TUESDAY 7 JANUARY 2003

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Members present:

Donald Anderson, in the Chair
Mr David Chidgey
Mr Fabian Hamilton
Andrew Mackinlay
Mr Maples
Mr Bill Olner
Mr Greg Pope
Sir John Stanley

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Memoranda submitted by Amnesty International UK and Human Rights Watch

Examination of Witnesses

MR STEVEN CRAWSHAW, Director, London Office, Human Rights Watch, MS KATE ALLEN, Director, Amnesty International UK and MR TIME HANCOCK, Parliamentary Officer, Amnesty International UK, examined.

Chairman

On behalf of the committee may I in this our first meeting in the calender year 2003 welcome two representatives of Amnesty International UK, Ms Kate Allen, who is the Director and Mr Time Hancock, who is the Parliamentary Officer and Steven Crawshaw, who is the Director of the London office of Human Rights Watch. We are delighted to see both organisations. You personally both in your own right have assisted the committee on a number of occasions and we are indeed grateful for the memoranda which both of the organisations sent to us, which have a remarkable degree of similarity I notice. We also value this meeting as preparation for the meeting which the committee has with the relevant Foreign Office minister. We are indeed meeting Mr Bill Rammell on January 28, so much of what we learn today will be helpful for us in that preparation. If matters arise between now and that date on which you wish to comment we would again be most grateful. The year 2002 was perhaps not a good year for human rights because of the way in which the war against terrorism was used by governments. Let us hope that this new year will be rather better. First of all, on the basis on which we work this is a much more weighty document than we have had in the past and it has been the practice of the committee to comment on the contents and indeed on the form of this report, which is now getting in every way a much more weighty document. May I begin by asking you both generally what are your general reactions to this year's Annual Report. Perhaps I will begin with Ms Allen, do you believe this gives a reasonably fair picture of the role human rights plays in UK foreign policy? I notice, with respect, you were given a certain prominent role in a leadership conference this morning, does this make you feel that you and human rights are at last being mainstreamed within the Foreign Office?

(Ms Allen) Thank you for that welcome. I think in terms of the report we do think that it is a very comprehensive report, it is a very thorough report in terms of the coverage of human rights and the role of the government and the work that it has been doing over the year. We have no argument with the report, we think it is a very good report.

And an improvement on previous reports?

(Ms Allen) I think that it is becoming more and more comprehensive. I think the question that we would have is one that we raised in our written evidence to you, the report seems to be increasingly talked about and referred to by ministers as covering their concerns on different countries much more thoroughly than we think the report itself justifies. The coverage of different countries and their records is quite patchy and if ministers are going to rely upon it as covering human rights' situations in those different countries as opposed to providing snapshots backing up different themes then I think there may be some difficulties.

Do you understand that for some reasons ministers believe in respect of certain countries it makes more sense to bring pressure informally?

(Ms Allen) Certainly. The point I am trying to make is that in publicity and in interviews on the television and radio, ones that I have been involved in with ministers too, they referred to the report and to country accounts within the report as a systematic and comprehensive discussion of human rights. We would question that and whether that should be the case. I think there needs to be some clarity about the purpose of the report.

Mr Crawshaw, your response to the report, is it an improvement on previous years?

(Mr Crawshaw) Very similar to Kate Allen's. We agree it is comprehensive and thorough. One should not be dragged into the cynical view that sometimes comes that the whole thing is just a whitewash, we do not regard it as that.

Do you reflect the views of the NGO community largely?

(Mr Crawshaw) I certainly reflect the views of Human Rights Watch.

(Ms Allen) Not generally but from conversations that I have had with other human rights' organisations I think that we do recognise the value of the report.

Thank you.

(Mr Crawshaw) Having said that, there are clearly bits, if you like, there are two concerns that we have, one is that there are some points where what is said in the report is right and proper but does not really seem to be matched by government action on a particular area, and we have highlighted some of those in the written submission and we will be happy to take more questions on that. The other is really one or two really gross omissions which are quite startling, and one finds it remarkable that a human rights report cannot highlight them. That may be something that you want to ask more questions about later. Saudi is a clear case. It is really very, very surprising that torture is not addressed directly within that section. One can make all sorts of speculation about why not but given the fact that the report itself highlights the fact that human rights and security are not alternatives but are mutually reinforcing I think it is a pity if one make omissions for whatever type of geopolitical reasons. That has been seen as a mistake in the past.

Sir John Stanley

If like the new Archbishop of Canterbury on Desert Island Discs you want to pause for a moment so you can give a considered answer to this question the committee will understand. The question I want to put to you - we have a lot of detailed and specific questions to put to you later - is, if you were in a position to have a free hand as far as the Government's human rights policy is concerned what for each of your organisations would be the two or three issues or country areas which you and your organisation would like to see greater government weight and greater government attention given to in the human rights area? What would be your top two or three priorities for more action?

(Ms Allen) I think between us we would both have the same first issue that we would both raise, which would be the International Criminal Court. That has been an issue of concern to both organisations and the UK Government's response to the US's onslaught has caused us quite some concern.

(Mr Crawshaw) It is something which the report talks very strongly about, the British support and the importance of the British role in setting up the Court, which is absolutely right, because it did indeed play an important role. During the past 6 months since the official creation in July 2002 there have on a number of occasions been signs that Britain is willing to make conciliatory moves towards the Americans, who would basically like to see the Court dead in the water. Both of our organisations, and I would like to think anyone who cares about human rights in the world, feels that for this Court to be weakened and chipped away, chipped away, chipped away is very dangerous. The British Government would insist that they are defending it to the hilt. I think that it needs to be understood that sometimes making compromises will weaken in the long term. The Hague Tribunal was not terribly powerful when it started but it gained power over the years. That is one issue where we do think it is very, very important that Britain should stand strong for greater international security for all to stick by the ICC. That is one very important issue.

Do you want to follow anything on the ICC? I would also like to ask you about your second and third top priorities.

(Ms Allen) Moving on to the second and the third, one of the issues we are very concerned about is the protection of human rights as states increasingly enact counter-terrorism measures. We have produced a report "Rights At Risk" on this issue and are updating that at the moment where we have expressed our concerns in numerous countries round the world where the security of counter-terrorism legislation has, we think, undermined human rights, including within our own country where we think the fact that there are 11 foreign nationals being held without charge or trial now for coming up to a year - something that the Master of the Rolls recently described as a legal black hole - is something that causes us great concern. That gives quite a picture to other countries about the way in which they can tackle counter terrorism and the way they can use that to abuse human rights within their countries. That would be our second choice. You gave me three, the third would be to ask the British Government to speak up more clearly about the human rights' records of some countries that it does find quite difficult to confront.

