CentreRight

Keeping Burma on the agenda

I know I am relentless in bringing Burma to your attention, but I believe I owe it to the people of Burma to continue to do all I can to raise awareness about their plight. I am therefore taking the liberty of posting here my latest article, "Where Impunity Reigns", published in The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune. I would also like to draw your attention to a recent debate I spoke in at Intelligence Squared. The motion was "It's Time to Lift Sanctions against Burma". At the beginning, before the speeches, a slight majority of the audience voted in favour of the motion. By the end, my two colleagues and I speaking against motion had defeated it by a majority of 37 votes.  

Book Review - Zoya Phan's 'Little Daughter'

Many readers will remember Zoya Phan, a Karen refugee from Burma, whose moving address at the 2006 Conservative Party Conference brought delegates to their feet with tears in their eyes. The following year, she was invited back to speak at the Party Conference.

If you are looking for something to read this Christmas break, and want a break from British domestic politics before the General Election campaign, I would recommend Zoya's book, Little Daughter: A Memoir of Survival in Burma and the West. Launched earlier this year in the House of Commons at an event hosted by Stephen Crabb MP and addressed by the Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague, Zoya's book is a moving and poignant personal story of struggle which cannot fail to challenge and inspire.

While much of the early part of the book provides an innocent and charming account of life growing up in the jungles of eastern Burma, there are inevitably many grim moments in the book. Zoya recounts how at the age of six she and her brother and sister were playing by the river, when "our happy games suddenly turned very dark". As they splashed about innocently in the water, suddenly they were confronted with a bloated, floating corpse. "All of a sudden we were screaming in horror," she recalls. The man had been killed by the Burma Army and dumped in the river, left to decompose.

As she grew older, Zoya encountered the horrors of war more regularly. The bodies of wounded or dead Karen resistance soldiers were often brought to Manerplaw, the Karen headquarters where she grew up. "I remember looking into one of those hammocks," she writes. "I saw a face bloodied, swollen and pockmarked with shrapnel, the gentle brown eyes all but gummed shut with congealed blood. But worst of all was the young man's hands that ended in stumps wrapped in bloody rags."

Zoya's father, Padoh Mahn Sha Lah Phan, was a senior leader in the Karen resistance, and ended up as General Secretary of the Karen National Union (KNU). When she grew up he was often away for weeks at a time, involved in political activities and, on one occasion, kidnapped and imprisoned. "My father was kept in the pitch black of the dungeon as his captors took away his fellow KNU leaders and executed them," she describes. "At one point they had put a gun to his head and acted as if they were going to kill him."

The most dramatic moment in Zoya's childhood came when Manerplaw, where she had grown up, was attacked by the regime's troops. Her description is charmingly down-to-earth. "The first time the aircraft came to drop their bombs on us I was in the loo," she recalls. Her family were forced to flee into the jungle, and walk for days without adequate food, shelter or medicine to reach the safety of the Thai border. Describing her emotions at the time, she is refreshingly honest. "I found myself unable to cry. I was crying inside, but I felt as if I should be strong. So I kept the trauma bottled up inside me," she writes. In the jungle, the family were constantly on the run. Her mother knew that they must always keen their bags packed - "and be ready to move at a moment's notice".

That was not to be Zoya's only experience of running from bullets. Two years later, they were attacked again:

"People were running in every direction shouting and screaming. Animals were bellowing or screaming in panic. Children were screaming and crying, the crackle of the gunfire rose above the uproar, and then there would come the crack-BOOM of the mortar bombs landing, as if every glass window in the world had been shattered at once .... The dust got so bad it was almost like night. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, my legs were aching with running, my lungs burning, my whole body shaking with fear. I just knew I had to keep going or I'd be killed."

While this was going on, Zoya began to ask questions:

 "Why did the United Nations and the international community allow this to happen? And where especially were the British? We had been their allies. We had fought and died beside them in the Second World War. Why had they abandoned us? I dreamed that they would come and rescue us. But they never did."

Zoya then spent several years in the refugee camps across the border in Thailand. There she learned some English and gained some basic schooling - enough to win a scholarship to study in Bangkok. Part of her studies was business administration - but adjusting to this, and to city life, from where she had come from was a challenge:

“It was so alien to me. I didn’t understand many of the most basic concepts. I had no idea about the practices of international business. As to the relative benefits of Kimberly Clark’s logo versus that of Toyota or Tesco – I was completely lost. What was a logo? What was a superstore? Who were Tesco, Toyota and the rest?”

