If you want to understand how deep the UK Royal Family’s mania for secrecy runs, just try the following exercise. Go to the website of the National Archives (anyone with a computer and an internet connection can do this) and search the catalogue with the term “Royal Family”. It is then possible to filter the search to see which files are “closed” or “retained”. Nearly 500 files are categorised in this way, some going back well into the last century, beyond the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth Il’s father, George VI.
Perhaps not surprisingly, hundreds of these files refer to the short reign of her uncle, Edwiard VIII, who abdicated in 1936 after less than a year on the throne. Take a closer look and many of these files have absolutely nothing to do with national security, diplomacy or privacy – the usual reasons for withholding government files. In fact, many of them refer to royal memorabilia for Edward’s abandoned coronation, which had been due to take place in May 1937. Embarrassing, perhaps, and the Duke of Windsor, as Edward became, remains a controversial figure. But is it really necessary to keep these files sealed for 100 years?
At a stretch, it is possible to imagine the sensitivity of a file about the “Royal Crown and Cypher on pocket watches from Germany”, given who was in power in that country at the time, but it’s hard to see why files on similar souvenir items manufactured in Britain such as pens, picture frames, neon signs and wine labels should remain secret 86 years later, let alone closed until 2037.
Other entries are just plain bizarre. A file from 1990-91 is marked closed until 2034. Its title is intriguing: “Petition to the Queen on behalf of Ago Piero Ajano aka HRH Don Juan Alexander Fernando Alphonso of Spain concerning his alleged plight of poverty and ill-treatment in the UK.”
It seems Mr Ajano claimed to be the illegitimate son of the Duke of Windsor, and had fallen on hard times. The story is either entirely spurious or utterly sensational: either way, there can be no possible justification for keeping the file secret.
Black spider memos
Since 2010, there has been a blanket exemption to the Freedom of Information Act for all official correspondence relating to the monarch, the heir to the throne and the second-in-line to the throne. This was introduced during the decade-long battle by Guardian journalist Rob Evans to gain access to the so-called “black spider memos” from Prince Charles to certain government departments. Evans argued this correspondence constituted lobbying and should be released in the public interest.
“With the black spider memos, Charles was lobbying and trying to influence public policy,” Evans told Index. “We ought to know about this just as we would if it was a pharmaceutical company.”
Evans believes his experience with the memos revealed a wider issue with transparency: “The reality is that the government wraps the royal family in secrecy in order to protect it from criticism. Whatever you think about the royal family, democracy is degraded because we can’t debate this fully if we don’t have all the information.”
After the death of Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022, two contradictory narratives about her historical legacy came to dominate the instant analysis of her 70-year reign. The first was that she assiduously took a back seat in matters of state and adopted a largely passive constitutional role. The second was that she was instrumental in guiding the country in the post-war period from Empire to Commonwealth. Neither can be entirely true.
Professor Rory Cormac, of the University of Nottingham and co-author of The Secret Royals, says the narrative of non-interference worked powerfully alongside the pageantry associated with the Queen to produce a benign public image of the monarch. But this is a long way from reality.
“She was a political actor and there are consequences. The idea that all she did was cut a ribbon from time to time is a grotesque misrepresentation. They have managed their past incredibly effectively.”
What the Queen knew
Cormac points to three specific areas where more openness would contribute to a greater understanding of the history of the latter half of the 20th century. The first is the Suez Crisis of 1956, just four years into the Queen’s reign, when Britain was forced into a humiliating retreat by the USA after initially backing the invasion of Egypt to seize back control of the Suez Canal.
“There is a whole cottage industry on what the Queen knew, and when,” said Cormac. “It is a very important case, but historians are just scratching the surface. It’s mainly speculation.”
The second area is the role played by the monarchy in the end of the empire. Many files in the National Archives referring to royal visits to the former colonies during this period are still closed.
The third, crucially important, subject is Northern Ireland, where the Queen’s political role has been largely unexplored by historians. Cormac highlights the example of the royal visit to the province in 1977 – until that point the largest security operation in British history. Files from the government exist, but nothing from the royal side, leaving historians only to speculate.
Cormac and his co-author, Professor Richard Aldrich of Warwick University, are both specialists in the history of intelligence, and the comparison between the royal world and the world of espionage does not go unnoticed in their book:
“Both control and curate their own histories carefully; both are exempt from freedom of information requests. Historians have to wait a long time for intelligence files to make their way to the National Archives – but at least some do eventually arrive. The Royal Family, by contrast, are the real enemies of history. There is no area where restrictions and redactions are so severe.”