Which specific ones?

(Ms Allen) Saudi Arabia is clearly one. The three paragraphs in the report are completely inaccurate. It does feel that at the moment the Government are saying less about what their concerns are about Saudi Arabia than it was a year or two years ago. We are moving in the wrong direction on those issues. Those would be the three Amnesty issues.

Mr Crawshaw, your second and third?

(Mr Crawshaw) We are happy to subscribe to those, however we would like some additional as well. Picking up really on the fact of sometimes speaking not quite loudly enough where we feel that it would be necessary, Chechnya would be a obvious case in point. We are not looking for some major showdown with Moscow at every moment but clearly dialogue is terribly important. In the long term it must be understood that turning a blind eye to the disappearances and brutality that is happening the whole time and taking government assurances from Moscow, which constantly come, about the rule of law being okay is simply not sufficient. Those assurances, as our own research on the ground has shown very clearly - we have a forthcoming report talking about people being forced out of refugee camps there and disappearances continue - are certainly ones that are very serious.

Mr Pope

I want to ask a couple of questions about Iraq and the document which the Foreign Office published in November of last year. First of all the Foreign Office concluded that a cruel and callous disregard for human life and suffering remains the hallmark of the Iraqi regime, and it goes on to list a variety of forms of torture that are commonplace in Iraq. Is it your assessment that this dossier is a fair and accurate account of the human rights' records of Iraq?

(Ms Allen) Yes, it is. Amnesty International has produced reports on the human rights situation in Iraq every year and sometimes more than once a years since 1975. A lot of our reports have been used in that document.

Is it your estimation that Iraq is by some measure the worst offender against human rights in that region or is it just comparable to any of its neighbouring countries?

(Ms Allen) At Amnesty we try not to get into comparing the human rights' records of different countries, it is a task that would become quite invidious for us. What we try to do is tackle each country, each government on its merits. The Iraqi regime is by any measure pretty horrendous in terms of its human rights record.

Do you have some reservations about the motives of the Government in publishing the dossier?

(Ms Allen) Our concern that we voiced when that dossier was published, given that a lot of the evidence within it was evidence that Amnesty and other human rights' organisations had produced over many years, was our concern that the aim of publishing the document was to strengthen support for possible military action, and we simply raised that as a concern.

I accept that point and no doubt that will be widely accepted round this committee. There is also another view which one could hold simultaneously which is it is helpful to produce a document like this if the Government thinks human right are a priority. It is the function of the Foreign Office to raise human rights and it is therefore a helpful contribution to the wider debate to be able to publish a dossier like this.

(Ms Allen) Yes. It would be very interesting to see them on other countries too, perhaps some of the ones we mentioned earlier.

I very much welcomed this dossier, I thought it was helpful. I am proud that the government I support is able to do this kind of stuff and I would be even more proud if it were able produce one on a country which is notionally an ally of ours, Saudi Arabia, where torture is widespread. It is time that the government might be even-handed about it. I hope you would agree with that.

(Mr Crawshaw) Can I say I think one of the lessons that ought to be contained within the dossier is precisely reminding us how not addressing enormous and brutal human rights abuses at the time when they are occurring or at the time when they are known to the world has very, very bad knock-on effects down the line and I think that reminds us very forcefully of that.

Mr Maples

As a committee we have been very interested in the circumstance that have given rise to the Islamic terrorism we have seen since September 11, Al-Qaeda and the groups associated with it. It has been suggested to us in evidence, and we are inclined to give some weight to this, that there are several factors and at least one of them is the absence of human rights, democracy, and rule of law in many Arab countries, and Saudi Arabia has already come up in conversation. I would be interested in your view in general on the state of human rights in the Arab parts of those regions. We have heard a bit about some progress, there were some elections in Kuwait and Bahrain and Morocco, do those amount to anything? Do you think there is real progress? We are particularly interested in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which seem to be the economic and political leaders in the Arab world. I would like your opinion and whether you think there is any progress at all?

(Mr Crawshaw) As you say there is not a lot to be hopeful about. There are many countries in the region.

(Mr Hancock) Certainly post September 11 we saw an increased use of repressive legislation to clamp down on the freedom of expression in Egypt, if anything it has got worse since September 11, the overall trend has not been terribly encouraging. I think that has probably been mirrored throughout the region. There are some elements of positive news. I think Bahrain is one country where we have been fairly encouraged by some recent reforms there. The two countries that you cited, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, no, I do not think we can say there has been progress, in fact probably the opposite.

I suppose if we made these points to the Egyptian or Saudi Governments they would say, "you mean now with what is going on you are asking us to do something about it and you are also asking us to liberalise our freedom of expression, you must be crazy". What would your reaction to that be? Do you think that the absence of democracy and law on human rights is a factor in producing terrorism?

(Mr Crawshaw) They ought to understand and the British Government also ought to be making clear that these are absolutely complementary. The idea that by torturing people, by locking people up, freedom of expression, the idea that you are creating security for yourself is so patently not the case. Again, perhaps, Saudi is the absolute clearest example of that. You are creating instability by locking people up, by torturing the whole time, that is what is the instability for the future.

Do you see a pattern in countries where basic human rights are suppressed of political activity being diverted into other areas? Are governments, not necessarily just Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but China amongst others, are they successful or does it end up being channelled in a different direction and going underground? Is there a pattern to this?

(Mr Hancock) It depends on the country and the nature of the opposition of each of the dissenters. In some circumstances you have an opposition that sees violence as the best way or the only way of expressing itself. In another country, Burma for example, we have a very repressive government and the main opposition clearly felt that using democratic procedures is perhaps the best way of garnering international support. I think it depends on the opposition and the country.

If we were trying to the press the Government of Saudi Arabia and Egypt as two examples and urge them to make progress where would you start? I would imagine trying to get a free election of political parties is probably the last step in this process, perhaps the establishment of a genuine rule of law where people feel they have rights, where do you think we should be urging the government to start with those two countries, Saudi Arabia and Egypt?

(Ms Allen) Some of the extreme examples are the fact that in Saudi Arabia torture is endemic, the fact that the death penalty is used in very wide sets of circumstances, so starting with those sorts of issues and gradually moving in those directions. That is what is regrettable about the report, it is not even starting to challenge the issue round torture in this particular year's coverage of Saudi. That would be the starting point.