From this point on, her life took an extraordinary turn. She did an internship at Telecomasia, and was offered the chance of a corporate career. However, several factors convinced her to take a different course. First, her mother was seriously ill, and she returned to the border to visit her. She then decided to make a visit inside Karen State, to try to help her people and particularly to "get into those areas that the media and human rights workers were seldom able to visit.". She went with her father's blessing, and his hammock and mosquito net. On that visit, she met people who were terrified of imminent attack, suffering from cholera, chronic diarrhoea and malaria, and who had no opportunities for health care or education at all. “They were so poor and destitute that even the clothes they stood up in were in shred,” she recalls. “They had nothing; nothing. No pots and pans; no blankets; previous little to eat.” It was this situation, she explains, that began to turn her away from “a soft, moneyed and easy future” and back to her people and their struggle. Some of those she met turned to her and said: "Please do something about the suffering here. Go and tell the world."

Her mother died in 2004, and Zoya accepted a place at the University of East Anglia to study for a Master’s in Development and Politics. Ten months after starting her course, she attended a demonstration in London, where someone handed her what she describes as "a funnel-shaped device" which was "very heavy". She was told: "It's a megaphone. Press that button and speak into this end and everyone will be able to hear you - even the people inside the embassy." She did, and her activist's life was born. “All my life I had been a victim,” she writes, “but today I had felt what it was like to fight back.” Within a few weeks she was doing interviews on the BBC, leading protests outside the Burmese Embassy and 10 Downing Street, and addressing audiences around the country. She has shared a platform with William Hague several times, spoken to Gordon Brown personally on the phone, met the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street and shaken hands with David Cameron.

 

On 14 February, 2008 Zoya's family - which had already endured so much - was struck by further tragedy. Her father was assassinated by agents of the regime. I had been with him three days previously, and had sat with him on the very veranda where he was shot dead. Zoya had been aware of the plots, and is herself on a hit-list now, but no amount of awareness could have prepared her for the shock. "My father was killed because the Burmese regime feared him," Zoya writes.

 

I had just landed in Kuala Lumpur, on my way to visit Burmese refugees there, when I received news of Padoh Mahn Sha's assassination. I had known him well, always visited him when I went to the Thailand-Burma border, and his children, including Zoya, are friends of mine.  Eerily, it was almost exactly a year later that, landing in Kuala Lumpur again, I finished reading Zoya's book. It draws to an end with the account of her father's death - and with typical defiant courage:

"They killed my father because they wanted to kill what he stood for. I was determined not to let that happen ... And whilst they may have killed my father, they could never kill my father's dream. That the Karen, and all the people of Burma, will be free."

And it closes with this challenge, which is one for us all to consider this Christmas:

 

"Maybe you will feel sorry for me after what I have been through in my life. Don't. I am one of the lucky ones. I am lucky I am still alive. I am lucky I haven't been raped. I am lucky that I am not still in a refugee camp that is like a prison camp, with no work, no freedom .... And I am lucky to be able to work to help my people. I don't want you to feel sorry for me, I want you to feel angry, and I want you to do something about it."

 

One of the ways you can do something about it is to support organisations working on Burma, either The Phan Foundation 

 which Zoya and her brothers and sister established in their parents' memory, or The Burma Campaign UK,  where Zoya works as International Co-ordinator, or my organisation, Christian Solidarity Worldwide.Have a look also at the Change for Burma campaign.  

 

Burma's crimes against humanity

Burma's crimes against humanity are highlighted in this article in the Daily Telegraph today, and in a debate in Westminster Hall introduced by Nigel Evans MP this morning. 

Radical Islamism's spread: a review of two major new reports

Two significant reports that I have just read in the past few days have made me realise that still people do not get it about the threat of radical Islamism.

The Centre for Social Cohesion's new report Hizb ut-Tahrir: Ideology and Strategy, by Houriya Ahmed and Hannah Stuart, and the Quilliam Foundation's report by James Brandon, Unlocking Al-Qaeda: Islamist Extremism in British Prisons, both made jaw-dropping reading. Jaw-dropping not because of what they revealed about the presence of radical Islamists in our midst, but because of what they revealed about the ignorance and incompetence, indeed unwitting complicity, of our authorities.

