high commissioners and those in civil service positions within Government. We impressed on them very strongly that the one thing that they have to address first is the security situation, prevent terrorism and let people who wish to live together and who have lived together to do so. I will use Northern Ireland as an example because I have lived there for many years. The two communities were at each other’s throats for a long time, but they both realised that, in order to go forward, we had to come together. To make that happen, the first thing to do is to provide security and do away with terrorism. I suggest that the first thing the Nigerian Government do is address the terrorism issue in Nigeria.

[Caroline Nokes (in the Chair)]

Just to let Members know, we will come to the Front-Bench spokeswomen by 17.45 at the latest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Bruce]

The Foreign Secretary commendably called out last month’s atrocity in Nigeria, when over 40 people were killed simply for being in a Catholic church in Ondo state, celebrating Pentecost. But that was no isolated incident, because on the same day, 5 June, there were reports from Kajuru in south Kaduna of Fulani bandits attacking the indigenous Adara people, aided by an air force helicopter, killing 32 and destroying a church of the Evangelical Church Winning All. Not a single terrorist was killed; 32 members of that church were. The following Sunday, 12 June, there were further reports of approximately 50 Catholics killed just before morning mass in Edumoga in Benue state, north-central Nigeria. In one week alone, over 120 innocent civilians were slaughtered in north-west, north-central and south-west Nigeria.

[Jim Shannon]

I apologise for not mentioning this earlier, but when a town was under attack right outside the gate of an army barracks, the army did not respond because it was waiting for the okay from superior officers. Does the hon. Lady agree that one of the major issues in Nigeria is the need to address terrorism on the ground? Only then can the local community get back to living a normal lifestyle in peace.

[Fiona Bruce]

Indeed, it has to be addressed on the ground. It is heartrending that night after night, people are going to bed fearful of whether they will wake up.

The International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law noted in April 2022 that 4,650 Christians were killed in Nigeria between November 2020 and October 2021. That is higher than the 3,530 deaths recorded in the previous year of October 2019 to November 2020. It also noted that 2,500 Christians were abducted between November 2020 and October 2021, compared with 900 in the previous year.

The Minister will no doubt be keen to throw something of a contextual narrative on my emphasis on religious-based violence and religious targeting of mainly Christian victims. She will also likely note that religious identity can be a factor in incidents of violence in Nigeria and that Christian communities have been victims but emphasise that root causes are often complex and frequently also relate to competition over resources, historical resources and criminality. She might also factor in the pressing challenges of climate change and global food shortages. I ask her, however, to interrogate the repeated number of attacks going on in the central and north-west regions of Nigeria. They are executed and co-ordinated by well-organised and well-funded groups, including the Fulani Islamist militia groups, as well as other terrorist groups, such as Ansaru in Kaduna state.

The appalling atrocities by those perpetrators, using sophisticated equipment including a helicopter, cannot simply be characterised as atrocities by local bandits. The killings going on, such as those last month, are not simply a clash between farmers and herders. Much attention is given to the security challenges in north-east Nigeria, rather than the central parts of Nigeria experiencing such devasting attacks. Many villages have been destroyed, and thousands of people are displaced. Some reports say that the Fulani Islamist groups have killed more people than Boko Haram in the last two years and are more vicious in executing their atrocities.

Efforts to rightly avoid simple descriptors of Nigeria’s insecurity as a religious conflict should not fail to properly diagnose the security situation facing Nigerians who get in the way of Islamist militants. The Minister will rightly reference that the nearly 350,000 Nigerians who have died as a result of Islamic insurgencies include a large number of Muslim victims, as well as indigenous, humanist and Christian believers. As the Foreign Secretary recognised two weeks ago, those are grievous violations of the right to freedom of religion or belief, a right that should be available for everyone, everywhere—a universal right that only 10 days ago brought together over 1,000 delegates from 100 countries for the London international ministerial conference on freedom of religion or belief. However, a country whose representative at that conference sadly does not truly get what is happening in Nigeria is Nigeria.

The second speech to which I wish to draw the House’s attention is that of the Nigerian high commissioner to the UK, who pledged to uphold freedom or religion or belief without hindrance, as guaranteed in Nigeria’s constitution, but then declared that insecurity has nothing to do with religion—refusing to recognise religious-based and targeted violence. Sadly, that speech risks perpetuating impunity for religiously motivated violence across Nigeria. It means that when the young student Deborah Samuel was horrifically lynched in Sokoto on 22 May of this year, having been accused of blasphemy—which was rightly condemned by religious leaders—no one has been held accountable for the severity of that crime. It is why there are reports of security services being at best absent and at worse complicit in violence perpetrated by militants.