(Mr Crawshaw) I would subscribe to that. Exactly the rule of law you mentioned, and torture is where that begins. Torture is a licence to do whatever you like by the state. That again contributes to instability enormously. There are a number of other places, there are a number of central Asian states who may seem to be "useful at a particular moment for geopolitical reasons and think they have a free hand to carry out torture". That is a very basic thing. That can be stopped more or less overnight. It cannot be stopped exactly overnight, but the sense that this is a culture that will not be tolerated, that a policeman or an army officer who tortures can be held accountable for that, that sense of accountability is enormously important and many, many other things can flow from that.

Most of those would apply to Saudi Arabia, would they be the same with Egypt?

(Ms Allen) Yes.

Mr Chidgey

I am very interested to hear your views on this, you have obviously concentrated so far on talking about the breach of human rights through torture in countries whether the rule of law is questionable. Have either of you or your organisations or both made any evaluation of a link between state torture to extract confessions, a classic example, because of the absence of the techniques of investigative detective work and forensic science? We know it is the classic case, for example, in Turkey, which we visited last year. Is this not a rather brutal and basic shortcut to try to apprehend and incarcerate the criminal fraternity because of the absence of any sophisticated method of investigation, interrogation and the justice system. Have you looked at this? Is there a relationship between that?

(Ms Allen) I think there is a very clear relationship there. In the work that Amnesty have done in the various countries we have made that link. I was in Nepal a year or so ago when Amnesty members were involved in training the police specifically in why torture was not acceptable and those were specifically the issues, the lack of resources, the lack of training in detection methods. The move towards beating confessions out of people was the immediate first point of action.

Should the priority be for the British Government in its intervention to try and establish, protect and enhance human rights?

(Ms Allen) I think that is right. Amnesty have opened an office in Kabul specifically to ensure that we are able to address some of those issues in the reconstruction of that country so that the criminal justice system, the police system and the prison system are areas where we are able to have some impact in the reconstruction so that we do see those institutions that will ensure that issues like torture can be defeated.

Are you satisfied we are doing enough in terms of our government policy in this respect?

(Mr Crawshaw) I do not feel my organisation would feel qualified to comment on whether enough is happening on the training at the moment. One thing I would wish to add is it is not just a matter of police not being able to do things but where the repressive apparatus of the state wants to reach a certain verdict they will do so irrelevant to whether the person looks as though they are guilty of the given crime or not. Uzbekistan is a very clear example of that. The UN Special Rapporteur, who has not yet fully reported, even while in Tashkent, the capital, unusually while there he said that he had found systemic torture in Uzbekistan, which backs up what we had already documented over a long period in recent years. The regime there is using as the excuse, as has happened across the world, post September 11 and the fight against terrorism, it simply locks up people whose only real offence is either to practise religion in their own way or to be critical of their regime. There it is not really a police matter, moving over, sliding over towards torture but simply locking up your opponents, then torturing them and indeed killing them on a regular basis.

(Ms Allen) We are very pleased to see the Convention Against Torture has been agreed. It was a 10 year battle and that has now been agreed. I think that the role that the British Government played in that has been a significant and positive one. One of campaigns that Amnesty has on-going is the torture campaign and we have worked very closely with the Foreign Office on that. We have had some very good joint work with them. We do feel we have some good cooperation.

Returning to Saudi Arabia and the 3 paragraphs contained in the report, which a lot of us picked up at the time. I happened to pick up the American State Departments Human Rights Report on the web and turned to Saudi Arabia and found literally page after page of examples of human rights abuse compared to the 3 paragraphs in our own Foreign Office Report. It seems strange given the present political climate that the US should be able to give us so much more information on what is happening in Saudi than our Foreign Office, I wonder whether you in Amnesty and the Human Rights Watch - I know Amnesty has an office in the Washington - picked this up and whether you can find any reason why it is the US, surprisingly, should be so forthcoming on human rights abuse in Saudi and yet our own Foreign Office seems to have overlooked the issue?

(Mr Hancock) Unless I am very much mistaken I think that is because Congress demands that the State Department issues that report.

Would you like to say a little bit more about that?

(Mr Hancock) I am not one hundred per cent confident but I think it is that Congress demands that the State Department issues an annual report on human rights as well as on other aspects. It is an accountability role to Congress and it has to do that. It is a very good idea.

That begs the question, is there a lack of accountability in our view?

(Mr Hancock) Given that the Government produces this Human Rights Report which we are considering today I think that is an extremely positive way of injecting some kind of accountability and some kind of transparency. Personally I find it useful looking at these issues day-to-day because it does tell me a lot of information I would not otherwise know about good practice. Clearly there is a role for getting the Government to give an honest and clear assessment about what it thinks the human rights situation is itself rather than quoting Amnesty International. If they can prove transparency and accountability in that area that would be good.

My final area of questioning comes back to something that you mentioned a few minutes ago in your comments on the report that we have here, Ms Allen, and in your written response to us. What is the report for? Is it meant to be a themed approach to the Government's foreign policy - I am possibly shorthanding your words - it seems to be cherry-picking certain areas of human rights concerns. On the other hand, in Amnesty you do not try to assess and place countries by order of human rights abuse. I am little puzzled here as to how you feel that the British Government should be approaching human rights as a global issue. We have pointed out and you have pointed out, that certain countries are mentioned for human rights abuses. It has been implied by others that there is a political reason for highlighting issues of human rights in some countries while others, and Saudi is an example, have been more or less ignored. What is the approach that we should be taking? Should we be looking at the continent of Africa? Should we be looking at the Middle East and the Far East? How is the Government supposed to have any yardstick to show that it is improving the delivery of its foreign policy on trying to limit and eliminate, if we can, human rights' abuses on a state level. What should they be aiming at?

(Ms Allen) I think some form of consistency so that if the report is going to cover individual countries then there is a consistent approach to that rather than 3 paragraphs on one country and a different approach to another. I think that would be a good starting point. As we just said there is really a kind of open and transparent account of what the British Government thinks the human rights record of a particular country is and we can then have that kind of debate. Obviously the response of the British Government, how it decides to tackle that is one that varies depending on the different circumstances. We are not saying that the response of the Government has to be the same with every country but we do think that the assessment of what is happening within a country needs to be clear and accountable.

(Mr Crawshaw) I would agree with that. I think that league tables are not enormously useful. An individual may look at them and create an individual league table. If you look at a certain basic set of standards that people should be adhering to, the description of which of those standards has been breached makes it very clear to any reader where the most severe breaches have taken place. Again on the report one should be very clear that there is much that is very good within the report. The very fact that the Government appears to be taking the issue so seriously - I would correct myself - the Government is taking these issues seriously I think that should not be dismissed and it is very important, but it is all the more important that one can see very clearly the gaps that come up. We have already discussed Saudi but there are other points where there are blind spots, Afghanistan is one where one almost had the impression that different parts of the section have been written by different hands because there is one bit which says that everything was now fine and dandy and there was another bit (almost between commas) that began to address some of the very, very serious problems existing throughout Afghanistan - Kabul is much better, but in other areas--- Again human rights has done a whole series of reports from different areas and it was odd to find phrases within the comments in Afghanistan which appear to suggest that this was now all looking rosy. One needs to confront difficulties. It may be rather unpleasant for the Government to realise there is a lot of very, very unfinished business, some of which is getting worse, and that needs to be confronted. You cannot simply move on and say, "Afghanistan is too complicated, let us not think about that too much, let us say things are okay there". That sense of an unchanging yardstick is important.