Take Quilliam's report first. With a foreword by the Conservatives' Shadow Security Minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, the report details a terrifying phenomenon: that in Britain's jails radical Islamists imprisoned for preaching hate and plotting terror are actively using the prisons as a recruiting ground for fresh converts to extremism: and with success. Twelve per cent of the prison population, or 10,000 inmates, are Muslim - vulnerable to radicalisation.

Quilliam's report documents, shockingly, the availability of jihadist literature in prison libraries. Well HELLO, isn't that a bit dumb? During the trial of Mohammad al-Figari, a convert to Islam jailed for attending terrorist training camps organised by Abu Hamza, the prosecution produced a book found in al-Figari's possession, entitled How Can I Train Myself for Jihad?  The book had a stamp from Wandsworth prison's library. Furthermore, al-Figari received extremist literature sent by followers of Abu Hamza, while in jail. What is the Prison Service doing stocking jihadi literature in its libraries, and allowing jihadi literature to be received by mail by inmates?

Promoting diversity, protecting tradition

There are two aspects of our country and its values which I believe we should defend vigorously, because both are under threat. They may at first appear contradictory, but they are not. One reinforces the other. The first is diversity, the second is tradition.

I thrive on diversity. I would find life much less fulfilling if every day was the same, if I saw the same people, the same places, and did the same things. I love meeting people of different backgrounds, cultures, countries and religions; I love visited places which each have their own rich, but different, history; and I have a wide range of tastes in food, music, film and literature.

Our country is enriched by the broad and diverse range of people who are its citizens. Indeed, the very essence of the United Kingdom is diverse: the English, Scots, Welsh and Irish. Add to them the people who have become part of the United Kingdom over the past century or two, from varying cultures and religions, and it makes for an even more beautiful nation. We have a proud tradition of welcoming the visitor and providing a place of sanctuary for the refugee, and we must unflinchingly maintain that tradition.

A Politics of Wilberforce on Remembrance Day

As we mark Remembrance Sunday once again, let us not simply remember those soldiers who gave their lives in war, important though that is, especially to their loved ones. Let us also remember what they gave their lives for - and let us strive to make our politics worthy of their sacrifice.

I have just re-watched the film Amazing Grace, for the umpteenth time, and once again am challenged, inspired, motivated and broken by it. I have devoted my life over the past decade or more to the struggle for human rights in various countries - Burma, East Timor, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, The Maldives, China and North Korea are just some. I have been enormously privileged to see witness some extraordinary victories of freedom over oppression, in East Timor and the Maldives in particular, and have had the opportunity to make a small contribution to those struggles. Yet with Burma, Pakistan, and North Korea in particular there is so, so much more to do. Watching Amazing Grace, and at the same time remembering the sacrifice of our troops in wars against tyranny and for freedom - the First and Second World Wars, the Falklands, the first Gulf War, the second Iraq war and Afghanistan - I realise once again how little I have done, how much time and money I have squandered on trivialities, and how much others have given for the cause of liberty. I wept as I reflected on the state of my own heart and priorities as I rewatched Amazing Grace, and I resolved to redouble my efforts.

Faith and politics

Once again David Cameron has shown his refreshing human-ness and thoughtfulness, this time in yesterday's Evening Standard. Those who dismiss him as simply a 'pr' man are wrong. He speaks with a simple honesty unusual for a party political leader and prospective Prime Minister. Despite his wealthy background, he has a remarkable ability to connect with people and to come across as a down-to-earth guy we can all relate to. The contrast with the current Prime Minister is as stark as chalk and cheese.

The whole interview is fascinating, but I found David Cameron's remarks about faith especially interesting and encouraging. Despite our increasingly secular society, with the rise of militant secular fundamentalism as big a concern as militant religious fundamentalism, people do want to know what makes our political leaders tick. We want to know not just their policies, but their values, their character and their worldview. If faith is a component of that worldview, however large or small, I think we'd be interested in knowing about it. Not in an on-the-sleeve emotional tele-evangelist way, but in a simple, honest, understated, thoughtful but direct way. Equally, if someone has no faith, let them be honest and direct about it. And if they have faith but mixed with doubt, which if we are honest is the position of most believers, let's hear about that.

