Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I note that the other subject in this small section is that of Christians in Iran. I was just reminiscing with my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) about how when we were born in Aden in Yemen we were Christians in an Arab country and how well we were treated by the people of South Yemen, as it then was.

It breaks my heart to come before the House yet again to talk about the crisis that is occurring in Yemen. I am pleased to see the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), on the Front Bench, because I want to pay tribute to him, to the Foreign Secretary and to the Government for the amount of face-time and focus that they have given to the situation in Yemen. I am very grateful for that, because the globe is very big and Yemen is a very small country. Ministers and the Government have spent an enormous amount of time in ensuring that this House, the rest of the country and, indeed, the world are focused on these issues.

As I speak, the crisis in Yemen is deepening. We have been told for a number of days that the President is about to sign an agreement, which has been brokered by the Gulf Co-operation Council led by the Saudi Arabians, on his making a dignified exit so that a new Government consisting of members of the opposition, some of whom are not involved in politics—a kind of Government of national unity—can take power. Each time I meet Ministers in the Palace of Westminster they brief me on what is happening and tell me what they know, which is that the President is about to sign. We had thought that was the case just 24 hours ago, but then we heard that our ambassador John Wilks had been penned into the United Arab Emirates embassy in Sana’a as he and other dignitaries had been preparing to go to the presidential palace to witness the signature of the President, which did not happen. Now the crisis is getting deeper and deeper. We already have a political crisis that could well lead to civil war in Yemen, which we had before and which ended with the reunification of southern Yemen and northern Yemen to create the state that currently exists. We also have a humanitarian crisis: 40% of Yemenis live on less than £1.25 a day, there is 50% illiteracy and 7 million people do not have enough food to live and survive in Yemen every day. That is why this political crisis has become a military crisis and it is also a humanitarian crisis.

When the Prime Minister appeared before the Liaison Committee early last week, I asked him to do one thing: to see whether there is any way in which our country, which has an honourable record in such matters, could send an envoy to try to bring the sides together. What I have heard from my contacts in Yemen—I have visited Yemen almost every year since my family left in 1965 and certainly every year that I have been a Member of the House—is that Britain’s role is absolutely crucial. Whether it is through Britain working on its own, the UK working within the EU, or the United States of America working with EU partners and our country—whichever mechanism we have—we need to try to fill this vacuum, because if we do not there will be civil war in Yemen.

We are told that the death of Osama bin Laden has led to the appointment of a new person to run al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and we know that he, Anwar al-Awlaki, is in Yemen. There is a danger that unless we deal with this situation now, al-Qaeda will have an even greater hold on that country and will be part of the process by which it is driven into civil war.

Every time I have talked about Yemen, I have talked about a crisis and said that it is worsening. Every time that things get even worse, I think that they have reached a stage at which they will not get worse, but they do. My one plea to the Minister, therefore, is that he continues his efforts, for which I am very grateful, but looks carefully, as the Prime Minister promised to do when he answered my questions at the Liaison Committee last week, into appointing an envoy who can try to bring the sides together so that we can have peace in that very beautiful but very sad country.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Alistair Burt)]

I thank my friends on both sides of the House, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), for raising these two subjects, which are difficult and disappointing for us all. Both speeches were a measure of how much the House depends on the good briefings that Ministers get in this place from colleagues whose knowledge of a subject can be deep and long lasting and which comes with great passion and from the heart. We could not talk about Yemen without being briefed by the right hon. Gentleman, whose contributions we are all fortunate to have.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the difficulties of the current crisis in Yemen. I could have given nearly all of his speech from here, as his appreciation of the background to the current situation is entirely accurate. Yemen matters to the United Kingdom for a variety of reasons. It is a place of strategic importance, we have a history there and it faces a number of challenges with which this country, not alone but with others, has been engaged for some time. There are territorial disputes in the north and the south of the country and a chronic economic crisis that is being worsened by the political crisis currently besetting it. The security crisis very much relates to the presence of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has a significant presence there, as the right hon. Gentleman said.

As a result of those various factors, the international community has supported Yemen in a variety of ways. The Friends of Yemen group was started towards the end of the previous Government’s period of office, and we have continued it. It is a group of international partners, including those in the Gulf, the United States, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as significant partners, that work together with the Government of Yemen to try to find a way through the various political, economic and security problems.

Much has hung on the individual character and personality of the President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has been in office for 32 years. As this year has gone on, it is clear that his legitimacy as President has been called into question. Protests from the people have mounted, opposition parties have expressed their concerns more volubly and the army has divided. Sadly, the protests, the aspirations for greater political freedom and the prospect of change to a more constitutionally based system of rule have been met with increasing violence and a number of deaths, the toll of which rises week by week.

The international community has reacted by working with those elements in the region to see whether there is any answer other than Ali Abdullah Saleh stepping down from power after so long. We all conclude that it is not possible to see an end to the problem without his leaving. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, attempts have been made to find a way for the President to leave that will allow a peaceful transition as part of a constitutional process. It will not be simple and lots of work will be needed with the various parties in the transitional process to work towards an expression of democratic freedom and the election of a new President and a new Government.