You mentioned league tables and you mentioned yardsticks, you are probably familiar with the Copenhagen criteria which the EU has been using to great effect in recent months would you see a similar set of criteria being relevant and useful to British foreign policy and perhaps EU foreign policy in its assessment of human rights' records worldwide, the establishment of Copenhagen criteria and expanding the element that deals with human rights?

(Mr Crawshaw) My instinct is that I see no reason against that but I would need to think it through more carefully to give a considered answer.

Mr Olner

Can I bring you back to Afghanistan, that has now, sadly, fallen off world headlines. Obviously there is grave concern about perhaps the deteriorating state of human rights in Afghanistan, what more should we be doing to get the human rights issues addressed there?

(Mr Crawshaw) Above all looking at the fact that Kabul is not the end of the world for Afghanistan, this is across the country. It is an importantly strong international security force. The Afghan army will be able to do its job in due course, at the moment it cannot, it is a fantasy land to think it can. That would be my short answer

(Ms Allen) The only other thing to add is this is going to be a long term commitment. The support for rebuilding in that country needs to take place over many years. There needs to be attention paid to the issues of the criminal justice system, policing, prisons, those sorts of infrastructure, as well as the other more obvious infrastructure questions in a country that has been through so much. There is certainly one piece of unfinished business in the need to ensure that there is an inquiry into the killings that happened as the Fort of Mazar-i-Sharif and that is something that Amnesty called for at that time and will continue to say that that is an area that there still needs to be some inquiry into.

Chairman

In reality given the embryonic nature of the regime within Kabul is it really real to try and push them very, very much quicker along the lines to bring in all of the things you mentioned about criminal justice and getting rid of the warlords?

(Mr Crawshaw) I would say I think that that is precisely where the Afghan Government itself clearly needs international help, and this is not some kind of patronising idea of outsiders coming to do stuff. The Afghan Government is absolutely clear, welcomes and indeed many ordinary Afghans are begging for more support in order, if you like, to act as the bandage enabling the wounds of Afghanistan to gradually heal. If those wounds are left as open, festering wounds and the warlords' grip is allowed to tighten again then in the medium and longer term, even in the short term, you are building in horrific instability. That effort really needs to be made, and it is international, to help the Afghans themselves.

Mr Olner

Can I turn to a general problem within Afghanistan. I think many of us who care for these issues were delighted with the opportunity that was offered to women within Afghanistan to be human beings with education and other various other things. There did seem to be a move to genuinely free that up but that seems to be receding now. There seems to be reports of girls' schools being attacked and burned down, is this something that warlords are doing? Are they the ones that are turning its clock back?

(Ms Allen) I think you must remember the record of the Northern Alliance on these issues was not good either. Many woman have kept wearing the burqa for protection even at the present time. This is something which happened over many, many years of discrimination, really appalling discrimination over many, many years. That is going to take some time to break down. It is not going to happen overnight but clearly the removal of the Taliban, and they are the most extreme excesses of that discrimination, will help. It would be unrealistic to expect this to change hugely quickly, there needs to be a programme of work that supports and encourages woman in Afghanistan who are organising in all sorts of extraordinary ways at the moment to promote their own freedoms.

How can the international community really hone in and focus on those groups within Afghanistan that are doing that? Are we doing enough? Can we do better? What should we be doing?

(Ms Allen) I think it is supporting women's organisations that are developing in Afghanistan and making sure in all of the various initiatives that the international community supports that the voice of women is heard and that that is not ignored and it is supported and helped to express itself.

(Mr Crawshaw) I would add to that, adding the framework stability which allows that to happen. A recent report which we produced called "We want to live as humans" was produced in December 2002 that focused on Herat specifically and the warlord Ismail Khan. There people were saying the rights of women in Afghanistan are as bad as it was under the Taliban. This is going backwards. Nobody can really change that except people who are powerful enough with political means, which means the international community to reduce the power of those warlords to allow the bandages to be on the wounds and some kind of health to be restored.

On the question of stability, and finally as far as I am concerned on this issue, should we still be encouraging refugees to go back to Afghanistan? Should refugees returning be given more security? Should we encourage them or should we do, as Amnesty have said, do not encourage them at the moment because it is not secure.

(Ms Allen) There is a difference between encouraging and saying that people must return. What Amnesty said is that we do not think there should be a speedy return of people from the UK at the moment unless people are ready themselves individually to return because outside of Kabul life is still pretty precarious. We need to be sure that people are going back to somewhere safe. We were concerned that some of the return issues were happening too fast and people were not being given enough choice. It is best if people are able to choose their own time to return rather than being sent back.

What percentage of Afghans are protected by the regime in Kabul as opposed to the percentage of Afghans that live outside Kabul?

(Ms Allen) I am not sure of the figures, I would need to get back to you on that.

Chairman

It would be useful. Are you saying that there are deficiencies in the British Government's response to the crisis in Afghanistan. I am sure Claire Short would be a little upset if it were alleged that DFID had been tardy in a number of these efforts, particularly in respect to the status of women, or is this a general point you are making?

(Ms Allen) It is a general point.

(Mr Crawshaw) As regards the status of women, it is not really something which can be done directly, it is the security framework which needs to make that possible which makes all of the other things possible.

That is the fault of the international community generally not providing resources?

(Mr Crawshaw) We feel that Britain has been in favour but I think a stronger voice heard from Britain, which does have a very important voice and is also heard very loudly in Washington, can have important advantages, that that voice can be heard more loudly in saying this really matters. This is not something which can be put to one side because we are bothered with Iraq now, this is just as important in its own way.

Chairman: The best example of positive regional change.

Andrew Mackinlay

The Human Rights Fund is the single most important source of the projects in supporting civil society, have you any views on its usefulness, its distribution and the coordination of that fund with the various governments departments, DfID, the FCO and the Ministry of Defence?

(Ms Allen) We very much welcome the fund. We consider that it does provide important funding for very useful projects. At the meeting that the Chairman referred to today in one of the discussions that I was part of concerns were expressed that decisions on the fund took too long and that it would be useful to have more than one year funding in succession. I think those were the kind of practical comments that were made. Amnesty are very supportive of that fund.