I have often thought that the difference between British and American politics is that, in Alistair Campbell's infamous words, we "don't do God" and the Americans "do God" too much. So while in Britain, Tony Blair looked disgusted when asked by Jeremy Paxman whether he and George W Bush prayed together, in America, one-time Democrat presidential candidate Howard Dean felt he had to talk about his faith more than he had previously done and was caught out when asked what his favourite book in the New Testament was. Dean said the Book of Job. God is politicised and, by some people, hijacked in America - while in Britain God is generally abandoned and derided. In America, if you are a politician without faith or with a faith that was previously understated, hesitant, quiet, you need to conjure one up quickly for public consumption if you are to have any chance of success. In Britain, it had seemed, you need to keep it quiet, as if it were something you did in the privacy of your bedroom and found rather embarrassing to admit. Both extremes are very unhealthy.

Inside the North Korean Gulag

It is not every day that you meet a person who has had all their fingernails pulled out, their bottom teeth bashed out, and has been hung with their arms tied behind their back for up to 12 hours, their feet suspended above the ground and their chest bursting from the strain. Nor is it often that we meet someone who has witnessed people suffering such extreme starvation that they resorted to fighting over bits of corn in dogs' faeces. I have, however, spent the past two days taking two North Korean defectors around London. They had both been jailed in North Korea's infamous gulags - and, remarkably, survived to tell their story.

Both The Times and The Guardian have run pieces today about Guang il-Jung and Lee Sung Ae, after a visit to London organised by Christian Solidarity Worldwide in which they met senior officials at the Foreign and Commonwealth office, Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister David Lidington MP and the Chairman of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, Tony Baldry. They also addressed a meeting in Parliament hosted by Baroness Cox and the All Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea.

The courage these two individuals have shown in escaping, at huge risk, and telling their story is extraordinary. And the examples they gave of the North Korean regime's brutality are truly unbelievable. Lee Sung Ae said that among her fellow prisoners was a person who was jailed simply because he had rolled a home-made cigarette using a bit of used newspaper which happened to have a small photograph of the "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il on it. She said food rations in the gulag were so bad that at least 30 people died every day, and the survivors resorted to opening the mouths of corpses to see if there was any unswallowed left-over food in them. When Guang il-Jung went into the gulag, he weighed 71 kilos. When he came out, he was 34 kilos. For the very sick, veterinaries, not medical doctors, were assigned to provide treatment. When asked how a vet could treat a human being, prisoners were told "you're not human beings, you're animals".

New Quilliam Report: In Defence of British Muslims

As Sayeeda Warsi prepares to take on Nick Griffin on BBC's Question Time next week, she and others in the mainstream of British politics would do well to read the Quilliam Foundation's excellent new report, In Defence of British Muslims: A response to BNP racist propaganda. The report provides a sharp, concise, coherent and well-argued rebuttal of the far-right's hatred towards Muslims, and a profound rejection of the BNP's claim to represent 'Britishness'.

Written by Lucy James, the publication draws clear distinctions between Islamism, Wahhabi literalist interpretations of Islam, and other forms of Islam, and demonstrates clearly what any sensible person knows: that Nick Griffin's sweeping generalisations about the Muslim community are as ridiculous as they are dangerous. As the author notes, "when the Wahhabi literalist mindset combines with Islamism, this can lead to the creation of jihadist readings of scripture that can result in militant Islamism." However, this is a very narrow, distinct brand within Islam, and is not representative of the vast majority of law-abiding, peace-loving, decent, hospitable Muslims. "The BNP appear to have not only adopted Wahhabi literalism alongside Islamist principles of an Islamic state, but to have generalised them as representative of Islam as a whole," writes James.

In the following powerful passage, James sums up the heart of the issue - that the BNP and the Islamists, James argues, feed off each other:

  Extremism needs - indeed breeds - extremism. Islamists bolster the message of organisations like the BNP; the BNP bolster the message of the Islamists. The BNP and Islamists do actually share many commonalities in terms of tactics and the ways in which they operate. They both, for example, share the same binary and divisive world views, denigrating cultures that they feel are opposed to their own: the Muslims versus the 'kufr' ('unbelievers', often the West) and the indigenous White-British versus immigrant invaders. Along with such a worldview necessarily comes a reliance on generalisations and a deliberate dismissal of nuance: for Islamists all non-Muslims are in a conspiracy against Muslims, and for the BNP all Muslims are in a conspiracy against the White-British."

Although they have vastly differing ideological origins and different ultimate destinations, both thrive on manipulating fears, jumping on grievances, and stoking the fires of discontent, scapegoating and hatred.

