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Transnational Repression in the UK (JCHR Report)

My Lords, I am delighted to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, on his maiden contribution.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate and highlighting the work of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on transnational repression. For the purpose of declaring my interest, I should mention that I was a member of that committee when this unanimous report was produced. It has been a great delight to work under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. He has been responsible for highlighting human rights issues in your Lordships’ Chamber on frequent occasions, and this report is no exception. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for his contribution.

Today, we live in an uncertain world. A few years ago, we would not have heard the phrase “transnational repression”. It still requires a great deal of explanation in many parts of the world as to what meaning we attach to it. I am pleased that clarity on a common definition now exists. This leave us in doubt where the civilised world stands. But we need to ensure that the FCDO and other agencies are involved in educating the rest of the world about transnational repression. This will not happen unless a common definition is agreed. Can the Minister give some indication of when this is likely to happen? Regrettably, this recommendation has not been accepted by the Government.

I said earlier in my speech that we live in an uncertain world. Human rights are frequently in confrontation with authorities and Governments. Acts or threats against individual groups and communities across territorial borders are carried out by Governments or their proxies. This violates human rights. The examples that are cited include Hong Kong, China, Iran and some countries in the Horn of Africa. Many of these are anonymised in the report to protect their identities, for obvious reasons.

I shall ignore China and Hong Kong and instead concentrate on Iran, because my time is fairly limited. The principal Iranian actors are the Supreme Leader and senior regime leadership, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and diplomatic missions and proxies. Hundreds of people have been killed simply to protect regime survival, fragment the opposition, prevent unity and prevent any form of independent, organised resistance through intimidation, infiltration, smear campaigns and manipulations. The Intelligence and Security

Committee’s report on Iran concluded that Iran poses a wide-ranging threat to UK national security which should not be underestimated, as it is

“persistent and—crucially—unpredictable”.

Since 2022, there has been a sharp rise in physical attacks, kidnappings and assassination attempts. The report further stressed that our security services and police have stopped at least 15 murder or kidnap arrests against British nationals.

In conclusion, we must introduce immediate legislation to proscribe the IRGC as a terror organisation and to constrain its transnational repression. We should expel identified diplomats linked to the IRGC where evidence of abusive and illegal activities exists. We should strengthen our investigatory and prosecution capacity, funding specialist policing and legal resources to identify, investigate and prosecute individuals and networks facilitating transnational repression. This is the best outcome of this report.

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