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Ashraf (Geneva Convention)

It gives me great pleasure to make a small contribution to this important debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) on successfully bringing the issue to our notice. I am a member of the Council of Europe, and if we stand for anything in what we do, it is human rights. The more I learn about what is going on in Iran and about the conditions in which people are living in Ashraf, the more it makes my blood boil. We all have a duty to ensure that changes are made. Let me pay tribute to Lord Russell-Johnston, who, sadly, died last year. He played an important role in promoting the rights of all those who believe in democracy throughout the world, but particularly in Iran. He would have been delighted to know that his campaign has been so successful, albeit, sadly, after his death. It has been a long battle to get the PMOI removed from the terrorist list, and I am delighted that that has eventually happened. I also pay tribute to my predecessor in Ribble Valley, David—now Lord—Waddington, who was instrumental in the campaign to bring that about. More than anything, however, I congratulate the ordinary democracy-loving people of Iran, who have waged a longer campaign to bring peaceful democracy to Iran, and we wish them well in their battle. Much has been said about the rights under the Geneva convention and other treaties that we have signed of those who live in Ashraf. Irrespective of what we have signed up to, however, it is human decency more than anything else that should make us ensure that we do right by those people. One has only to look at the current regime in Iran to know what is likely to happen should the 3,500 people who live in Ashraf be moved there. The hon. Gentleman said that they could go to a third country, but there is no list of third countries waiting to take 3,500 people. Furthermore, if they were to go to another country—let us say that we opened the doors to 3,500 people—that would be to remove them from the region they love and where their relatives live. We would not do that to prisoners. When we put people in prison we ascertain where their relatives live so that they do not have far to travel. Putting those people into a third country would bring another huge problem. The best thing, surely, is to give the people who have lived in that place for many years—no doubt children have been born there, and all they know will be Ashraf—the support that we have given to the rest of Iraq and its people, so that they can live a decent life in the present period. I refer to the present period because I have great hopes that the democratic desire of the vast majority of decent Iranian people will eventually win through, and that there will be a new, democratic Government in Iran, totally different from the current Government, who seem to enjoy executing people. I mentioned the figure of 120,000—I know that the Minister knows all this—but it is not just that so many people have been executed; it is that the manner in which it has been done, and the reasons for it, are appalling. One has only to do a Google search to see the most graphic pictures of people who have been publicly executed in Iran, some of them for the hideous crime of being gay. Yesterday in the House of Commons we pushed through legislation to ensure that people cannot even make jokes about people being gay, but in Iran people will be executed and tortured for it. I was on a delegation at an Inter-Parliamentary Union conference and we spoke with some Iranian MPs. They were not a nice group of people; they were not my favourites among the groups I met that week. When I raised the subject of the execution of two young lads accused of being gay, one of whom I understand was under 18, the response was, "If they do those sorts of things in private no one will really know about it, but if it becomes public they will be tortured." I intervened and said, "Tortured! Yes, you may torture them first; then you execute them." The photographs are there for anyone to see. The issue first came to my notice when I read about it in a Sunday magazine. The piece said that the two young lads looked as if they were going off for a walk in the park, because they were dressed in casual clothes, but they were not—they were going to their execution. The regime is one in which women are second-class citizens and stoning is still allowed; stoning takes place!