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Iran

My Lords, like many others, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hurd, for enabling the debate to take place. It is particularly timely because of the nuclear threat. He dealt with it sombrely as has been said, but directly and clearly, and I do not think that I can add much to his remarks. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said that we should realise how Iranians see us, given the interference for which we have been responsible. I do not dissent from that, but it is a profound mistake to regard the government in Iran as truly representative of Iranian opinion. We are dealing with a country where those espousing a fundamentalist form of Islam, which rejects all the tenets of liberal democracy, are in repressive control. The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, described the consequences for human rights, especially women’s rights. I do not need to repeat them, but a short paragraph from this month’s Foreign Affairs sums up the position very well, and shows that there has been no new development. It states:"““In the aftermath of the 1979 revolution, Iran’s new government quickly suspended the country’s progressive family law, disallowed female judges, and strongly enforced the wearing of the hijab. Within a few months, sharia rulings lowered the marriage age to nine””—" I repeat, nine—"““permitted polygamy, gave fathers the right to decide who their daughters could marry, permitted unilateral divorce for men but not women, and gave fathers sole custody of children in the case of divorce””—" a splendid judicial base on which to build a country. The noble Lord, Lord Temple-Morris, has far more experience of these questions, but I do not see how we can have an effective dialogue with such a regime. All we can do is support those Iranians—perhaps the majority of its youthful population—who want an open and fair society. As was said by the previous speaker, this task has been undertaken by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which is a broad coalition, and which is publicly clearly committed to a democratic Iran with full religious freedom on a secular basis and human rights. I have witnessed the huge support for it among Iranians living in Europe, having taken part in rallies in Paris, where there were about 40,000 people and in Brussels where there were about 35,000. It was not reported by the BBC Farsi Service, which has been accused by the council of considerable bias. It is not a question of bias of the BBC in toto because there are no complaints about the Arabic Service or the World Service—only the Farsi Service. The noble Lord, Lord Hurd, suggested that Iranians outside the country had only limited influence. With great respect, I query that. Mrs Rajavi is well regarded by many in Iran who admire her courage, tenacity and objectives. Her broadcasts have had great impact within the country. There was a moment when I thought that perhaps the Foreign Office would follow this route. I remind noble Lords of the moment when the late Robin Cook spoke of his wish for an ethical foreign policy. The mandarins in the Foreign Office quickly disposed of that idea, but it remains in the minds of many. The latest Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, admitted on the BBC last week that he agreed to have the PMOI proscribed as a terrorist organisation following a conversation with the Foreign Minister of Iran. That says it all. It is widely believed that that policy was part of the failed European Union attempt to persuade the theocratic regime to abandon its nuclear policy. On Tuesday morning—the day before yesterday—I was in Luxembourg at the European Court of Justice when the case against the definition of the PMOI as terrorists was brought. The noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has set this out clearly, so I need not repeat what he said, except to say that I agree with him. It was made clear at the hearing that it happened because of British pressure. Britain was directly represented. There was a European Council advocate and there was a lady advocate representing the United Kingdom. She suggested that other member states agreed with Britain but refused to specify which they were, although she said that if she had been asked before, she would have been willing to give that information. We found that rather incredible. She stated that there were regular reviews of this question. When did the last review take place? When is the next review due? Lastly, she produced no justification for the classification of the PMOI; presumably it goes back to when they were acting as insurgents against the regime. They were undoubtedly engaged in hostilities at that time. The Government should change their position. I know how difficult it is for any government to admit that they have been wrong. I understand the wish to get the regime to abandon its nuclear aims. Now, however, the Government must admit that the policy has been wrong and that the right thing to do is clearly to support the Iranians who want democracy.