In conclusion, I ask that, rather than follow the line of the Nigerian Government on security and freedom or religion or belief, the Minister follow the recommendation of the Foreign Affairs Committee’s April 2022 report. It stated:

“The integrated delivery plan should include concrete steps for how the UK Government will support the Nigerian Government in promoting freedom of religion and belief, as well as preventing violence against women and girls, across their engagement activities in Nigeria.”

Srebrenica

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that from 4 to 11 July 2022, the UK marked Srebrenica Memorial Week with commemorations taking place in hundreds of schools, local authorities, places of worship, community centres and police forces to name but a few to mark the 27th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica where over 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were murdered by Bosnian Serb forces; expresses concern about the current threat to Bosnia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty from secessionists who are operating with the support of Russia and the prospect of a return to conflict; commends the invaluable work undertaken by Remembering Srebrenica in using the lessons of Srebrenica to tackle prejudice to help build a safer, stronger and more cohesive society in the UK; and urges the Government to continue funding this vital work which since 2013 has educated nearly 200,000 young people on Srebrenica, enabled over 1,500 community actions to take place right across the country each year, and created 1,450 Community Champions who pledge to stand up to hatred and intolerance in their communities.

Before I go into the substance of the debate, I wish to say a number of thank yous. First, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting me and the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) this debate to mark the commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide 27 years ago, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), who attended the Backbench Business Committee with me to support my application for the debate. Like your, Madam Deputy Speaker, she is stepping down as a Member of Parliament at the next election, and I am truly sad about that.

Secondly, I thank the Speaker for granting my application for a commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide. That commemoration took place at Speaker’s House, and I thank him and his staff for allowing us to host it. Thirdly, I thank the Administration Committee for allowing a book-signing commemoration in Portcullis House yesterday. I declare two interests: first, I have been the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Srebrenica since 2013, which I helped found with Baroness Sayeeda Warsi. Secondly, from 2000 to 2002, I worked for the United Nations mission in Kosovo.

Two genocides have taken place in Europe. One was the holocaust, in which over 6 million Jewish people were murdered. The other was the Bosnian genocide between 1992 and 1995, which involved the planned, systematic and industrialised murder of just under 100,000 Muslims, the displacement of 2 million people, and the genocidal rape of up to 50,000 women simply because they were Muslims. Many of us of a certain age will remember seeing images of the war in Bosnia on our television screens during the 1990s. We remember watching with horror the footage of Sarajevo under siege and people being held in concentration camps, and slowly learning about the reports of atrocities being committed across Bosnia, which culminated in a genocide taking place on European soil just 50 years after the world pledged “never again”.

This week marks the 27th anniversary of events in Srebrenica where, over a period of just a few days in July 1995, over 8,000 men and boys—Bosnian Muslims—were systematically murdered by Bosnian Serb forces. The victims’ bodies were dumped in mass graves as the Bosnian-Serb soldiers sought to cover up what they had done. Twenty-seven years on, the remains of a significant number of victims are still missing.

Although the anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide gives us an opportunity to commemorate and reflect on what happened, it is important that we understand the reason why commemorating the anniversary is so important. We commemorate it, first, so we can recognise the suffering of the victims, their loved ones and the survivors. In 2018, as a guest of the charity Remembering Srebrenica, I had the privilege of visiting Bosnia and meeting the survivors and some of the mothers. They are inspirational women who, despite experiencing the very worst of humanity, have shown great strength and determination to rebuild their lives and resist hatred. By commemorating the genocide, we help to ensure that the victims are not forgotten. I also visited the genocide memorial centre just outside Srebrenica. Thousands of simple white gravestones stretch across the hillside as far as the eye can see. Even today, the remains of the victims are still being found and identified.

Secondly, commemorating the genocide is made even more important by the continued denial of what happened. To be clear, the events of the Srebrenica genocide have been documented in forensic detail by the investigations of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Despite that, Bosnian-Serb political leaders in Republika Srpska, one of the two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina today, in which Srebrenica is located, continue to deny and minimise the events that occurred. The Serbs refuse to allow the history of the genocide to be taught in schools.

Further afield, we know that the genocide has been an inspiration for far-right extremists and Islamophobes. The Christchurch mosque attacker played a song glorifying Karadžić just prior to the attack and, years earlier, Anders Breivik in Norway also sought inspiration in the Balkan wars and Serb ultra-nationalism. There have been other events around the world in the past few years that reinforce the importance of remembering what happened in Srebrenica.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady on securing this debate, which is so important. I speak as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. The week before last, the Government held and sponsored an international conference for those who are persecuted across the world. The conference remembered all the genocide that has taken place across the world, so I commend her on bringing this issue to the House.

