14 Nov 2023 | News, Northern Ireland, Scotland, United Kingdom, Wales
Over seven years after he left office, former UK Prime Minister David Cameron, now Lord Cameron, has returned to frontline British politics after being appointed Foreign Secretary by current Prime Minster Rishi Sunak. As prime minister, Cameron often overlooked human rights issues. He hosted Egyptian President General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi less than two years after Sisi’s forces, as defence minister, killed 800 unarmed protesters at Rabaa al-Adawiya square in Cairo. He was also accused of secret vote-trading deals with Saudi Arabia so both states would be elected to the UN Human Rights Council. At home, Cameron angered civil rights groups by vowing to scrap the Human Rights Act. And he rolled out the red carpet when Chinese leader Xi Jinping came to the UK, even enjoying a pint and fish and chips with Xi. That was in 2015, just days after Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong bookseller, disappeared in Thailand only to later appear in a Chinese prison.
But let’s not look back. Let’s look forward. Below are some of the key areas, from a free speech perspective, that Index hope Cameron will urgently address:
Call China out on all violations
From a self-described “golden era” of ties with China during his premiership to accepting a role as vice-president of a £1 billion China-UK investment fund after his resignation, Cameron’s relationship with the country has long been close. As recently as September, Cameron spoke at two glitzy events in support of Colombo Port City, a Chinese-funded, multibillion-dollar project to build a metropolis in the Indo-Pacific which critics fear could become a Chinese military outpost. With these links in mind, questions may be raised about Cameron’s suitability in dealing with the Chinese government as Britain’s top diplomat – all of which is very worrying as China’s human rights record goes from bad to worse. Within the country, millions of Uyghurs have disappeared into a network of prisons and camps. Scores of feminist activists, journalists and human rights defenders also reside in jail. Then there is Hong Kong, where the erosion of human rights has been staggering in scope and pace. And as illustrated by our Banned by Beijing reports, China’s long arm is reaching into Europe and the UK where a number of Hong Kong, pro-democracy activists reside. These activists currently have arrest warrants issued against them by the Hong Kong Police Force which have been described as a “Chinese Fatwa”.
A cross-party group of MPs urged the government to block a planned visit to the UK by a senior Chinese official accused of overseeing the violations in Xinjiang in February and we think Cameron should push further by directly pressuring the Chinese authorities. Let’s not trade in human rights for, well, trade.
Specifically mention Jimmy Lai
Jimmy Lai is a Chinese-born, pro-democracy newspaper publisher and activist who is also a British citizen. Currently imprisoned in Hong Kong and in solitary confinement, Lai was charged with violating Hong Kong’s National Security Law for colluding with foreign forces. He was also charged with fraud, sedition and organising and participating in an unlawful assembly and is still awaiting trial for serious national security charges. His case exemplary of the crackdown on free speech and assembly in Hong Kong and his imprisonment has been condemned by human rights group around the world. This summer James Cleverly, the former Foreign Secretary, had brought up Lai’s case when he met with China’s Vice President. We urge Cameron to continue pushing for Lai’s release.
Also mention Alaa Abdel Fattah
Another activist who is currently imprisoned abroad, like Lai Egyptian Alaa Abdel Fattah is a British citizen. Abdel Fattah went on hunger strike in prison in Egypt in 2022 in protest at the conditions he is being held in. A blogger and pro-democracy activist, he is one of the best known of Egypt’s 60,000 political prisoners and is currently serving a five-year-prison sentence for allegedly “spreading false news”, a charge which human rights groups worldwide have condemned as false. The Egyptian authorities continually refuse to recognise Abdel Fattah’s British citizenship and allow embassy officials to see him, something which Index believes Cameron should raise immediately.
No more camping trips with Saudi Arabia
As recently as 2018, just months after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul by Saudi-sanctioned assassins, Cameron was pictured with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on a camping trip in the Saudi Arabian desert. With Saudi Arabia’s Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) handing extremely harsh prison and death sentences to human rights defenders, and indigenous tribes being displaced from their settlements, imprisoned and even killed, Cameron needs to put aside this personal relationship to challenge Saudi Arabia on its human rights record and treatment of human rights defenders.