The Copenhagen criteria has been referred to by my colleague earlier. We now agree that Estonia should come into the European Union in just under one year and they still have a number of stateless persons, stateless as distinct from Russian, living there, something in the order of 50,000. It seems to be contrary to the Declaration of Human Rights, a person's right to nationality. Can you throw any light as to what has happened about these people? Should we have agreed to Estonia coming in without the resolve of that? On the Copenhagen criteria I also see from Human Rights Watch this very important paragraph about the culture of the judges in Turkey not interpreting, they signed up to the form but not the spirit. Admittedly there has been a change of government but there have been some disappointing episodes in Turkey this year. Perhaps we can have your comments and observations on that?

(Ms Allen) We will need to get back to you, Human Rights Watch have not done recent, specific work on that.

Should we have done? There are 50,000 stateless persons there I understand. What about Turkey?

(Ms Allen) Perhaps we can get back to you on that.

(Mr Crawshaw) We have expressed those concerns. Again this has been said in a different context earlier, one needs to acknowledge that enormous progress has been made in Turkey and that is very important. In a way that is the heartening bit, one can concentrate on the details but I think bringing together the theory and practice is enormously important and will continue to be. The positive signs are the fact that Turkey has made so many changes and, yes, I would leave it at that.

You would leave it at that. It seems to me, it troubles me to be candid with you, that we have lurched forward being very critical of Turkey and its failure to accommodated minorities, it is not a dictatorship but it is a halfway house, as it were. Admittedly there was a change of government but it is too early to do a real audit of the progress and intent. As a snapshot today it seems to me Turkey is seriously deficient on human rights as of this afternoon. Politically one has sensed over the past few weeks a major lurch by commentators, by government ministers, by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, everything is melting there, it is all going to be glorious through the Copenhagen criteria. I am pretty jaundiced about that, what is your reaction?

(Mr Hancock) I think what you described reflects what has happened. If I was looking at it in a positive way, yes, there has been a number of reforms announced, the death penalty for example, but you have to see how that works out in practice. I am concerned people are focusing on reforms that have been espoused in law and thinking that reform announcements means reform on the ground, I am a little concerned about that. I would be worried if I was to take a negative view and say that a lot of commentaries happening now are a reflection of some kind of desire to get Turkey. We know within the European Union there seems to be a split about the fundamental desirability about getting Turkey in or out. I would be worried if the United Kingdom as an enthusiast of having Turkey as a member would in any way weaken its position on what is going on on the ground in Turkey.

NIPAD, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, in relation to human rights what is its impact on that? Aid, medication, access to drugs, I know it is not mainstream but I think it is indivisible to human rights and also the question of debt relief. Is it working? What is your read on that?

(Mr Hancock) Things like giving people medication for aids or other communicable diseases, making sure governments have money to promote their own development, make sure we can address some of the issues about policing in terms of knowing how that is working, that is not something that I worked on particularly closely, we will need to come back to you on that one. That is probably more for Oxfam, or something.

(Mr Crawshaw) We welcome the fact that NIPAD incorporates the importance of human rights in a way that was not there before and it comes back to the theory and practice.

Human Rights Watch, you refer to the fact that the European Bank's reconstruction is going to go ahead with the generous mandate, perhaps you can amplify on that? Is there something the Foreign Office have asked questions on and should they have done so?

(Mr Crawshaw) The meeting, which is due at the moment to take place in May in Tashkent, is the EBRDs annual meeting. The EBRD has as part of its mandate democracy and this is seen as an incentive towards democracy. Our concern from the moment this was announced has been that far from being an incentive towards democracy and for the regime there to change the regime is taking some endorsement of what it has already done which, as mentioned already, is killing people in custody, locking people up and on one notable occasion boiling people to death. It is a truly horrific regime. We are not saying the meeting should be cancelled but we feel there should be benchmarks attached to the meeting. There was a hint from the President of the Bank, Jean Lemierre, just before Christmas that it was conceivable that it could be held alternatively in London, but the impression given there was that it would wait for the results of the Rapporteur on torturous visits which is yet to come. To answer your question briefly, at the moment we have a rather muddy situation. If it remains muddy one already drifts in too late to impose any benchmarks. You are having a meeting and however outspoken - it would be good, naturally, if people are outspoken when they go there. Claire Short will be chairing the meeting ---

In Tashkent!

(Mr Crawshaw) We are not against the meeting taking place but we do think it is very important that there are some very basic benchmarks, which we have listed in letters to the EU foreign ministers. As you will remember the EU foreign ministers are the majority shareholders of the Bank.

I would like your read on Sierra Leone, it seems to me of all the various players there in the past they have not been the Archangel Gabriel and whilst one welcomes the fact there is a semblance of Parliamentary democracy there again one cannot help thinking the thing has gone off the boil in terms of looking at what has happened in Sierra Leone. I would like you to give us your reading of just what is happening there and indeed is there more which should be done by leverage? Are we satisfied with the current government's response? Is there anything else that you would like to add?

(Ms Allen) That is another one we would need to get back to you on.

(Mr Crawshaw) My short answer would be, we would have to get back to you, broadly we would certainly be pleased at the progress that has been made, that needs to be acknowledged. The situation is a great deal better very, very, very much better. We do have concerns but we would need to get back to you.

Romanies throughout Europe, and particularly in the accession countries but also in the United Kingdom, various travelling communities, is this not a great areas where all of the western governments cannot get their head round it because they all have gypsy, itinerant, Romany communities, tinkers and various groupings and in a sense because we recognise we have not had a national strategy in the United Kingdom we are unable to press other countries, it would be hypocritical to do it. This is probably a group which is least attractive, as it were, not to me but to governments. What about Romanies?

(Ms Allen) One of the things Amnesty do is to produce a report of our concern in Europe and one of the major concerns in that report has been the treatment of Roma by many European countries. I think in a United Kingdom context the issue is also one where asylum seekers come to this country, particularly from countries such as Romania, seeking asylum because of their treatment in their home countries, and there is a very harsh regime here in terms of not recognising asylum claims and the return of people, and also the placing of immigration officials in capital cities in various parts of Romania and other countries stopping people getting on planes in the first place there. So we do have those concerns in terms of our refugee policy in the UK as it relates to the Romar.

Chairman: In 2004 the structures for the Romar in any event will mean they can come in.

Andrew Mackinlay: They cannot claim political asylum because it is what is termed as "white" countries.

Chairman: They can come in any event. Mr Hamilton?

