§ The Question was as follows:
§ To ask Her Majesty's Government what representations they have made to the USSR in connection with breaches of the Helsinki Agreement, and in particular the serious harassment, including imprisonment, of Jewish people who have applied for visas enabling them to emigrate.
§ The MINISTER of STATE, FOREIGN and COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (Lord Goronwy-Roberts)My Lords, both Ministers and officials have discussed the implementation of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe with their Soviet counterparts on various occasions in recent months. They have made it clear that the Government and people of this country attach very great importance to respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Lord JANNERMy Lords, I thank my noble friend for his reply and for the efforts which have so far been made by the Government. In view of the tragic and flagrant breaches of the Helsinki Agreement in respect of the matter I am raising, the fact that show trials are to take place which are similar to those sinister ones initiated by Stalin and the fact that an anti-Semitic campaign of a very vicious nature is taking place that is similar to that waged in Hitler's times—including steps with the media, for example very much like the shocking Sturmer publications of the Nazis—will my noble friend see to it that, in any further negotiations 684 with the USSR, the Government point out that the people of this country are shocked by that kind of treatment and that we ought, not only by ourselves but with those other civilised nations with whom we are in contact, to do everything we can to prevent the escalation of that kind of campaign?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSCertainly, my Lords. We shall continue to make this absolutely clear to any country that is in default of the basic human freedoms and human rights, as we have in the past both bilaterally and in concert with like-minded countries.
§ Lord HAILSHAM of SAINT MARYLEBONEMy Lords, will the noble Lord also bear in mind there are serious misgivings about the mistreatment of Christians in some of the satellite countries like Romania?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSYes, my Lords; I am well aware of that very important and poignant aspect. Both here in London and when one visits those countries, we make our attitude perfectly clear, I think not without some success. Progress is disappointing, but it is not discouraging.
§ Baroness GAITSKELLMy Lords, may I ask my noble friend the Minister whether we could not take a leaf out of President Carter's book and get down to the most basic human rights—and as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, said—for Jews and Christians, including, I may add, Baptists and politicians, to be allowed to leave and return to their own country. After all, the Soviets introduce every debate with a jumbo-resolution attacking us for colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, Zionism, apartheid and imperialism. We listen to that day in and day out for three months in the Human Rights Committee of the UN.
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSMy Lords, certainly we are in entire agreement with the noble Baroness in her comprehensive definition of human rights. Freedom, like peace, is indivisible.
§ Baroness ELLESMy Lords, can the Minister say whether any concerted action will be taken by other members of the 685 Community and whether any Working Party is studying the question of a common stand being taken by the members of the Community at the Belgrade meeting?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSYes, my Lords; members of the Community are, like this country, engaged in bilateral representation. Also we are in close and continuous consultation on these matters in the Community, in NATO and in the Council of Europe.
Lord JANNERMy Lords, is my noble friend aware that I am entirely in agreement with the comments made regarding Christian and other denominations? May I, however, direct his attention and the attention of leaders and the people of our and other communities to the fact that the Hitler régime started its inhuman, bestial attacks on the Jewish community but that it went very much further later and attacked every other type of decent, civilised human being?
§ Lord GORONWY-ROBERTSYes, indeed, my Lords. As I said, freedom and freedom from persecution are indivisible. We are all in on this; it is a question of man's inhumanity to man. It is not confined to one section of humanity. On at least one occasion in this House my noble friend Lord Janner has pointed to the comprehensiveness of the threat which persecution of this kind presents, not only to the Jewish community but, as we have heard, to Christians, to people of no fixed religious faith and to people of all opinions, religions and races.