I am reminded of a verse from Ecclesiastes:

“Wisdom is better than weapons of war”.

Does the hon. Lady agree that the international community must have the wisdom to learn from its errors and finally put an end to repeating the same mistakes over and over? We always hope that this one will be the last, but it never seems to be.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and commend him on and thank him for all his work on religious freedom and preventing the persecution of people because of their religion.

There are worrying similarities between Srebrenica and the plight of the Rohingya in Burma, or the rise of Hindu nationalism in India—the Hindutva movement under Prime Minister Modi—and the growing tide of anti-Muslim violence. Indeed, there are numerous examples around the world of people being targeted and killed because of their identity or beliefs. That makes it critical that we continue to remember and reflect on Srebrenica.

Even here, the Srebrenica genocide and the events leading up to it contain important lessons for us. Low-level prejudice escalates to crime, violence and hatred. It creeps up on us in stages. It begins with differentiation and discrimination, fostering and fostered by a sense of grievance or perceived grievance, yet at every stage, as we watch hate unfold, we have the opportunity to break into and halt that journey. I hope that the Minister will take note of that for the Government’s strategy in tackling far-right extremism. We must actively promote tolerance in and between our communities; work with them and encourage them to educate and share with one another; support individuals bravely speaking out against hate speech; recognise and act on inequality and injustice; and intervene at the earliest possible stage.

I recognise that there are clear differences between Bosnia in the 1990s and the UK today. None the less, these events demonstrate where hatred and the dehumanisation of others can lead.

Global Vaccine Disparities

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered disparities in the global distribution of vaccines.

I submitted a request for this morning’s debate because I want to draw attention to the grotesque inequalities in the distribution of vaccines to tackle the covid crisis. When we convene for these debates, often it is to seek more information from the Government or to make a request for changes in policy. Now that there will be a change of Prime Minister and potentially a rearrangement of the Government, including of Ministers responsible for this area in particular, this is a particularly opportune moment to place all the issues on the agenda and hopefully see some change. It is also worth using these debates to record one’s position, because when our children and grandchildren look back in decades to come on the Government’s performance, I think they will ask why we did so little to intervene effectively when there was such a huge scale of human suffering across the globe.

The global vaccine story is one of gross inequality. I heard the Prime Minister when he made the statement that it was greed that brought us the vaccine. It was not greed; it was public money. Very significant public resources went into all the vaccines. However, greed was certainly responsible for the obscene inequality that followed.

Over the last year, the richer an economy was, the more likely that country was to have vaccines. At the top end, it would likely have had far more than it needed, and at the bottom of the scale, many countries had almost none at all. Still today, just under 20% of people across the African continent as a whole are fully vaccinated, and only 16% of people in low-income and poor countries are vaccinated. The Prime Minister has talked about vaccine hesitancy being the main factor accounting for that. That is simply untrue. Studies have shown that there is far more vaccine hesitancy in the United States than in most African countries. However, the way that the giant pharmaceutical corporations—big pharma—and richer countries have behaved has certainly fuelled that scepticism, which should worry us all.

The problem is not simply a lack of solidarity or generosity, although that is shocking in itself. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), the shadow Minister for international development, recently uncovered, a year ago the Prime Minister promised to share 100 million surplus vaccines with the world’s poorest countries. That is a very small amount, but at least it is something; yet a year later, barely a third have been delivered.

Those are the doses that we had already bought and were otherwise going spare. They would have been thrown away if they had not been distributed, yet they counted against the aid budget. In fact, it gets worse: we charged the aid budget double what the UK was widely reported to have paid for those doses. The Government had charged around £4.50 per dose versus the £2.30 per dose that they paid, as reported by The British Medical Journal. Yesterday, we discovered that over 1 billion doses are believed to have been wasted around the world. That would have been sufficient to vaccinate everyone in the poorer countries.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the right hon. Member for securing a debate on this issue, which has concerned me as well; indeed, it concerns us all across this House. Is he aware that Eswatini, a little country that borders Mozambique and South Africa and one of our Commonwealth family members, was hit hard by coronavirus? I have to say that whenever I raised this matter with the Government, and with the Minister in particular, they did respond. It is a country that I have a particular interest in because of the churches and the missionary groups there, and the Government deserve our thanks.

Does the right hon. Member agree that one of the difficulties—he has already outlined some of them—is that smaller countries have no one to advocate for them internationally? We need to be more proactive in our responsibilities, first to Commonwealth countries and then to those that have no one to advocate for them. I think he is also saying that we need someone to advocate for them and ensure they get the vaccines that are available. We should be doing that.