Mr Hamilton

Can I move on to Iran. You may or may not know that this Committee intends to visit Iran in March, and we will be the first parliamentary committee from Great Britain since the Islamic revolution to visit that country. In the Foreign Office Annual Report, the Foreign Office states that its policy of "critical engagement with Iran aims to encourage the reform process and enables us to raise regularly ... issues of concern, particularly human rights". In your view, has this policy of critical engagement been bearing fruit?

(Mr Hancock) With critical engagement what you have got to look for is whether the critical engagement is yielding progress. The way that we are going with Iran is to engage to try to reward the moderates within that country, and I would say on the face of it at present that is probably a sensible strategy. In our view, the problems come when we have a situation, as we do in China, where we have been having these formal sessions of human rights dialogue now for some five or six years and I am not really noticing any difference. Discussions seem to be almost exactly the same year on year with a different theme thrown in as a seminar. That is what we are looking for, we are looking for some sense that this year is going to be an improvement on last year, and certainly that five years down the line we have got substantial differences. If this is the current policy on Iran, then I would say okay, let's have a look at it and let's give it a chance. The government needs to articulate, though, what kind of improvements it is expecting, within what kind of time-frame, and then in some years and months we need to see how things are improving. If there is not an improvement then we have got to change the policy of critical engagement and we have got to be more critical and have less engagement. That is what I look for. I do worry if they just say we have got to have a policy of critical engagement and they do not actually look at what needs changing.

But there is a big difference, is there not, between Iran and China? In Iran there is a clear split between the reform elements of President Khatami and the more conservative (if you can call them that) elements of the Council of Guardians and the Supreme Leader, whereas in China there is no such clear split. There may well be a split behind the scenes but we do not know about it. There is a public split and there is a form of democracy in Iran which you do not have in China. You may disagree with that but surely that is the big difference, is it not, to encourage one of those groups, the more reformist, progressive elements to, if you like, take precedence and overcome the more conservative elements?

(Mr Hancock) What I was saying is yes I would agree with that analysis. Let us give it a chance but if five or six years down the line we are still saying the same things and the position of the moderates has not improved or has substantially weakened then we need to decide whether now is the time for UK policy to change. That is all I am saying. Give it a fair chance but make sure we keep it under constant review.

Given that the foreign minister of Iran is coming to London next month, what issues would you wish our government to raise with him in particular and given that we are going there, we hope, in March what should we raise as a Foreign Affairs Committee? What are the particular issues?

(Mr Hancock) I would not mind talking to our experts on that and provide you with a brief. We will certainly write to the Foreign Secretary later this month.

Chairman

It would be helpful if you let us have a memorandum.

(Mr Crawshaw) It is something that we have taken a very strong interest in and we would be very pleased to help.

Mr Hamilton

Any information you can give us for our trip would be very helpful. EU representatives met with their Iranian counterparts to discuss human rights issues last month in Tehran. To your knowledge have these talks been productive?

(Mr Hancock) As far as I am aware, it has been a "getting to know you" session. Human rights would have been raised in a thematic way. It is the first time there has been a specific human rights dialogue between the EU and Iran. I need to get back to our EU office to see if they can add to what I have said. Again with human rights dialogues they are useful if once we have got over the initial getting to know you phase we can agree on some specific projects and some specific areas where improvements can be sought. So long as we are making progress on that I support human rights dialogue. What I do not want is the human rights dialogue being pigeon-holed for human rights. Let's watch out for that.

Both your organisations were denied access to that meeting. Has that been changed at all or are you still not permitted to attend?

(Mr Hancock) I am not aware of any change.

(Mr Crawshaw) I am not aware of any change.

If you were permitted to attend, what questions would you be putting directly?

(Mr Crawshaw) All of this stuff is enormously important and I know that we have got people who are looking at it in great detail. It will be more productive probably to have a so-called substantive session.

Chairman

Are there circumstances where either or both of your organisations have been included in an EU delegation in such circumstances or might some outsiders consider it somewhat presumptuous for you to be involved in inter-governmental talks of that nature?

(Mr Hancock) With the China dialogue there was a stage where there was a session which was open where NGOs could participate. I am not certain whether that is still the case.

You do not know in China?

(Mr Hancock) I gave up the ghost on it, to be honest with you, because we thought everything was circular.

You think you should be taken in as part of an official, effective EU-to-Iran delegation? (Mr Hancock) Possibly. We will have to look at the circumstances. As I said, with Iran where there was a segment where we could participate, we felt that the human rights dialogue was so unproductive that we did not want to participate.

We need to move on. In terms of China, clearly the Government believes still that critical dialogue is the best way of making progress. Can you think of any better way?

(Mr Hancock) Yes, we come back to the perennial appeal of Amnesty International and I think of the Committee as well, one thing that we think really needs to happen is that the European Union has explicitly to co-sponsor or table a draft resolution on China at next year's UN Commission on Human Rights. If they do that then I would say that is a step in the right direction.

Just to move on, clearly the major human rights issue in Hong Kong currently is Article 23 of the Basic Law. What can you tell us about the opposition in that respect? Have the concerns of people like Martin Lee been exaggerated? Is it something that our Government needs to press the Chinese authorities on strongly?

(Mr Crawshaw) It is something that we have expressed strong concerns about. No, we do not believe Martin Lee has exaggerated. Again with apologies, it is something which I know we have been looking at, we have not made public statements on it but it is something that we have been looking at very closely.

Mr Chidgey

We have had a number of submissions to the Committee setting out a rather disturbing picture of the situation in North Korea where they say "human rights are repressed at every level". One particular aspect which is concerning us is that it appears to be worsening in recent months the plight of refugees fleeing to China. There are reports that many women refugees are being forced into sexual slavery while those that are caught by the Chinese authorities are forced back across the border to who knows what fate. I would very much like to have your views on what you believe is happening there, in particular for example, to your knowledge, has the situation in North Korea regarding refugees fleeing to China worsened in recent months owing to the number who have claimed asylum in foreign embassies in particular? How difficult is it to get accurate information about what is happening in this region? Perhaps you would both like to comment on that.

(Mr Crawshaw) Human Rights Watch has looked pretty closely at this and has produced something which I would be happy to forward also. In broad terms it certainly has not got better, that can clearly be said. In terms of what Britain might or might not be able to do, one major glaring gap at the moment is that the North Koreans are refusing to engage with the UNHCR on this issue. We are not saying that would solve the problem but at least that would be a first step. It is very clear that UNHCR ought to be involved in something like this which at the moment they are not able to. That would certainly be worth pressing more.

(Ms Allen) We certainly covered these issues in our last Annual Report. We could get back to you with any update on that.

