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United Nations Convention Against Torture

My Lords, we owe the noble Baroness much gratitude for initiating this important debate. The convention against torture to which this country is a signatory provides that no state party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing he would be in danger of being submitted to torture. Relevant considerations include, where applicable, the existence in the state concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violation of human rights. Zimbabwe by the UN’s own judgment in the recent report of the UN Special Envoy is such a state. It has never signed up to the convention yet it sits on the UN’s Commission on Human Rights. The AU’s Commission on Human Rights denounced Zimbabwe’s record as long as 2002. The UN envoy reported that,"““international, regional and local NGOs have been requested by the government not to get involved in assisting the victims of Operation Cleanse Up Filth””" She said that the constrained humanitarian base has led some NGOs to leave the country entirely. Many described a climate of fear which has led both national and international NGOs to exercise ““self-censorship”” to avoid being closed down or evicted. The police detained a staff member of Action Aid for seven hours after she took pictures of aid being distributed by another NGO at Caledonia Farm. Several NGOs expressed fears of retribution following their testimonies to the UN mission. National NGOs fear taking any action which may provoke the Government, which has prevented them providing shelter and basic services to the thousands among the displaced population. This is the country to which, despite the passionate warning of Archbishop Ncube of Bulawayo that death will often await them, HMG are forcibly returning failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers. They are returned in handcuffs, accompanied by guards who hold their papers and who hand them over to the Zimbabwe authorities at the airport; that is, to the CIO. The very fact that they fled to Britain makes them enemies of the state. The Minister of State in the Home Office has told me that the British Embassy in Harare, working with those NGOs operating within the country, follows up allegations of ill treatment. The NGOs are already under serious threat of expulsion or closure thanks to the impending charity law. Is it likely that they will put their whole operation at risk and testify for a lone failed asylum seeker who, simply because he fled to the UK, is automatically labelled a Blair spy? How, in any case, is he to find such an NGO? In the present pervasive climate of fear and intimidation his first thought, if he is ever freed, will be to hide. The NGOs are unlikely to hear that he exists. I contend that HMG are in breach of the convention in this respect. Would a number of failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers have gone on hunger strike—described by the Home Secretary as ““not taking their meals””; would he have dared say that about the IRA hunger strikers?—if they had not been in mortal fear of being returned? Did we do this to refugees from Hungary or the Soviet Union? The asylum decision-making and independent appeals process has contrived to reject the claims of such men as Crispen Kulinji who, as an active officer of the MDC was subjected to electric shocks which left him permanently scarred. He saw his mother and sister brutally attacked and was himself left for dead after interrogation. The leader of the MDC appealed to HMG not to deport him, but his status remains in suspense. After the recent judicial review, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal is looking at new evidence on conditions in Zimbabwe, and that is good. Unless HMG takes immediate steps to improve the quality of the tribunals and of Home Office procedures, and to ensure that asylum seekers get good professional legal advice rather than leaving them to the mercy of unscrupulous Nigerian operators, it is virtually certain that we shall be sending innocent vulnerable people back to a brutal regime. It is ironic that despite the admirable UN report, two UN agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Health Organisation, have recently held a conference on food safety in Africa in Harare hosted by President Mugabe.