{"id":3962,"date":"2024-10-23T08:58:20","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T08:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/?p=3962"},"modified":"2024-10-24T09:25:10","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T09:25:10","slug":"sanctions-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/?p=3962","title":{"rendered":"Sanctions: Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

John Whittingdale<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I strongly welcome the regulations. As my hon. Friend Alicia Kearns<\/a> and the Minister<\/a> have made clear, Iran is a malign influence that is fuelling many of the most serious conflicts around the world. There was Iran\u2019s horrendous attack on Israel recently, but there has also been its supply of weapons to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis\u2014and particularly to Russia, in its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have debated Ukraine many times, and will continue to do so. The Minister<\/a> has taken a close interest in the issue, and I thank him for his support in opposition<\/a>\u2014both sides of the House are united in support for Ukraine. The measures will help a little, but the Minister will know that Ukraine is suffering desperately. The casualties, which are being inflicted in part by the weapons that, hopefully, this measure will help to stop reaching Russia, are horrendous, and stopping those attacks is part of President Zelensky<\/a>\u2019s victory plan. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford that we need to do more to support Ukraine to implement its victory plan, particularly by allowing it not only to shoot down attacks from drones and missiles over its own territory but to attack where they originate, outside the border of Ukraine in Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not going to be enough just to stop the supply of weapons from Iran. We know that they are being supplied by other countries, in particular North Korea<\/a>\u2014and not just weapons, but potentially troops as well. Therefore, I hope that we will look at sanctions enforcement across all the countries that are giving succour to Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to touch on one or two other aspects of Iranian behaviour. The Minister knows that sanctions are used to try to put an economic squeeze on countries that have breached international rules, and also to uphold human rights. In particular, the use of Magnitsky sanctions is now well established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minister may be aware that I chair the all-party parliamentary group on media freedom. Iran\u2019s record in that area is terrible: it is 176th out of 180 on the index of press freedom. As RSF<\/a>\u2014Reporters Without Borders<\/a>\u2014has pointed out, more than 100 journalists have been interrogated, detained or imprisoned since the start of the protest movement in 2022; 16 remain in prison due to their work, alongside another 19 who were there before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are not just talking about within Iran; the Minister will know that the IRGC<\/a> lies behind the attacks on journalists in London. Iran International<\/a> has had to have protection and move offices because of a continuing threat by the IRGC against its journalists. I have talked to the management of Iran International and some of its very brave journalists, one of whom was attacked in the streets of London. We are not just talking about Iran International, either. Members of the BBC Persian<\/a> service continue to be subject to threats and harassment, and their families in Iran are being pressured by the regime to try to reach those journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those reasons, I echo the calls that have been made already by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford and the Liberal Democrat spokesman, Calum Miller<\/a>: the IRGC must be proscribed. That was the view of the Minister\u2019s colleagues when they were in opposition, and it is the view of America and Canada. We await to hear as soon as possible the Government\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imposing sanctions is clearly an important part of putting pressure on Iran, but they need to be enforced. One of the benefits of having professional investigative journalists is that they are sometimes able to expose things that otherwise remain hidden. If the Minister has not done so, will he study carefully this week\u2019s edition of The Economist<\/a>? The Economist has carried out an in-depth investigation of the enforcement of the sanctions imposed by America on Iran, and the way in which those sanctions are being completely bypassed. Apparently, Iran is currently selling 1.8 million barrels of oil per day, almost all of which end up in China. They do so through a whole host of front organisations. Individual components of the Iranian regime, including the IRGC and the Quds Force<\/a>, are given crude oil to market and they then set up their own front organisations. They use shadow<\/a> organisations to procure tanker movements; they have banks that support that activity; and as I say, a large part of that oil ends up in China, which is the main purchaser. The money then flows back through that network directly to Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although I do not necessarily believe that that is done knowingly, The Economist also states:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLondon is the world\u2019s sixth-biggest base by number of Iranian-linked entities blacklisted by America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, I hope the Minister will look carefully at not just tightening the noose around the regime, but making sure that the loopholes that are currently being exploited to get around sanctions are properly closed down, in this country and elsewhere. As I have said, today\u2019s motion is very welcome, but we need to do a lot more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Doughty Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thank\u00a0Sir John Whittingdale\u00a0for his kind remarks about the cross-party support we have had for Ukraine. He rightly raised issues relating to the\u00a0Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea. He will have heard in recent days the Foreign Secretary, with his counterpart in the Republic of Korea, state our absolute condemnation regarding\u00a0DPRK\u2019s involvement in Russia\u2019s illegal war in Ukraine. I will certainly take a look at\u00a0The Economist\u00a0article he mentioned. We will seek to do everything we can to close down loopholes and ensure the effectiveness of our regime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Whittingdale I strongly welcome the regulations. As my hon. Friend Alicia Kearns and the Minister have made clear, Iran is a malign influence that is fuelling many of the most serious conflicts around the world. There was Iran\u2019s horrendous attack on Israel recently, but there has also been its supply of weapons to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis\u2014and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speeches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3963,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3962\/revisions\/3963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}