Historical vandalism
Cormac is part of a group of historians who believe there needs to be a new approach to royal secrecy. “The argument is that it is a slippery slope,” he said. “There is a blanket ban because, they say, where do you draw the line? But this general exemption needs to be challenged.”
He and Aldrich have identified a process of historical vandalism carried out by loyal royal flunkeys. Lord Louis Mountbatten and art historian and spy Anthony Blunt went on “raiding parties” across Europe in the post-war period searching for documents on the Windsors. Princess Margaret was notorious for the bonfires she made of her mother’s papers. Much else was lost, destroyed or locked away in Windsor Castle.
There is even a file from 1979-80 in the National Archives marked “Royal Family. Duke of Windsor’s Papers: allegations by Duc de Grantmesnil that they were stolen by secret agents”. It is closed.
In a recent essay entitled Queen Elizabeth and the Commonwealth: Time to Open the Archives, Philip Murphy, director of history and policy at the Institute of Historical Research, said: “Its obsessive secrecy combined with the length of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II means we probably have no more accurate a sense of how the monarchy has operated in our lifetimes than our grandparents and great-grandparents did in theirs.”
As Murphy and others point out, the reach of vetting teams from the Cabinet Office who have charge of what should and shouldn’t be published spreads way beyond the National Archives themselves. The personal archives of past prime ministers (Anthony Eden at the University of Birmingham and Harold Macmillan in Oxford) are subject to restrictions on royal material.
Meanwhile, the royal archives at Windsor give no access whatsoever to files on the reign of Elizabeth II, which include correspondence not just with prime ministers of the UK but premiers and governors-general of the Commonwealth realms. Even historians wishing to gain access to files from previous reigns are obliged to sign a form to say they will inform Buckingham Palace how any material will be used. Cameras are forbidden.
There are also files which have been reclassified after historians found information that proved uncomfortable to the Royal Family. A Metropolitan Police file (MEPO 10/35) on the protection arrangements for the Prince of Wales from 1935 showed that his security detail was spying on the future king and his lover Wallis Simpson. Details of Simpson’s affair with a married man, Guy Trundle, are laid out in salacious detail. A note on the affair to the Metropolitan Police commissioner marked “secret” was first released in 2003 and details of the file’s contents featured in Portillo’s State Secrets, a BBC series on the National Archives fronted by the former politician Michael Portillo. Yet any historian attempting to access MEPO 10/35 today will find it is “closed whilst access is under review”. No further explanation is given.
Murphy told Index: “The Palace has an instinct to micromanage and use deference.” In this case, this instinct seems particularly petty-minded as the information is already in the public domain. Most historians interested in the period will already have electronic versions of the file. The note on Simpson’s affair with Trundle is published in all its juicy detail on the website of the National Archives. Portillo’s programme is available to anyone with access to YouTube.
Affairs with film stars
In some cases, the royal fetish for secrecy has left serious gaps in the historical record. For instance, why is so little of detail known about Prince George, Duke of Kent, the youngest brother of Edward VIII and George VI? He was a fascinating and controversial figure – a bisexual playboy who is alleged to have had affairs with film stars and celebrities from the jazz age including Noel Coward. In 1942, George died in an air crash in Scotland while serving in the RAF. He was the only member of the Royal Family for many centuries to have died on active duty. The notes from the Court of Inquiry into the incident were immediately lost and the circumstances of the crash remain shrouded in mystery. The incident is significant because there have been suggestions that the prince flouted wartime regulations to carry out the mission.
In the early 2000s, a veteran royal writer began a project to write George’s biography, but his mission was immediately hampered by the lack of information in the official record. He told Index: “I first visited the National Archives at Kew but Kent’s file, when I ordered it up, had quite obviously been weeded.” The author wrote to the Royal Archives in Windsor only to be informed that there were many calls on the time of the keepers of the records and that on this occasion they would be unable to oblige. He has since given up on the idea of writing the biography and the full life story of Prince George remains untold.
“A family which relies on public support to retain its primacy in British social life has, I believe, a duty to act responsibly when it comes to breaking the law, especially during wartime,” he said. “The actions of the Royal Archives in disallowing me access to Kent’s files (which in any case, it’s my certain belief, would have been severely edited) amounts to censorship, nothing more or less.”