James and the Quilliam Foundation, established by ex-Islamists Ed Husain and Maajid Nawaz, have done a superb job in countering, point by point, many of Nick Griffin and the BNP's most outrageous accusations against Muslims. These point by point rebuttals are well worth reading. The paper concludes with the observation that the BNP "repeatedly portray Islamists as representing all Muslims, but consistently fail to provide adequate evidence for their claims". The BNP "sensationalise unacceptable practices within Islam" and seek to demonise all Muslims by tarring them with the same brush.

As James rightly concludes, "it is now imperative that the British electorate reclaim the 'British' from the British National Party, just as we have asked Muslims to reclaim 'Islam' from the Islamists." For, as she notes earlier in the report:

 "it is not race or religion that matters, but what type of person someone is; individual qualities rather than to what 'faith' or 'ethnic' category they belong. In the final analysis, it is only those who uphold - rather than seek to destroy - the British values of liberty, freedom, equality and democracy that should be considered part of the British mainstream." 

Speechless over Obama's Nobel Prize

I am completely speechless. I must admit, I like Barack Obama as a person. I applaud the symbolism of his election as President of the United States and what that does to break down barriers and give people hope. I liked his campaign theme of optimism - "Yes we can"! And I even concede that his style and tone of international relations is perhaps more attractive than that of his predecessor. But the Nobel Peace Prize less than a year since his election is astonishing - and astonishingly bizarre! Will someone please tell me what President Obama has done to "strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples?" His near-silence in the face of protests in Iran was a betrayal of the Iranian people's hopes for freedom, and while his efforts on Burma may yet yield progress, and the combination of pressure and engagement is right, the messages he has sent to the regime there are so far mixed, as I argue in an article in The Weekly Standard today. Furthermore, when he was up against Zimbabwe's Morgan Tsvangeri and Chinese dissident, and follows in the footsteps of Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi, this is ridiculous, especially so soon in his presidency when he has nothing to show for it. As I say, I like the guy, but this is Obamamania gone mad.

The rise of radical, parallel Shariah in Britain

Every now and then, you read something which strikes you as incredibly important. The Centre for Islamic Pluralism's publication, A Guide to Shariah Law and Islamist Ideology in Western Europe 2007-2009, is one such example, and is essential reading for anyone concerned about our freedoms, values and community relations.

Written primarily by Muslim scholars Stephen Suleyman Schwartz and Irfan al-Alawi, the publication provides clear definitions of Shariah Law - and an irrefutable case against radical Shariah. It draws a  distinction between traditional Islam's Shariah provisions for personal conduct in the areas of prayer, diet, fasting and charity, and the development of a parallel legal structure which is at odds with our own. As the authors argue:

"Shariah encompasses strictly personal religious-ritual aspects, such as rules for prayer, ablutions, diet, fasting, charity, male circumcision and burial, which we exempt from the analysis in that they almost never involve contradiction with or other intrusion into relations between Muslims and non-Muslims ... [However] radical Shariah advocates teach that Muslims can disregard Western law ... Extremist Islamist ideology is neither traditional nor conservative, but radical and even revolutionary ... The new conception of 'parallel Shariah' in even its apparently least intrusive elements may become disruptive of Western society."

The publication begins with a history and analysis of Shariah, and then examines its implementation - and the growth of radical Islamist ideology - in Europe through five case studies: Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, France and Spain. It concludes with an invaluable assessment of Islamic finance and banking, and some conclusions. It also touches on issues such as 'honour killings', female genital mutilation, forced marriages and divorce. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the paper, written by Muslim scholars, is its critique of Western non-Muslim acquiescence with radical Shariah:

"The real problem facing both Muslims and non-Muslims is not that of Shariah established against the will of non-Muslims, but of a separate and discriminatory system to which Muslims in the West would be submitted regardless of their needs and desires, either because of misguided attempts to accommodate perceived (but often inaccurate) Muslim sentiments, or because of agitation by radicals."

Burma VJ - a must see

This evening I was on a television programme discussing the new film Burma VJ. I had seen it first a few weeks ago, when I took part in a panel discussing the film after a pre-screening at the Frontline Club. Burma VJ went out yesterday in cinemas across the country, and details can be found here. It is the most extraordinary film. It puts the pettiness of so much of our domestic politics to shame, and serves as a reminder for how valuable our freedoms are, and how we should use the freedoms we have on behalf of those who are denied them. Watch Burma VJ, and then take action for freedom in Burma.    

