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Human Rights Annual Report 2005

I am sure that my hon. Friend was paying close attention to what I said, but he will see from the record that I said that the Nepalese Government prevented those in the camps from working outside. However, I agree that that is a serious human rights abuse, and people in the camps should be allowed to work and trade outside. I turn now to the last two issues, which I shall treat from a human rights standpoint. First, there is Iraq. I appreciate that any Minister must be in the business of putting the best face on Government policy, however dismal the apparent consequences prove to be. However, I nearly despair when, in response to the unending stream of murderous activities in Iraq, Ministers, from the Prime Minister down, repeat, almost parrot-like, ““We have established democracy in Iraq.”” It is still to be proved whether that will be the case in the longer term, but I put it to the Minister that democracy is not the only human right. Other fundamental human rights need to be put into the equation for Iraq. I want to highlight a few of those in the context of Iraq. What about the rights of children in Iraq? A new food security survey of Iraq has recently been carried out by the UN World Food Programme and UNICEF. That survey has shown that acute malnutrition among children in Iraq is now significantly worse than it was before our invasion of the country. I refer to the Reuters report about the survey on 15 May:"““David Singh, a spokesman for UNICEF's Iraq Support Centre in neighbouring Jordan, said the number of acutely malnourished children had more than doubled, to 9 per cent. in 2005 from 4 per cent. in 2002, the last year of Saddam’s rule.””" What about the very important human rights of women? That is another group of key human rights in which things have gone backwards since the invasion. It is not just a matter of women’s clothes, although I was certainly struck by a piece in The Sunday Times of 4 June. The heading of the article was ““Men in black terrorise Iraq’s women””. In that long section was a further piece headed: ““Western clothes are death sentence””. Besides those issues, the right and ability of women in Iraq today to continue to come out of their homes and do a job is in question. I was, again, struck by a long section in The Independent on 8 June, under the headline ““For the women of Iraq, the war is just beginning””. That piece, by Terri Judd, included this passage:"““One Basra woman, known only as Dr Kefaya, was working in the women and children’s hospital unit at the city university when she started receiving threats from extremists. She defied them. Then, one day a man walked into the building and murdered her.””" The article continues:"““Dr. Kefaya was only one of many professional women murdered in recent months. Speaking to The Independent near Saddam’s old palace in the middle of Basra, Mrs Aziz, reeled off ""the names of other dead friends. Three of her university class have been killed since the invasion.""‘My friend Sheda and her sister. They were threatened. One day they returned to their house with two other women. They were all shot,’ she said. Her language is chillingly perfunctory.""‘And my friend Lubna, she was with her fiancé. They shot him in the arm and then killed her in front of him’ ””." Women’s rights in Iraq are going catastrophically, disastrously backwards. What about the right to live in the country of one’s birth, another fundamental human right? Again, a drastic deterioration is going on there. As Islamic militancy has risen, more and more non-Muslims, some of whose families have been in the country for generations or even centuries, have felt it necessary to uproot themselves and leave the country. Tens of thousands of Christians have now left Iraq. As kidnapping and murder have become ever more rife, more and more people with money have been forced to abandon their homes and leave the country. I was struck by an article in The New York Times by Sabrina Tavernise, under the heading, ““As Death Casts Its Shadow, The Middle Class Flees Iraq.”” I have two quotations, which I think are incredibly powerful, from individuals in that dilemma:"““‘We’re like sheep at a slaughter farm,’ said a businessman, who is arranging a move to Jordan. ‘We are just waiting for our time’.””" The second reads:"““‘Now I am isolated,’ said Monkath Abdul Razzaq, a middle-class Sunni Arab, who decided to leave after the bombing. ‘I have no government. I have no protection from the government. Anyone can come to my house, take me, kill me and throw me in the trash.’ ””" That is why huge numbers of people are abandoning the country of their birth, Iraq. Lastly, and possibly most fundamentally, what about the right to stay alive—the right to life—in Iraq? No one knows how many people are being murdered in Iraq each day, but we have a fair idea of the order of magnitude from what is being, reasonably consistently, reported. The ““Today”” programme yesterday said that 25 to 30 people a day are being murdered in Baghdad—about one an hour. How many people, we may wonder, will be murdered in Iraq during this debate? An adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence reported last month that it was also about one an hour in Basra. The former Prime Minister, Mr. Allawi, said in March:"““We are losing each day an average 50 to 60…if not more.””" That is probably the order of magnitude. It adds up to thousands of murders a year. This week, the Foreign Affairs Committee had a private, informal meeting with one of the leading British journalists in Iraq. As it was private, the House will understand that I shall not give his name. He made a telling comment, which perhaps sums up the situation. He said, ““Iraq is in a civil war fought by assassins and death squads.”” What I want to put to the Minister is, first, whether the Government will look at Iraq in the context of the totality of its human rights—not simply whether elections have been held, but in the context of the rights of children and women, people’s right to remain in their homes, and their right to life. When the Government have looked at the human rights dimension in its totality, will they answer some key questions? First, is the presence of the United States, together with our presence, hindering or helping human rights in Iraq? Secondly, if we withdrew, would that result in a deterioration of the human rights situation? Would it perhaps improve it? A third and equally important question is whether, given the huge commitment of armed forces that we are making in Iraq, we could get a better human rights benefit if they were deployed elsewhere. That brings me, lastly, to the subject of Afghanistan. At the outset I want to say that I am wholly persuaded, as I am not in the matter of Iraq, that our forces in Afghanistan can make a human rights difference. Yes, I acknowledge that suicide bombing has started there. I recognise that the Taliban are trying to build themselves back, and that, monstrously, they have destroyed schools just because girls go to them, and murdered schoolteachers because they teach girls and not just boys. However, I am in no doubt that the human rights position in Afghanistan is vastly better now than it was when the Taliban were in Kabul. They are nowhere near Kabul at the moment, and I hope to goodness that they go nowhere near it in future. But, and this is the key policy issue for the Government, are we too heavily committed to Iraq, when compared with what we are receiving in return, and are we too thinly committed to Afghanistan, when compared with the human rights that we must hang on to there? That is the key human rights judgment that the Government must make, and I hope that they address it.