In order to maintain good relations with Buckingham Palace, the author does not wish to be named here, but he remains furious at the lack of openness: “My belief is that everyone is entitled to a certain measure of privacy, but there can be no question that the Royal Family, and those who surround them, ruthlessly seek to rewrite history to their own advantage.”
The writer cites an extraordinary example from the time of the abdication crisis. In government papers from the time, he discovered considerable concern that “Bertie” (the future George VI) was not up to the job of taking over from Edward VIII. Instead, the idea was floated that Queen Mary should become Regent while the dust settled, and the crown would then pass to Prince George. Had this happened, the present Duke of Kent would now be King and not Charles III.
“How the Royal Family manages their affairs in such circumstances is of great importance to historians and, it can be argued, to the nation,” the writer added. “But without access to the Palace papers no accurate record of this event has been written and it’s altogether been bypassed by historians.”
Refused access
As part of Index’s investigation into royal secrecy, we sent a survey to two dozen journalists and historians who specialise in the area. Of those who responded, all but one said their research had been affected by the refusal of the archives to grant access to key materials.
A handful of historians have chosen to fight back. Most prominent of these is Andrew Lownie, the biographer of Edward and Mrs Simpson and the Mountbattens (see article on p.57). For four years, at great personal expense, Lownie has been pushing for the release of the diaries and personal correspondence of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the late Prince Philip’s uncle and mentor to the present king. While these were bought by the University of Southampton using £4.5 million of public money, full public access was blocked at every stage – first by the university and then by an exceptional ministerial directive from the Cabinet Office.
Following intervention from the Information Commissioner’s Office, the files were finally released earlier this year, but costs were not awarded to Lownie, who spent more than £300,000 of his own money on the case. It was, in short, only a half victory and a battle that should never have been fought to start with.
In a more clear-cut victory, Professor Jenny Hocking, of Monash University in Melbourne, successfully challenged the National Archives of Australia to release correspondence between the Queen and the Australian Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, from 1975 (see article on p.59). In that year Kerr dismissed the Labor prime minister Gough Whitlam following a constitutional crisis in which the opposition blocked government business by its control of the upper house of parliament, the Senate. The publication of Hocking’s The Palace Letters show the Queen was in regular correspondence with the governor-general about the possibility of Gough’s dismissal for several weeks. They present a picture of political engagement by the monarch which is very different from the approach the Palace prefers to project.
The work of Lownie and Hocking demonstrates that it is possible to push back against the official wall of silence. But it also shows the lengths to which the establishment is prepared to go to maintain royal secrecy. The Australian National Archives spent $1.7 million of public money contesting the release of the “Palace Letters” and it is not known how much the UK government spent fighting the Mountbatten release – but it is likely to be a similar sum.
There is no evidence that King Charles has a more open attitude to royal history than his mother did. Indeed, he has every reason to keep the papers from the Queen’s reign that refer to his own indiscretions securely locked away in Windsor Castle.
However, despite official efforts, the edifice of secrecy is crumbling. As historians of the Commonwealth further investigate the UK’s colonial past, it is unlikely the Palace will be able to maintain its tight control of the historical narrative in the way it has done in the UK itself. As Philip Murphy has written: “This sort of push-back against the Royal Family’s obsession with secrecy is more likely to be effective outside the UK than in Britain itself, where the Palace still exerts considerable influence over a distinctly deferential political class.”
The legacy of imperialism is the Achilles heel of royal secrecy. It will become increasingly difficult for the Palace to maintain the narrative about the role of the Queen in the successful transition from Empire to Commonwealth without allowing access to the documentary evidence to prove it.
Ramita Navai in Iran in 2005, at a time when women journalists were temporarily allowed in to report on football matches
Up to 20,000 people have now been detained as a result of the protests that have wracked Iran in the past three months. Those who have been detained have been subject to physical and psychological torture, rape and been made to make forced confessions. Some, including 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini whose death sparked the current protests, have died in custody.
The British-Iranian investigative journalist and documentary maker Ramita Navai knows only too well what those who have been detained are facing. She has been detained by the Iranian authorities several times over the years.