John Bercow the man - another side of the story

I am sick and tired of the extraordinary vitriol being poured out against John Bercow. From anonymous Tories who don’t have the courage to put their names to their messages, to Nadine Dorries’ banal, narcissistic, vacuous blog remarks, the extent and depth of loathing is unmerited and unbecoming. I want to tell you a different story.

In early 2004, soon after he became Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, John Bercow met my friend James Mawdsley – who had been imprisoned in Burma for staging pro-democracy protests. James told me about their meeting, and suggested that John was interested in pursuing Burma as an issue. I followed it up, wrote to John and a few weeks later we met. I persuaded John, without any difficulty, to join me and Baroness Cox on a visit to the Thailand-Burma border to learn more about the desperate human rights and humanitarian crisis in Burma.

We travelled together, to refugee camps and across the border illegally into the jungles of eastern Burma. One of the places we visited was Ler Per Hur, a camp for internally displaced people inside Karen State, Burma, which just this month has been attacked by the Burma Army. The people I know well, and whom John met five years ago, have been forced to flee for their lives to the Thai side of the river. One such person was Rainbow, the school teacher – whom John met, and who spoke to the BBC earlier this month. In these attacks, two teenage girls were raped and killed.

At the end of that visit five years ago – during which we met victims of torture, former political prisoners, Karen refugees and internally displaced people, former child soldiers, orphans and widows – John told me that it had changed his life. He speaks about it on our Change for Burma website. He said that the combination of the extraordinary faith and determination of the Karen, Karenni and other people of Burma, as well as the horrific personal testimony of grotesque abuse, had made an impact on him like no other. He promised me that whatever he did in politics, he would be an ally on Burma. 

Support a new online campaign for Aung San Suu Kyi

Today, Aung San Suu Kyi’s period of house arrest expires. The UN has already ruled that her continued detention violates both international and Burmese law. Yet instead of being freed, Burma’s democracy leader and Nobel Laureate is in prison, on completely false charges. She is nearing the end of a trial, the outcome of which has almost certainly been pre-determined by Burma’s ruling Generals. It is up to us to change that determination.

A major new online campaign went live today, to highlight Aung San Suu Kyi’s plight. It will run until 19 June, her 64th birthday, and is a campaign in which celebrities, politicians and members of the public – absolutely anyone – can post messages of support, 64 words long. People can also twitter 64 characters, or post a youtube message of 64 words. The website is www.64forsuu.org

The campaign has already received endorsements from the Prime Minister, and from top Conservatives. David Cameron posted a message saying:

“Aung San Suu Kyi is an inspiration to her country and to the world. Her plight symbolises the suffering of the people of Burma. For over 13 years, she has been unjustly imprisoned despite winning the elections in 1990. So as she marks her 64th birthday I call on Burma's Generals to release her, and to give the Burmese people the freedom they deserve.”

Shadow International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell wrote:

“Aung San Suu Kyi is one of the most courageous and inspiring leaders in the world. We have a responsibility to do everything we can to ensure she is freed to play a part in Burma's future. She has a vital contribution to make to peace and reconciliation in Burma. The Generals must release her immediately, and engage in a meaningful process of dialogue.”

Support has also been received from numerous other high-profile individuals including George Clooney, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Vaclav Havel, David Beckham and Daniel Craig.

The campaign is backed by a coalition of organisations, including Burma Campaign UK, Amnesty International, the Trades Union Congress, Not On Our Watch, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Open Society Institute, Avaaz, English Pen and US Campaign For Burma.

Take a few minutes to post a message, a you-tube video or to twitter a “64” message, and let us hope that Aung San Suu Kyi will be given the freedom she deserves before her 64th birthday.

Religion, Politeness, Political Correctness

This article says it all. You have to read the whole article - but here are some extracts which sum it up:

Extract One: it was a dangerous and worrying defeat of common sense.