Like China, Saudi Arabia has also been accused of transnational repression on UK soil. Take Ghanem al Masarir as an example. A prominent satirist and regime critic, al Masarir is suing Saudi Arabia in the UK. At the centre of his case are allegations that he was physically assaulted by agents of the kingdom in London in 2018 and that Saudi Arabia ordered the hacking of his phone. The outcome of the case will have profound implications for individuals targeted by spyware in the UK and likely the UK’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Press for press freedom in Israel-Hamas conflict
With the devastating conflict between Israel-Hamas still relatively new, Cameron will understandably have a lot to deal with. Index urges him to keep a close eye on the free speech situation there, such as the potential closure of the local bureau of Al Jazeera in Israel, which the country has indicated it will hold off from, and the broader media freedom landscape in both Israel and Gaza. We’ve outlined other free speech challenges here and again we hope Cameron doesn’t shy away from those that fall within his remit.
Avoid Trump cards
Assuming Cameron remains in place for more than a year, which is a big assumption given the current turnover within the Conservative Party (not to mention a potential UK general election), he’ll be in place for the next US election. The battle is already heating up and former US President Donald Trump is doing what he does best – firing verbal missiles at his opposition and critics. On Saturday at a rally in New Hampshire, Trump said he’d “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” once again repeating his false claim of election fraud depriving him of a win in 2020. It’s hard to forget that incredibly awkward handshake between Trump and the late Queen Elizabeth II and the Trump era certainly tested the UK and USA’s “special relationship”. So what will our special relationship look like if Trump is voted back in?
3 Nov 2023 | Israel, News, Opinion, Palestine, Ruth's blog, United States
It seems every week there is a news story of another academic, a group of students or a vice chancellor detailing threats to academic freedom. Heartbreakingly this has become an even more common occurrence since the Hamas pogrom in Israel on 7 October and the subsequent war in Gaza.
Only this week the UKRI, a UK government body which distributes research funding, has suspended its diversity advisory panel, after a leading member of the British Government publicly criticised members of the panel for their social media comments regarding Hamas and Israel. This led to the resignation of several academics from posts at the UKRI.
And at Cornell University in the US, a student is currently facing charges for threatening to kill Jewish students via a range of graphic social media posts, resulting in his persecution and enhanced security measures now in place for Jewish staff and members on campus.
These are two of the more extreme examples of the impact of the current crisis on academic institutions.
And as angry as they make me, as heartbroken as I am about current events, I have to consider them through the prism of my job – defending freedom of expression.
Freedom of expression is a very broad concept and there are as many definitions as there are forms of expression. But taking the two examples above at hand, academic freedom and freedom of speech are different things. What people debate and discuss in the lecture hall, in a seminar room or on the pages of an academic tome must always be protected. But academics are not afforded special protections outside of the confines of their intellectual endeavours. That’s not a matter of academic freedom, it’s one of freedom of expression and should be considered separately.
At the same time, the events in Cornell equate to hate speech and are not and should not be protected. Hate speech and incitement are against the law and should be dealt with accordingly. And every community, every student should have the right to feel safe on campus – not in fear of their lives. No one should be scared of walking onto their university campus whatever is happening in a war thousands of miles away.
This is all at a time when university campuses are increasingly considered to be the frontline in the ongoing battle to protect free speech.
Earlier this year, the UK saw the passage of The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act.
In the current context, this seems to have muddied the waters between academic freedom and freedom of speech on campus. The new law places an onus on universities, colleges and Students’ Unions to not only protect free speech but to actively promote it. But what does this mean when applied to the views of students and academics who are promoting views outside of their academic specialisms?
The very name of the Act it suggests that those on campus have complete freedom of speech without limitation. They do not; no one does. But as academics they must have complete freedom to teach and challenge without fear or favour (within the confines of the law).
Universities are meant to be seats of academic exploration, cathedrals of learning. They provide a forum for discussion and debate in which new ideas and minority opinions can be considered. The purpose is to expose students to the breadth of views and ideas that exist in their particular discipline and ideally challenge their worldview – allowing them to argue back. On campus, in the classroom – not on a social media platform.
It is always difficult to know what impact these debates and issues are having on campus. How safe academics feel to push the boundaries of their areas of specialism and how secure students feel to question and debate on campus – to ask the unpalatable question, to challenge the status quo. But in the midst of the current gloom and misery I am choosing to take a little bit of hope from a recently published survey.
The National Student Survey from the Office of Students would suggest that this endemic attack on free speech is not as pervasive as we sometimes believe it to be. They asked students from colleges and universities in England how free they felt to express their “ideas, opinions, and beliefs” and 86% said that they felt “free” or “very free”. Only 3% of the 300,000 respondents said that they felt they were ‘not free at all.”