Her first arrest came just after she had started working as Tehran correspondent for The Times and was covering the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
“I was at a rally with a lot of other journalists and I was interviewing some Iranians. Before I knew it, two undercover intelligence agents had taken me away; none of my colleagues saw me being taken. It was a terrifying experience. They took me to an abandoned warehouse with broken windows and flexes hanging from the ceiling and there was an armed man standing outside the room. They took all my possessions and carried a table and chairs into the room before starting with a good cop/bad cop routine. It was very manipulative psychologically and was designed to break me. They started telling me that I had been asking anti-revolutionary questions and said I had been telling people how to answer. It was all lies but I was utterly unprepared for this.”
Her interrogators asked her whether she had heard of Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian-Iranian photojournalist who had been killed in police custody shortly before Navai had arrived in Iran.
“Every journalist knew what had happened to her and they were hinting that I would suffer the same fate. I was so petrified I started sobbing.”
Navai was one of the lucky ones. A few hours after being taken, one of her journalist colleagues, Jim Muir of the BBC, noticed she was missing and started talking to the Iraniansat the rally. One whispered to him that they had seen her being taken away.
“He phoned up the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance and said we know you have got her, you had better release her otherwise I am going to cause a fuss about this.”
Navai was released shortly afterwards.
Since then Navai has won numerous awards for her documentary work, including an Emmy for her PBS Frontline documentary Syria Undercover in 2012 and a Royal Television Society Journalism Award for her documentary on tracking down refugee kidnap gangs for Channel 4.
But it is Iran, the country of her birth, where her heart lies.
Her 2014 book City of Lies, which won her the Royal Society of Literature’s Jerwood Award for non-fiction, tells the stories of ordinary Iranians forced to live extraordinary lives: the porn star, the ageing socialite, the assassin and enemy of the state who ends up working for the Republic, the dutiful housewife who files for divorce, and the old-time thug running a gambling den.
Tehran, the City of Lies of the title, is described with romantic nostalgia but rails against the hypocrisy of the regime.
Navai feels there is “no turning back” from the current protests.
“This time feels very different. I think the protests are unlike anything we have ever seen. Significantly, they span all social classes, ethnicities and the protests have happened in every one of Iran’s provinces. The protests have been a unifying force, uniting Iranians of all colours against the regime. I don’t think the regime will fall imminently although I do think something has shifted and there is no going back from that. I think a very different future for Iran has now become a reality in a way that it wasn’t a year ago.”
She adds, “The most organised groups seem to be the Iranian feminist and women’s rights networks because they have been used to mobilising for such a long time. They are used to being arrested and imprisoned. They issue secret missives and are coordinating with some of the activists in prison.”
Navai and her mother Laya at a demonstration in London in support of the Iranian protests
Navai believes it is the moment for Iranian women and those of Generation Z in particular.
“The women’s groups were crushed in 2009 – they were a thorn in the side of the regime. What we are seeing now is a strengthening and a rising up,” she says. “In 2009, it was people my age who were and are very fearful of the regime. The younger generation – Generation Z – are absolutely fearless. My generation always felt like they had something to lose. The regime is brilliant at playing this game of giving people just enough freedom to shut them up. This younger generation have grown up in a very different world, a completely connected Iran in which they have been influenced by global popular culture. They know what is out there in the world. They know all the opportunities that should be open and available to them and they are angry and they are fearless.”
She believes a sexual awakening is also happening in Iran.
“We are talking about this being a women-led uprising, partly this is because this sexual awakening has changed the socio-cultural dynamics for Generation Z. In real terms, virginity is not the thing it used to be. So many couples are living together outside marriage that the Supreme Leader’s office issued an edict saying how immoral it is. These are ordinary Iranians, not just the middle and upper class. There has been this massive socio-cultural shift. Generation Z are used to different social norms and strictures and they are not going to be told what to do. They want full autonomy not only over their bodies but over their lives.”
In the intervening years, Iranian people have become even more resourceful than in previous protests.
“This is what 43 years of a repressive and censorious regime have done,” says Navai. “Most Iranians have VPNs [virtual private networks]. There are occasional blackouts – not all VPNs keep working so they have to change them. Iranian exiles are paying for that service, sending login details to Iranians within the country to help them mobilise. They have also been mobilising in quite interesting ways using social media but actually also old-fashioned meet-ups.”
The recent public expressions of protest by leading Iranians, such as the actress Taraneh Alidoosti and a women’s basketball team, are “hugely significant”, she believes.