Extract Two: .... a worrying increase in ''attacks'' on Christianity, which has seen one Christian school receptionist facing dismissal after her five-year-old daughter was told off in school for talking about God in class – which upset another girl – and a nurse being suspended for offering to pray for a patient. The cases have highlighted what many believe is the high cost our Christian heritage is paying simply to survive. The growing persecution of Christians in public life has so angered senior clerics that they have found it imperative to speak out about the growing marginalisation of Christianity in Britain. Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York and Britain's second most senior cleric, has described the targeting of Christains as ''an affront to decency''. Calling on the silent majority of Christians to defend their beliefs, Sentamu said: ''For those who despair at the treatment meted out to these Christian women the message is clear: wake-up Christian England.''

One surely has to admit that when Church of England clerics get worked up about the marginalisation of Christianity, Christianity must be seriously marginalised .... and when the Sunday Telegraph talks about "persecution" of Christians in Britain - a phrase which I think in Britain is misplaced and an overreaction, in comparison with the real persecution of millions of Christians in other parts of the world, but nevertheless raises an extremely serious issue, we have much to think about. And when religious freedom is violated around the world, as described for example in this House of Lords debate, it puts the situation in the UK in perspective ... nevertheless, I believe we have values of religious freedom and tolerance to defend here at home which the uber-politically correct brigade seek to destroy. It really is as simple as that.

Victims of Intimidation

I have just finished reading the Centre for Social Cohesion's latest report, Victims of Intimidation: Freedom of Speech Within Europe's Muslim Communities. For anyone who cares about our basic freedoms and human rights, regardless of religion, the report's findings are deeply alarming. The report details the experiences of 27 European writers, activists, politicians, artists and journalists, all of Muslim background, who have suffered threats, intimidation, harassment and actual physical attack as a result of extremist reaction to opinions they have expressed. The cases come from throughout the continent - countries as diverse as Norway, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. Some have been in such danger that they have had to have police protection - and many others ought to have had similar protection but have been denied it. A few cases, such as that of Samira Munir, a Pakistan-born women's rights activist and politician in Norway, have resulted in death - although often unsolved or shrouded in mystery. What is especially powerful about the report is that it documents cases of Muslim background critics of aspects of Islam and Islamism. Some of these critics remain Muslims, but seek reform, while others have chosen to leave Islam and face the consequences. Either way, none of them are Western non-Muslims - all are Muslim-background activists with first hand experience of some of the more oppressive aspects of parts of Islam.

The report brings out not only the threats faced by Muslim and ex-Muslim critics of radical Islam and Islamism, but the complicity of parts of the uber-politically correct liberal elite in Europe. For example, in the case of Kadra Noor, a Somali-born Norwegian activist and investigative reporter, left-wing Norwegian anthropologists opposed her campaign against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), arguing that to criticise FGM is 'cultural imperialism'. They went on to compare FGM to ear-piercing! She was later beaten unconscious outside a pub in Oslo.

Cameron makes first major speech on international human rights

As thousands continue to suffer in Robert Mugabe's man-made disaster in Zimbabwe, the world is preparing to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But as David Cameron said today, in his first major speech on international human rights, "this anniversary isn't a reason for mutual self-congratulation". Indeed, he said, we should observe Eleanor Roosevelt's words, spoken after chairing the body which drafted the Declaration - there is an "unfinished task which lies before us".

Today the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission launched its third annual report. It details violations of human rights around the world, and focuses specifically on some key themes: Sexual violence as a weapon of war, the forcible conscription of child soldiers, violations of freedom of expression and freedom of religion. The report, which will be available soon online, also puts forward policy proposals for a future Conservative Government - such as changes to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office structures and systems, reform of the UN, closer integration of human rights and aid policy, and support for the International Criminal Court.

In previous years, the Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague has launched the Commission's annual report. This year, for the first time, David Cameron delivered the keynote speech, at the Foreign Press Association. He was preceded by a brave former Rwandan child soldier, Tindy Agaba.

Bombay's ugly reminder of radical Islamism

Ed Husain is absolutely right - read his piece in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph.

Peter Clarke is also well worth reading. His article, Let Bombay remind us: they haven't gone away, is an important wake-up call.

Damian Green's arrest severely undermines democracy

I am usually very cautious about comparing incidents in this country with those in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. I work with dissidents from countries like Burma who have experienced the very worst possible violations of human rights. I have met people who have endured the barbarity of North Korea's gulags. I have looked into the eyes of women from Darfur as they told their experience of being gang-raped. For those reasons, I do not usually like to compare human rights issues in Britain to the violations of basic human rights in other parts of the world. Indeed, I am a critic of the Human Rights Act because I believe it demeans and undermines basic human rights.

