Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by Index on Censorship

  Index on Censorship has recorded and reported on threats to freedom of expression worldwide since 1972. Though it has an international brief, it is published by a British educational charity charged with furthering an understanding of the basic human right to expression and the obligations of individuals and states to guarantee that basic right.

  This has led us at times to criticise British government policy in a number of areas of domestic policy. We have criticised, for instance, the unnecessary dilution of Labour party commitments to a freedom of information act, as well as changes in legislation that have threatened basic rights in Britain since the attacks on the US in September 2001.

  One of our arguments is that these strategies send a contradictory message—"do as we say, not as we do"—to nations upon which the British government itself urges change. These criticisms are addressed to those responsible for the government's positions at home. We would like to thank the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for defining the government's position internationally, for making its own positions clear, in the pages of its Human Rights annual report.

  We welcome the report and its clear statements by the FCO on human rights issues at global, regional and national level and, more importantly, on specific, individual cases, documented in its pages in painstaking detail.

  The report is a welcome commitment to establishing standards for the provision of human rights on the part of the FCO. Government policies may change now and in the future, but the stance of the FCO in 2002-03 is permanently recorded by the report, for the benefit of its allies and critics alike.

  This may not be welcomed by those in government who advocate a more pragmatic approach to foreign relations and human rights abuses. However, we believe most human rights organisations, and Index on Censorship, as a magazine of free expression, in particular, will welcome the report for its transparency and its contribution to an informed and balanced debate.

  (This said, it should be noted that the report is diplomatically measured on certain issues. For example, an otherwise detailed comment on the situation of human rights situation in Uzbekistan in the report does not refer to the dispute between the US and UK ambassadors to Tashkent over the latter's critical view of human rights abuses there and the former's apparent desire to placate Uzbekistan, an ally in the US-led conflict war in Afghanistan. However the report does reprint, later, separately and without comment, the brave groundbreaking speech by UK ambassador Craig Murray that triggered the dispute in the first place.)

  In summary though, the Human Rights report is an excellent reference and an essential declaration of principle on the part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We happily commend it to our readers and supporters.

  With regard to our opinion of the FCO's wider human rights strategy, we recognise the imaginative and forward thinking attitudes of the department as seen in both private and public explorations of government human rights policy. We commend the Human Rights Policy Department (HRPD) for its willingness to consult and listen to human rights NGOs and advocacy groups, and its willingness to pass those views on to other government departments, with or without its endorsement.

  Special credit is also due to the administrators of the HRPD's Human Rights Programmes Fund. They have demonstrated a flexibility in the face of rapidly changing situations and a willingness to consider alternative proposals that simply cannot be matched by any institutional donor anywhere in Britain or worldwide.

  Index on Censorship's innovative programmes of monitoring, analysis, training and publication in Iraq would not be possible without this kind of open-mindedness and adaptability.

  It is a severe loss to the human rights and free expression community in Britain and in many other countries that this fund's responsibilities are to be absorbed this year into a less focused programme dedicated to the much more amorphous area of global opportunities.

Ursula Owen OBE

Editor-in-Chief

Index on Censorship

 





 
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