“They are emboldening the protesters to rise up against the regime,” she says. “I also think these high-profile protests and the world’s media and social media are a really important tool for this uprising. It is the oxygen that is keeping these protests going. Without the world watching I think the regime would be far more brutal. It has already been very brutal. It hasn’t unleashed its might yet and I am scared that it will.”
In many revolutions, it is when the military switches sides, abandoning their loyalty to the leaders under pressure from the people that real change happens. Indeed, some experts have speculated that change will only come to Iran when that happens. However, there are good reasons to think that may not happen.
Iran’s regular armed forces number around 420,000 plus another 300,000 or so who are reservists who can be called up.
What is perhaps stopping them from switching their loyalty is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, set up by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.
“You have 100,000 to 150,000 soldiers who are the Revolutionary Guard,” says Navai. “It was set up to ensure loyalty to the Supreme Leader and the state and act as a counter-balance to monitor the ordinary forces. These Revolutionary Guardsmen are better trained, far better equipped and are far more loyal – they are ideologically motivated and answer directly to the Supreme Leader. It will be a big turning point if the army turns, however I think that could also result in a bloodbath.”
There are also the Iranian regime’s allies beyond the country’s borders – the Shia militia in Iraq and Hezbollah.
What is clear from Navai’s City of Lies is the widespread hypocrisy of the Iranian regime. It tells stories of clerics using prostitutes and the ubiquity of porn.
“This is one of many reasons that Iranians have had enough,” says Navai. “The regime is not only corrupt politically, it is corrupt morally. While the state enforces laws that govern its citizens’ most intimate affairs meanwhile people in power do as they please. You have people in power whose children are partying in Iran and across the world, doing drugs, wearing whatever they want and having normal sexual relations that are not allowed under the regime. It is this hypocrisy that people are finally fed up with.”
]Are the British Royal Family the real enemies of history? Over the decades they have actively suppressed uncomfortable narratives about themselves. Hundreds of files in the national and royal archives remain inaccessible to the general public, files that many would argue are of public interest. The result? Holes in our country’s history.
These are some of the conclusions from the team at the magazine Index on Censorship, who carried out an investigation into royal historical censorship for their Winter issue. As part of the launch of the magazine, a panel of speakers will discuss the findings alongside their experiences of trying to access historical archives. This will be a lively discussion and one with heightened importance following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September and ahead of the coronation of Charles III in the spring.
“Are you proud of being Foreign Secretary of a country that trades with a country that actually crucifies people in public?”
Interviewer Jayne Secker had a point when she asked James Cleverly this on a Sky TV show last weekend.
The Foreign Secretary was quick to respond to the allegation.
“I have spoken with the Saudis about our long-standing principled position on the death penalty as I do with pretty much all countries around the world that maintain the death penalty. Saudi is…an important, influential country in the Middle East and it’s incredibly important that we maintain an ongoing bilateral relationship with Saudi. Some of that includes trade but also in terms of security counter-terrorism work…We have seen real changes over the last decade [but] I want to see those changes go further and faster.”
In its recently released2021 Report, the FCDO points to progress in the country’s application of the death penalty – “only” 65 individuals were executed in 2021 and the FCDO reports this is a decrease from 184 executions in 2019. The FCDO suggested this may be related to death penalty reforms announced in 2020, including a moratorium on the death penalty for drug-related offences and ‘discretionary’ crimes committed by juveniles.
This ‘leniency’ has not lasted. In the year to the end of November 2022, 144 people had been executed including 81 on a single day in March.
Many argue that Saudi’s growing importance to the UK, particularly during the war in Ukraine is blinding the UK government to human rights abuses in the country – or at least giving them cover for their current level of inaction. Saudi Arabia is the UK’s 25th largest trading partner, accounting for £13.7 billion of imports and exports of goods and services. The figure is up 25.9% year on year, meaning that there will be pressure from the Treasury and the Prime Minister to keep relations cordial.
The FCDO clearly has concerns about Saudi. In the report, it says of the country that “political space and freedom of expression remained severely restricted, and there remained a culture of self-censorship and fear”.
However, it recognised progress on women’s rights, citing the lifting of restrictions on female employment, the reform of guardianship laws and the release of prominent women’s rights defenders, including Loujain al-Hathloul.
One woman who has not been released isUniversity of Leeds student Salma al-Shehab. It is now 23 months to the day since Salma was arrested when she returned from the UK, where she was studying for a PhD in dental hygiene, to Saudi to visit her family.