However, the arrest of Damian Green has caused me to reconsider that rule. The fact of his arrest, and the way it was conducted,  would be no surprise in Burma, China, Cuba or Zimbabwe, but should never, ever happen in Britain. Unless there is something I and most other people have completely missed, how on earth is it that a democratically elected senior opposition spokesman and Member of Parliament can be treated in the way he has been? How is it that his homes can be raided, his correspondence - including personal love letters with his wife - searched, and his emails suspended? What crime has he committed?

Bingo - Nick Herbert has hit the nail on the head

Nick Herbert, writing in the Sunday Telegraph today has hit the nail on the head. For too long too many Conservatives have failed to make the connection between why we oppose Britain's Human Rights Act, and our commitment to international human rights as exhibited by the work of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission and the superb record of William Hague, David Lidington and Andrew Mitchell, along with other frontbench spokesmen, and indeed of David Cameron, in speaking out against the very worst violations of human rights in countries like Burma, Sudan, North Korea and Zimbabwe. Too often, as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, I am asked by Conservatives why we have a human rights commission when we are critical of the Human Rights Act, and I get asked by leftie human rights people how we can reconcile our opposition to the Human Rights Act with our agenda-setting work on foreign policy and human rights. Now, at least, Nick Herbert has reconciled the two. He is the first frontbench spokesman that I have heard say this, and it is a message which I have long been trying to spread and which I hope will become the mantra of the Party:

Real human rights are precious, and breaching them should be a serious violation not a trivial complaint. After the Second World War, when Holocaust survivors were staggering out of Belsen, human rights meant something different to the architects of the European Convention from which the Human Rights Act derives. The language describing serious rights abuses in the world today - in China, Georgia or Zimbabwe - is devalued when a British prisoner claims infringement because of a blocked lavatory in his cell.

Another reminder for those who still deny it

The Sunday Telegraph lead story today provides another reminder, for those who are still asleep to the threats of militant Islamism (note, because otherwise some will wilfully choose to misinterpret this, that it is not the religion of Islam, the majority of whose followers are peaceful, law-abiding and good people, but rather the political ideology of militant, radical Islamism. The threat of terrorism and extremism in the UK is as grave as ever.

Religious freedom and human dignity

A friend of mine, Tom Farr, who served in the US diplomatic service, has written an excellent new book: World of Faith and Freedom, published this month.

Tom Farr's final position before retirement was as Director of the State Department Office of International Religious Freedom. In a new article marking the tenth anniversary of the passage of the US Congress' International Religious Freedom Act, Farr argues that little has been achieved in promoting religious freedom despite the new mechanisms the legislation created. While there have been some successes in securing the release of prisoners of conscience and reducing the worst forms of persecution in some countries, there remains "a fundamental flaw" in U.S. international religious freedom policy:

Put simply, the United States has not actually attempted to advance religious freedom in any political or cultural sense. As noted, it has mainly sought to reduce persecution. But reducing or even eliminating religious persecution is the beginning, not the end, of religious freedom. That right means more than freedom from abuse; it also means the freedom to act in ways consistent with belief. As such, it lies at the heart of human dignity and is a precondition for stable self government. But neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations have seen it that way. Neither employed IRF policy to facilitate the consolidation of democracy in key states abroad. Neither understood religious freedom as a national security imperative.

I would suggest that his book, though very American in its context, would have some lessons for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Farr argues, in his article and in his book, that diplomats need to understand religion, given how widespread it is - whether or not they necessarily believe, they need to understand the beliefs of others and how religion is a force in the world - for good or for ill. He concludes:

In sum, a broader IRF strategy will help ensure that religious freedom advocacy moves to the center of U.S. foreign policy in the 21^st century. That is its rightful place, both as a humanitarian imperative that reflects the best of American values, and as an initiative that will further vital national interests, including the security of the American people.

Mandelson under fire from European Parliament

This is very interesting about Mandelson.

Oh dear, the French

Oh dear - just when it looked like the French, under President Sarkozy and Bernard Kouchner, were going to be more helpful on human rights, now they hark back into history: just because they LOST. They are accusing us of war crimes at Agincourt. Talk about pots and kettles. Who sold machetes in Rwanda, eh? Whose oil company is funding Burma's junta? They will be accusing us of cheating at rugby, next.

We have Sharia here

We are on the way to becoming a Sharia state.