[John McDonnell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for his dogged pursuit of the issue in Parliament and with Ministers. There is an issue about the strength of the voices of individual Commonwealth countries, and a real concern about some not being listened to. As a result of that, interventions are not taking place effectively in those countries, but it is invaluable that the hon. Gentleman has consistently raised individual issues with regard to particular countries in which he has an interest through the Christian movement. That adds to the pressure on Government for more effective action, and I am grateful for that.

The situation is worse than just failure to donate at scale. We did not donate as we promised on the scale that we promised, but we also worked to stop others producing the vaccines in their own countries. Around the world, factories offered to produce the vaccines, and one factory in Bangladesh said at the start of the pandemic that it could turn out 600 million doses a year. Compare that to the 35 million doses that the British Government have donated. More than 100 factories around the world could have been safely producing mRNA—messenger ribonucleic acid—vaccines, but were unable to do so because the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, or TRIPS, agreement locks that knowledge, which is often publicly produced, behind a wall.

The TRIPS agreement allows huge corporations and their shareholders to profit while preventing us from taking the action that we need to take to protect our own society, as well as people around the world. It is good for the big pharmaceutical companies, and Pfizer predicts $50 billion revenue for its covid vaccine—an anti-viral pill—in 2022 alone. These are the most lucrative drugs in history, and more than one Moderna executive has become a billionaire off its publicly funded and publicly created vaccines, but this situation is bad for us because it has not only created massive inequality, but allowed the virus to go unchecked in many parts of the world, mutating in a way that risks undermining the medicines we already have.

Sri Lanka

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

I would like to reassure the hon. Lady that we are providing humanitarian support for those in Sri Lanka.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister for her response. What aid can the Government make available to those who rely on tourism for their income and who are now starving? That seems to be the story at the moment. What contact has been made to ascertain whether non-governmental organisations or churches can help? I know of many church groups in my constituency that have the capacity to distribute aid to those who are not involved in the unrest but who are watching their children starve because of what is happening on the streets of Sri Lanka.

[Amanda Milling]

I reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Minister for South Asia met a number of civil society groups and NGOs earlier in the year, when he visited Sri Lanka.

Prime Minister’s Meeting with Alexander Lebedev

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

Because the UK has been leading the international efforts to stand up for Ukraine against Russian aggression. That is why allies across the world have been working with the UK: because we have been helping to lead the efforts to stand up for the people of Ukraine during the attack against their sovereignty, their democracy and their freedom.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

That the meeting with Alexander Lebedev took place is not in question, but much controversy has surrounded that meeting, and many people feel that there is a lack of detail about what took place. May I respectfully ask the Minister, for whom I have a fondness, whether a full disclosure of all that has been discussed with Alexander Lebedev will be made available, and whether the threat to national security—given Lebedev’s close links with the KGB and the Kremlin—will be disclosed at the same time?

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that I cannot disclose any further information at this time, although I appreciate that Members want more information. He will also recognise that we would not disclose any information that might put the security of our own citizens further at risk. It is extremely important for us not to disclose information from time to time if it would put people at risk. However, in answer to questions asked yesterday by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the Prime Minister committed himself to writing to her. She has that commitment from him, although he has of course said since then that he will be stepping down, and he is expected to give further information about that.

NATO Accession: Sweden and Finland

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for what has been agreed at the Madrid summit. It was a truly historic summit. It not only made huge progress in bringing Finland and Sweden into joining NATO, but agreed a new strategic concept and a paradigm shift in the security environment, and allies significantly strengthened NATO’s deterrence and defence. As I have already pointed out, the UK is making significant contributions to enhance our contribution to NATO.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Minister very much for the statement. Recent news that the 30 member countries of NATO have signed accession protocols for Sweden and Finland to join have been welcomed, and that news makes the world a safer place today. They also have greater access to intelligence in relation to Russia and the aggression that it espouses. Will the Minister ensure that we continue to have a clear commitment to protect Sweden and Finland in the short term, as well as the long term, against the aggressive intrusion of Putin and the Russian Government?

[Vicky Ford]

I completely agree with the hon. Member that Finland and Sweden joining NATO makes the world a safer place for the people of the United Kingdom, for all our NATO allies and for all those who are concerned about Russian aggression and what Ukraine means for the potential future of their country. That is why we will continue to stand with like-minded partners across the world to defend democracy and freedom, and that is why the House is united in ensuring that the ratification of the accession passes as swiftly as possible through the fast-track procedure at this truly exceptional time. We stand united with all those parties who agree to it.