Would you like to see the United Kingdom putting greater pressure on China with regard to this particular issue and, if it did, what concrete issues would you like to see the UK Government urging upon the Chinese?

(Mr Hancock) Certainly the refugee issue and China hounding refugees back to North Korea is something that needs to stop. I would like to see the UK Government making itself absolutely clear on that point. It is difficult given China's human rights record, but it would be good to see the Chinese government trying to exercise some level of restraint on Pyongyang in terms of human rights, but that is probably fanciful.

You have rather answered my final question, Chairman, but I will make the point anyway. From what you say, it appears there are no signs of improvement in the human rights situation within North Korea itself and you are not optimistic that continued dialogue with Pyongyang would lead to any improvement in the future?

(Mr Hancock) Instinctively I do not think there has been any improvement. If I find something different when I get back to my experts I will let you know.

Mr Hamilton

Can I move us back to Africa and on to the subject of Zimbabwe, without mentioning cricket. The Annual Report paints a pretty dismal picture of human rights in Zimbabwe. Do you think there is any room for optimism about the situation?

(Ms Allen) It is a very difficult situation. I think that it is difficult to know the ways in which to exert pressure. Via Amnesty we are working with our membership in the region to exert pressure. To follow on from the previous comment in terms of China, I think we would like to see a resolution at the next Human Rights Commission on Zimbabwe so that we can see some further debate and UN action on this issue.

Is there really any way forward at all as far as regaining respect for human rights in Zimbabwe or is it simply down to Mr Mugabe and his future?

(Mr Hancock) I think it is down to the leadership of Zimbabwe. This is a very grim scenario that we are facing at the present time and I am not terribly optimistic.

Is there any more that the British Government can do in particular?

(Mr Hancock) I have some sympathy with the position that the British Government finds itself in now anyway. Certainly we are conscious that representations made by the British Government and, indeed, British journalists or British based organisations are viewed as being some kind of colonial legacy. You might remember last year a number of British journalists were expelled and Mugabe rather laughingly called them terrorists. I have some sympathy with the British Government in terms of its statements about what it says about Zimbabwe. I am rather more concerned that I think the European Union was fairly slow to take the situation in Zimbabwe seriously as an entity. I have no idea whether that was due to the UK being lethargic or whether it was meeting resistence in other EU capitals. Obviously the EU has now taken the limited sanctions road but very much more needs to be done from within Africa on this.

Mr Maples

The use of the United Nations as a forum for international action has come back into - fashion is not quite the word - use far greater than it had in the past. Should not the United Nations Commission on Human Rights be the primary organisation to which people who are interested in human rights look to improve human rights of countries where they are abused? I have read your comments on this. What do you think can be done to revitalise the UNHCR? I think one of you suggested in your memorandum that there should be some sort of procedural hurdle that you have to clear about your own human rights before you are allowed to be a member of it, but it would then be something very much like a Western club forcing its values on the rest of the world. Would that be tenable? What would that hurdle be and how would you operate it without resulting in that?

(Mr Crawshaw) We are not talking about an enormously high hurdle where you have to be the perfect parliamentary democracy before you are in there, that might well be fanciful. I would like to think that the idea of basic concern for human rights is not some kind of Western monopoly but is something which actually governments across the world would like to be seen ----

Chairman

A universal declaration?

(Mr Crawshaw) A universal declaration. Indeed, that was some time ago but that was roundly ignored, of course, by governments all across the world for many years. What I was about to say was I think more than, say, 20 years ago, perhaps even more recently than that, there is a greater acceptance that you do need to be seen to be observing basic human rights and that whereas in the time of the Cold War, if you like, both sides turned a blind eye to things going on on their own side and attacked the other side, those days are gone and I think governments do wish to be seen as observers of human rights and one ought to be able to press forward on that. What we feel is at least worth exploring is some kind of basic hurdle, signing up to some of the basic conventions, that kind of thing, and, without being too fanciful, indeed not only signing up to them but observing those conventions and keeping to those conventions. Those are the kinds of things which could reverse the drift at the moment that we have got where you have people making decisions within the Commission which are taking us really completely in the wrong direction for all the reasons that you have referred to.

(Ms Allen) That is an interesting proposal that we would want to think about. I think one of the more almost mundane issues but a very important one is the question of resources. I think that at the last session there were cutbacks in the time that was available for debate which forced discussion into a much shorter period of time making it more difficult for the discussions to take place. I think that the previous High Commissioner, Mary Robinson, certainly made clear her concerns about resourcing and the level of resources in relation to the UN budget overall that human rights was receiving. I think that there are some fundamental resourcing issues that might help to ease some of the issues.

It would not help the point Mr Maples makes.

(Ms Allen) I think that if you could provide greater resources you could ensure that some of the debates could perhaps take place over a longer period of time.

(Mr Hancock) If I might come in there. On the point about debates, at the last session they were cut so much that non-governmental organisations had less time to comment and, perhaps even more importantly, the UN Commission on Human Rights' own special mechanisms, the special rapporteurs, were limited to about five minutes to present their reports. Some found that difficult to do and some refused to work within those constraints, so the quality of information that the Commission on Human Rights was receiving from its own experts in terms of their presentations was limited. That is why I think resourcing and the amount of time available are important. The other aspect is we had a situation last year when the Commission on Human Rights decided that Mary Robinson should go to Israel to produce a report on the human rights situation there and Israel simply refused to co-operate with the mission and, in fact, has done so with impunity. What happens in Geneva seems to be divorced from what is happening in New York. That has got to be changed, I think. If a state refuses to co-operate in such a bare-faced way then there needs to be some kind of implications through what the UN member states are saying about that country and that is not happening at the moment. That has got to undermine the credibility of the UNHCR.

Mr Maples

You mentioned Israel and the Commission deciding to send Mary Robinson but Israel blocked it. Does the Commission have enough staff, resources, whatever it is, to send missions to any country that it chooses to have a look, for instance, at torture in Saudi Arabia or Israeli action in the Occupied Territories? Does it have the resources to do this or was this just a one-off, Israel and the Occupied Territories?

(Mr Hancock) The nature of that particular mission, if you like, was a one-off. More usually we are talking about visits by what they call the special mechanisms which are either working groups of the Commission, which is a party of experts, or individual experts who are called special rapporteurs. You need to have the co-operation of the country you intend to visit.

Do other countries try if not to block completely then obstruct this?

(Mr Hancock) Yes, lots do. What we have been trying to do in recent years as Amnesty International, and I believe Human Rights Watch have been joining in this as well, is to push governments to give open standing invitations to all of these special mechanisms. I think at the last Commission there were about 38 that have done so, including the UK.