Time after time, the President has come close to signifying his own support for such a system. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman was correct to say that the Gulf Co-operation Council and, in particular, its new general secretary, Dr al-Zayani, have been instrumental in putting together the most recent document, and significantly over the past few days every other possible signatory to such an agreement has signed it. The President’s own party, the Opposition parties and those who could play a part in the process have agreed to and signed the document. The last piece of the jigsaw was to have been put in place on Sunday, when the President was due to sign, but for the third time he came close to the wire and withdrew from it.

[Keith Vaz]

We have an opportunity, because the President of the United States is in the UK and meeting the Prime Minister. Indeed, I saw this morning that they had written a joint article for The Times. If there is a British-US initiative, perhaps there is a chance that on a conference call the President of Yemen will listen. Could we consider that?

[Alistair Burt]

May I give the idea some thought? I must reassure the right hon. Gentleman that the United States is clearly engaged in the situation, as are the rest of us, but the point is that the GCC and its general secretary came so close, and we should back them. The President of Yemen was almost there, and the signature was almost on the document. We believe that that is the best hope.

All the other parties seem to agree that the transitional process, which could be put in place by signing the document, allows for a 90-day transition period and offers guarantees to the family of Ali Abdullah Saleh, is the best hope for the future. It is also the President’s best hope and the best hope for the peace in the region. We are worried about reports that armed tribes are going into the capital, because that increases the risk of confrontation between the various bodies. The situation is absolutely immediate; it is ongoing as we speak.

The right hon. Gentleman was correct also to talk of the atrocious pressure put on ambassadors on Sunday, when the United Arab Emirates embassy was surrounded in a clear attempt to intimidate people and to prevent the President from signing.

So, we know where we are, and on the subject of the envoy the House should trust us. We are already heavily engaged, and our ambassadors to Yemen have repeatedly played a major role in working with others. For the time being, we will get behind the GCC and work with it to achieve a signing. We will continue to play a very important role, and I will continue to bring the House up to date as often as possible—and as needed. We all hope that sooner or later the saga will end, particularly for the good of the people of Yemen, who deserve to have the matter brought to a conclusion so that their country can enter a new chapter. If the President, by his own actions, leads a peaceful transition, he will have been of great service to his country at this time.

I turn briefly to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire, who rightly raised the difficulties of Christians in Iran and will have spoken for a variety of other minorities. We remain very concerned about the treatment of Christians and several other minorities—religious, ethnic and linguistic—in Iran. The ongoing systematic persecution of minorities contravenes all Iran’s most basic obligations to international human rights standards, and it deprives thousands of the chance to practise their faith without hindrance or fear.

I commend to the House the publication by Human Rights Watch, “World Report 2011”, which is the latest edition, in which there is good information about the human rights records of many countries. In that aspect of the regime, as in so many others, Iran makes depressing reading. The report states:

“Authorities announced that security forces had arrested more than 6,000 individuals after”—

the disputed elections of—

“June 2009. Hundreds—including lawyers, rights defenders, journalists, civil society activists, and opposition leaders—remain in detention without charge.”

The list of executions is longer than any other country’s except China’s.

Christians, as my hon. Friend said, are a minority protected by law in Iran, and in bilateral meetings in Tehran and in London we repeatedly call on Iran to respect the rights of all who choose their own faith and method of worship. We have also worked with our EU partners and through the UN to highlight those issues for the wider international community and to put pressure on Iran to fulfil its obligations to the Iranian people. We are aware of unconfirmed reports of the burning of Bibles in Iran. The UK wholly condemns the desecration of any spiritual or religious artefacts or symbols of faith, including scriptures. Given that Iran heavily criticised Terry Jones, the American pastor who planned to burn the Koran last year, we call on the Iranian Government to end the hypocrisy and religious intolerance.

The demanding of large bails in Iran is sadly a common problem shared by all who feel the persecution of the system, which is designed to put on pressure. We are aware of those mentioned by my hon. Friend who were victims of the round-up and the crackdown on house churches after Christmas last year. That increased policy of detention continues to be a cause of great concern. Although we understand that the majority of those detained have been released, a number remain in custody, and we continue to believe that there were no legal or moral grounds for their initial detention—a point that we have made repeatedly to the Iranian authorities. Such intimidation on the grounds of faith and practice of worship should stop immediately. We call on Iran to allow all members of all faiths freely to participate in open worship.

We continue to work for the betterment of human rights through international institutions. The EU recently agreed to sanction Iranian individuals for human rights abuses, and the UN Human Rights Council voted at the end of March to install a special rapporteur to report on the human rights situation in Iran and to make thorough recommendations to the Iranian authorities, the Human Rights Council and the UN Security Council.

The comments by my hon. Friend and the case histories that he has dealt with sadly give the lie to the Iranian regime’s claim to be the voice of a republic with moral underpinning. Hypocritical in its support of protests elsewhere and condemned by its execution policy, the regime remains a sad disappointment to millions of good Muslims everywhere and, in particular, to the Iranian people, who deserve rather better.

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