Salma had infuriated the Saudi regime solely for tweeting her support for Saudi women’s rights defenders like Loujain al-Hathloul. So while the release of Loujain al-Hathloul gave the Saudi regime a few positive lines in the FCDO report, other people, like Salma, remain in prison.
Salma was later sentenced by Saudi’s notorious Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) under various parts of the country’s Counter-Terrorism Law and the Anti-Cybercrime Law for “supporting those seeking to disrupt public order, undermining the safety of the general public and stability of the state, and publishing false and tendentious rumours on Twitter.
Her sentence is 34 years in prison, longer than the sentence that would be applied to a terrorist bomber or hijacker. Like other Saudi women who fall foul of the regime, Salma has also been slapped with a travel ban for a further 34 years following her sentence.
The FCDO promises it will do more.
In the report, it says: “The UK will continue to engage closely with the Saudi authorities, particularly in areas where there is real Saudi appetite for change such as judicial reforms, women’s rights and the death penalty. The UK will continue to raise individual cases of human rights concerns with Saudi counterparts at ministerial and official level and attempt to attend these trials.” Confirming that UK engagement will be potentially guided by “areas where there is real Saudi appetite for change” enables the regime to dictate terms and raises the obvious question – what will the UK do to increase that appetite to other areas of importance, such as reform of the SCC and ending the criminalisation of online free expression?
The signs are not great.A letter we sent to James Cleverly in October along with 13 other human rights organisations elicited a weak response from the Foreign Secretary’s office. Others are also not convinced by the FCDO’s promises to press the Saudis further. The London-based NGO ALQST, established in 2014 by Saudi Arabian human rights defender Yahya Assiri, has issued its own report,Human Rights and the UK-Saudi Relationship, in the past week.
In it, ALQST says the FCDO’s report gives “an unduly generous account of the Saudi leadership’s reform programme, and accepted several claims by the authorities that observers on the ground have strongly challenged”.
It goes on to make 17 recommendations to the UK government, including exerting public and private pressure on the Saudi Arabian authorities to improve their human rights record, including on thematic issues and, crucially, individual cases of concern.
It also calls for consular and embassy officials to continue to request access to relevant trial hearings such as those involving prisoners of conscience, and the UK government should press the Saudi authorities on the issue of court access in support of the right to a fair and open trial. The likelihood of this happening is remote. In a response to a written question tabled by Conservative MP Crispin Blunt on 19 March 2020, relating to the trial of Saudi women’s rights activists in particular, the Government said “The UK attends trials of international importance in all countries where permitted. The UK, along with other embassies in Saudi Arabia, has requested and been denied access to each and every trial we have been aware of since October 2018, with the exception of the trials for those involved in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi.”
It has also called for the UK government to designate Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is on the shortlist for Index’s Tyrant of the Year poll, as an individual target for financial sanctions under the UK Global Human Rights regime.
However, the US Government’s decision to grant the prince sovereign immunity in the civil case over the murder of Khashoggi makes this recommendation seem like an exercise in wishful thinking as opposed to something with a genuine chance of success.
According to Cleverly, the UK government will not comment on incidents, instead prioritising actions. In his words “Britain has agency and leverage and we are using it to shape the course of events.” He is saying this at a time where a significant number of British citizens, or those connected to the UK, have been persecuted and detained by authoritarian states. This includes Alaa abd el-Fattah, imprisoned in Egypt, Jimmy Lai who is charged under Hong Kong’s National Security Law, as well as Index award-winner, Sophia Huang Xueqin, who, while not a British citizen, was selected for a Chevening Scholarship prior to her arrest and disappearance in China. While it was hoped that the UK government had learnt lessons from what happened to Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, whose detention in Iran was arguably prolonged by UK government actions, this frailty at the heart of the UK’s foreign policy sends a powerful signal to those seeking to silence British citizens – you can do so with very little resistance from the UK government. It also tells British journalists, researchers, academics or anyone who expresses themselves online, please do not depend on us.
If there is a single case where the UK government could really prove its intention to hold Saudi Arabia and others to account when it comes to human rights, it is that of Salma al-Shehab. It is a case where the alleged crime took place in the UK. If James Cleverly really wants to send a message to the country’s leaders that the relationship between the two countries isn’t just about trade, he should call for her immediate release.
