Inadmissible Asylum Seekers
Lord Hussain Excerpts(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Lord Hussain (LD)
My Lords, Britain has a history of giving asylum to many political leaders, human rights workers and students, in some times, from various countries. Two that come to mind are Pakistan and Bangladesh, from which political leaders have sought political asylum during military rule in those countries or, sometimes even if the military has not ruled directly, when the political space for politicians has been squeezed and many of them had to flee. Britain has been home to many of them during their asylum.
My question is very brief: what will happen to any political leaders or human rights activists from such countries who come to the UK? Will their applications be sorted here, or will they also need to be sent to Rwanda?
Registration of Marriages Regulations 2021
Lord Hussain Excerpts(4 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Hussain (LD)
My Lords, I draw the attention of your Lordships to the issue of marriage registration in some sections of the Muslim community in the United Kingdom.
As many of your Lordships are aware, the marriage ceremony in a Muslim wedding is known as the nikah. It can be performed by any Muslim. However, in the UK, an imam from a local mosque is usually asked to perform this duty, and normally he would issue a marriage certificate at the end of the ceremony, but these marriages are not officially recognised until they are registered with the local registrar.
Many families have two separate wedding ceremonies, one in a mosque, at a private residence or in a wedding hall, and a separate one at the registrar’s office. In some places, the local mosques have arranged with the registrar to join them at a recognised wedding venue and register the marriage on the same day. There is no issue with either of those practices. The issue that I have come across is with those wedding ceremonies or nikahs held at a mosque, a wedding hall or at a private residence, where an imam would lead a ceremony and issue a certificate but the registrar is not aware of those weddings and they are not registered with them—hence, those weddings have no legal status.
Since there is no compulsion on registration of a marriage with an official registrar in the religion of Islam, many people do not bother with registration, and thousands of Muslim marriages in the UK are not registered. I am personally aware of many such marriages. Most of these couples are living a happily married life, but problems strike in cases of post-marriage disputes—over divorces, inheritance, pension rights and so forth. Usually, but not exclusively, it is the female left in a disadvantaged position in such cases. To protect the rights of those engaged in these unrecognised marriages, can the Minister tell the House what steps the Government are taking to work with Muslim faith leaders and local registrars to ensure that all marriages taking place in the UK are formally recognised?
Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) (No. 2) Order 2020
Lord Hussain Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Hussain (LD) [V]
My Lords, the United Kingdom has suffered immensely and continues to be under threat from terrorism, and we have a responsibility to legislate and amend existing legislation whenever demanded to protect our people from the menace of terrorism.
The FKD is a dangerous, far-right organisation which is to be added to the list of banned terrorist groups, and I very much welcome this move. It seems that it has been extremely active online and has encouraged violent action against sections of the community, including Jewish and LGBTQ people, and welcomed the Christchurch killings. The rise of far-right terrorist organisations is a threat to peaceful people around the world, and there is evidence that they groom and poison the minds of young people to their violent and hateful cause. We must be constantly vigilant towards organised groups such as this which advocate hate and violence. The rise of the far right has become a big threat to our democracy, although the perception is that it is always the Islamist groups.
I support this amendment but add how proud we are of our freedom of expression and democratic values that we enjoy under British law. This freedom has also allowed many people from different parts of the world to escape oppression and persecution in their own countries and take refuge in the United Kingdom. From here, many of them continue to fight their battle for rights in their country of origin. I am sure that many of your Lordships have come across some such cases during your political life—I certainly have. Through their campaigns they highlight the plight of people like them in their own countries and expose their Governments. That is often seen as an insult and embarrassment for their native Governments, and as a result, from time to time we may find some of those individuals or organisations being outlawed by the Governments of their native countries. In some cases, those Governments may go even further by using diplomatic channels to ask the British Government to follow suit and ban those organisations and/or extradite individuals involved. I hope that the Minister will be able to assure the House that under no circumstances will the British Government entertain such a request from any country, no matter how strong the links Britain may have with it, unless the individual or organisation concerned has broken the law of this country.