HL Deb 22 March 1982 vol 428 cc834-5

2.51 p.m.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government why they do not react to more serious infringements of human rights in Iran in the vigorous way they do to lesser infringements in Poland.

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, we deplore violations of human rights wherever they occur and have reacted clearly and consistently to such violations. The views of Her Majesty's Government and our partners on developments in Iran have been made clear to the Iranian authorities, as have our views on Poland to the Polish Government.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that of over 3,000 executions which took place throughout the world last year, over 2,600—that is, around 82 per cent.—took place in Iran; that many of them took place within hours of arrest, and that they were for such offences as intending to demonstrate? So would the noble Lord agree that no one should, in any circumstances, be deported from this country to Iran?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, the question of deportation from this country would have to be considered on its merits, in the light of the circumstances prevailing at the time. But, as I said in the Answer, we have made our views about human rights violations in Iran very clear, not least in the Unstarred Question that I answered a week or so ago about the Bahá'is.

Baroness Gaitskell

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that there was a programme during the weekend about the American attitude to what went on in Iran, where the officials who spoke—I am sorry that I cannot remember their names—confessed that they had been wrong about Iran from the beginning, and that they had caused a lot of confusion and made a lot of mistakes about what has gone on?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, I did not see the programme to which the noble Baroness has referred and I do not know what it was that the American officials confessed to, or, indeed, which officials were confessing the error of their ways. But it behoves all Ministers and officials to confess the errors of their ways occasionally.

Lord Mayhew

My Lords, is the noble Lord aware that the Foreign Secretary is not proposing a visit of friendship to Iran or to Poland, but is about to visit Israel? May we have an assurance that when he is in Israel he will represent to the Israeli Government the damage done to Israel's reputation in this country by the repression of human rights on the West Bank and, in particular, by the use of firearms against unarmed demonstrators?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, the noble Lord's ingenuity knows no bounds, but even he is hard pressed to draw an analogy between what he asks and the Question on the Order Paper.

Lord Brockway

My Lords, although I welcome what the Minister said about deploring what is happening in Iran, and the Government's protests about what is happening in Poland and to the dissidents in the Soviet Union, would not the Government's credibility be rather stronger if they made similar protests against the denial of human rights among allies of the West, such as El Salvador and Turkey?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, I think that I should answer that question in the same way as I answered the noble Lord, Lord Mayhew.

Lord Jenkins of Putney

If I may press the noble Lord just a little further on this matter, I think he will agree that the general impression, rightly or wrongly, is that the Government are concerned only with human rights violations which occur in eastern Europe, and not so much with where most of the torturing and killing occurs, which, unfortunately, is in the so-called free countries of the West. Will the noble Lord do what he can to correct that impression, making it clear that he is even more concerned about violations in the area of which we regard ourselves as a part, than in those areas to which we do not regard ourselves as belonging?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, let me say, yet again, that the Government deplore violations of human rights wherever they may occur, and we lose no opportunity in expressing our views on the matter.