On the face of it, this is good news. We should welcome the fact that an overwhelming number of students feel free to speak their mind and share their opinions. Self censorship is a real problem but not one, it seems, that plagues the majority of today’s students.
But we must ask the 3% why they don’t feel free at all to express themselves on campus. is it threats from external forces like the Chinese Communist Party, is it because of their identity or faith, or is it because they themselves hold minority opinions and are fearful of being challenged. Whatever the reason, 9,000 students who participated in this survey feel silenced. We need to know why and we need to find a way to support them.
In the interim I’m going to focus on the positive and celebrate the fact that we start from a position of academic freedom and that the overwhelming majority of students know that they can express themselves on campus without fear or favour.
29 Oct 2023 | Israel, Middle East and North Africa, News, Palestine
Peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict may seem like a distant dream, but even now there are those on the ground working to build understanding between the two peoples. The Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) is an umbrella organisation which helps bring together more than 170 groups across the region seeking dialogue and mutual understanding. ALLMEP this week helped organise a seminar, The Gaza War in Israel to amplify these voices. One of the largest grassroots Israeli-Palestinian groups is Standing Together which, according to its mission statement, mobilises Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace, equality and social and climate justice. Two of the speakers at the seminar, Sally Abed and Uri Weltmann, represented the organisation, whose members have been arrested in Jerusalem for putting up posters with the message: “Jews and Arabs, we will get through this together.” Weltmann warned of an increasingly authoritarian atmosphere in Israel following the 7 October atrocities. He pointed to comments by Israel’s police commissioner, Kobi Shabtai. who said: “Anyone who wants to sympathize with Gaza is welcome to get on a bus and go there.”
Index attended the seminar and has been given permission to print edited versions of one-minute monologues given by some of the expert panel members.
Sally Abed is a Palestinian leader of Standing Together (Omdim be’Yachad/ Naqef Ma’an), the largest Jewish-Arab grassroots movement in Israel. She is running for city council in Haifa as head of a Jewish-Arab list. She was recently profiled in a New York Times article about Israel’s peace movement in the shadow of war.
The first thing I want to say is to hold the people of Gaza in your prayers. It’s just heart-wrenching to see [what is happening] and to feel so hopeless and so helpless, and to not be able do something about it. Especially here from Israel as a Palestinian. I do want to say that I think a message for me as a Palestinian that is very important for me to portray to everyone in the world [is] there are Palestinians in Israel who are going through the experience and the humanitarian loss and the catastrophe that the Israeli public has gone through.
Our cause for Palestinian liberation is a very just cause. However, we cannot justify the extreme measures that Hamas has took to advance this cause and I think one of the most important things that we need to hold [onto] right now as a Palestinian liberation movement, and as Palestinians, is our rights, all of us as civilians, for life – to live securely. I really want to hold that very, very tight.
Listen to us, listen to the people on the ground here in Israel. We are often overlooked. We are seeing amazing cases of radical empathy of victims, Israeli victims who have lost dear ones, and who have people in captivity right now and who are still calling for a ceasefire, who are still calling for ending the occupation, who are still calling for peace. We need to join these people and we need to really hold our humanity together as people and isolate our leaderships at the moment.
Uri Weltmann is the national field organiser for Standing Together (Omdim be’Yachad/ Naqef Ma’an), and a member of its national leadership. He lives in Tel Aviv-Yafo.
Since 2005 there have been 16 major military operations carried out by the Israeli government against the population of the Gaza Strip. None of these military actions brought safety and security to Israelis. All of these military actions only wreaked havoc on the civic population in Gaza, causing many innocent lives [to be lost] including children, and each one of them merely planted the seed for the next major military operation. I fear we are going in the same direction. I fear our government is pushing us into yet another round of violent bloodletting, yet another round of taking a terrible toll of human life of Palestinians in Gaza, and yet another round of undermining the safety and security of us, the people who live in Israel. We need to go about it in an entirely different direction. We need to go for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on UN resolutions. We need to go in the direction of ending the siege and ending the occupation, and securing the independence, freedom and justice of both peoples. This is what Standing Together is doing, and we are doing this not on the West Coast or the East Coast [of the USA], or Europe. We are doing this inside Israeli society, organising Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, which we think is the only way for us as an Israeli peace movement to go about it.
2 Oct 2023 | Afghanistan, Chile, China, India, Israel, Kuwait, Magazine Contents, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States, Volume 52.03 Autumn 2023, Yemen
Contents