Do you think one could say if a government refuses or obstructs something like that, firstly it should not be allowed itself to be a member of the Commission and, secondly, maybe there should be some sanctions, being reported to the General Assembly or mentioned in UNHCR's Annual Report or something like that? You were looking for a basic hurdle that would not be too difficult to clear, might this be one, that you have to have co-operated with the Commission's investigation on human rights in your own country?

(Mr Crawshaw) It is the kind of thing which we are merely exploring at the moment. That is exactly the kind of thing which has been discussed. As you say, it is something basic but it would be extraordinary not to sign up for it.

Is this a battle worth fighting? Is trying to revitalise the UN Commission a productive way forward for governments like ours to try to press to make this more useful, more active? You think it is, it is not a lost cause?

(Mr Crawshaw) Absolutely. At the moment we seem to be in a situation of rather weary shoulder shrugging, "Oh dear, isn't it awful", and I think one needs to break out of that and to look very hard at ways that one can move forward and get out of the hole that we are in at the moment.

Chairman: I hope you will understand that when outside organisations send us memoranda at least as a matter of courtesy we should acknowledge them by raising questions. There is one on Gambia which I would like Mr Chidgey to ask and I will ask briefly on two other matters in response to memoranda from outside organisations.

Mr Chidgey: We have received two memoranda on Uganda regarding the human rights situation there. Both criticise the President for seeking to increase military expenditure at a time when most would argue he should be focusing on the drive against poverty and human rights abuses. President Mosweri has applied to aid donors principally in the United Kingdom to allow an increase in spending ---

Chairman: Museveni, Son of the Seventh.

Mr Chidgey

How fascinating. Perhaps the Clerks could check the spelling on the brief because there are two different spellings in three lines, but I will take your word for it, Chairman. The President has applied to the United Kingdom to increase his arms' expenditure whilst he continues to fight a rebellion in the north of the country. It appears that human rights abuses have been committed and presumably may well still be being committed on both sides of the conflict. Amnesty International themselves very kindly presented us with press reports on a further example of human rights abuse which would appear to be the introduction of draconian press laws resulting in the closure of The Monitor, the main opposition newspaper, and the arrest of its editor on charges of treason. Against that background - issues of press freedom, increases in military expenditure, atrocities committed by both sides in the war - do you share the concerns that are being raised with us in this Committee? There is a second question.

(Mr Hancock) Yes, of course we share those concerns. I do not think military expenditure in itself is an absolute limit that if you go past that then you are automatically a bad country. Obviously different countries have different security concerns and we are aware of that. As far as we are concerned, what is crucial is that you are not encouraging a government to arm for human rights abuse, so when you start seeing restrictions on press freedom, the continued reports of violations by state security and police forces, you do have to start worrying about the direction the country is going in.

(Mr Crawshaw) Moving beyond Uganda's borders, in the Congo -

I am coming to that. We are very concerned about the continued presence of Ugandan troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The question is is Uganda still playing a destabilising role in the political situation of its neighbour? This was flagged up in the human rights report earlier; is that still the case?

(Mr Crawshaw) We are certainly very worried both about the role of Ugandan forces and also Ruandan backed forces, the RCD for example. Both of those in the Democratic Republic of Congo have played what seems to us an extremely destabilising role and sometimes worse. That is true even since the peace deal there that there is continuing violence and we are not happy about the role that they are playing. We have done some recent work which again if you are interested we would be happy to give you some quite detailed work on this.

Chairman

There were two other memoranda, one from the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child concerned about the one-child policy in China and alleging that the work of the UN Population Fund in some regions has given the policy a legitimacy. Do you share those concerns about the one-child policy in China as enunciated by SPUC?

(Mr Hancock) Can we get back to you on that one please. It is not something that is we are familiar with.

Okay. The final one, again in obeisance to an outside organisation, this the Jubilee Campaign and is in respect of Burma. What they say effectively is that the British Government in co-operation with our EU partners is looking at what is happening in Rangoon or the capital and that the plight of the tribes at the border, particularly the Karen, Karenni and the Shan, who have been subject to the most intense movements, pushing them over the border in Thailand, village relocation and so on, has not been a serious concern for these tribes, and the world, perhaps even including your organisations, seems unwilling to look seriously at what is happening to those tribal areas within Burma. How do you respond to that?

(Mr Hancock) We take it seriously. We are concerned about what is happening in those areas.

What have you done in respect of pressure on governments in the EU?

(Mr Hancock) I would have to get back to you in terms of the actions we have taken.

Basically it has not been a cook's tour, it has been a very helpful way around. Since this Committee first recommended that the Government should produce a Human Rights Report that report has changed substantially over the years in its publication and obviously with your own perspective you see deficiencies. As a summing up can you give a school report of how you see both the Human Rights Report and the British Government's record generally? It is, after all, our job in this Committee to monitor the Government's performance. From Amnesty's perspective, I will not ask you to give a mark out of ten but just some appraisal.

(Ms Allen) In general terms I think the report is a very good one and, as you say, it is developing. The Government and government ministers should not pretend that it is what it is not, talking about it in terms of different countries and the coverage, I think they need to take more care about that. In terms of the commitment to human rights overall, I think there are a couple of things that I would say. One, the role of the British Government over the International Criminal Court and the American onslaught upon that court has, I think, more than any other single issue this year caused us serious concern about the commitment to that institution and to human rights and the idea of this as a magnificent institution to bring to account those that abuse human rights the most. I think that we have had some concerns about criteria around arms sales, the components which were transferred to the US for F-16s that then moved on to Israel. I think that was a change in policy which happened without parliamentary scrutiny and was not just a ----

These are important details but the overall picture?

(Ms Allen) The overall picture is that the report shows that there are some very good and some real advances that are taking place but I do think that some of those issues which are details, but are very important ones, do lead us to have one or two concerns that human rights might not be as fully embedded as we would all perhaps like to think.

That is very helpful. Mr Crawshaw, the overall picture?

(Mr Crawshaw) I would echo Kate Allen's words. It is important that it exists above all, and my congratulations to the Committee in that sense, it is an important benchmark that is there. I think it is important also that there is enormous substance within the committee. This can be, and I believe is, more than just window dressing. I think it is extremely important in that context that this should not be seen, indeed, as the be-all and end-all, one has to compare this against reality on a whole number of occasions. So, on the one hand, to compare against reality what governments are doing and the second one is where one sees omissions, if you like, the encouraging thing is that those omissions are all the more glaring precisely because a lot of the report is good in its substance.

Chairman: Many thanks, Ms Allen, Mr Hancock and Mr Crawshaw. You have provided us with a very useful platform for our meeting with the Minister, thank you very much.