Lack of accountability in security programme fuels allegations that UK taxpayers are unknowingly complicit in rights abuses
MPs have expressed concern over the government’s flagship £1.28bn global security programme, saying a lack of transparency and accountability lends weight to allegations from rights groups and watchdogs that taxpayers are unwittingly complicit in human rights abuses.
Campaigners at Reprieve have accused the government of failing to release full details of a new “rule of law” initiative in Pakistan, granted £9.3m in foreign aid and an undisclosed amount in non-aid funding. The failure to release a human rights assessment of the initiative for 2018-19 raised “the appalling prospect that British taxpayers are unknowingly complicit in torture and death sentences”, it said.
Previously undisclosed details of the secretive and partly aid-funded conflict, stability and security fund (CSSF) for 2018-19 reveals aid money to Pakistan is supporting prosecutions in the country, which hands down scores of death sentences every year.
The case of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian farm labourer who spent eight years on death row before being acquitted of blasphemy in October, has shone an international spotlight on the Pakistani government’s human rights record. After violent protests followed the decision, the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) administration signed an agreement with the anti-blasphemy group behind the protests, Tehreel-e-Labbaik (TLP), and the government has been accused of tolerating extremist violence against the interests of human rights and the rule of law.
The UK fund, which operates in about 70 countries, was set up under the auspices of several key government departments, including the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, to work in countries with strong British interests where there is a risk of conflict or instability.
Fears over the fund’s opacity follows a damning report by the aid watchdog earlier this year, which found serious shortcomings in the way the fund operates, including the risk that it could be working with “human rights abusers”. MPs launched a second inquiry into the fund this year, after the joint committee on the national security council found its objectives, operations and achievements were “opaque”.
Dan Jarvis MP, who sits on the joint committee on the National Security Strategy, said the UK must ensure the ethical dimension of foreign policy is addressed. In an email, the Barnsley MP and mayor of Sheffield, said: “With this in mind, I am concerned about our partnering and funding of organisations and governments that not only use the death penalty but are also complicit either in torture or human rights abuses.
“Specifically, I am concerned by the lack of transparency in what the CSSF is funding. The current opaqueness not only prevents parliamentary oversight, but adds weight to allegations that British taxpayers’ money is being used to fund human rights abuses.
He said the government had responded to his concerns, saying they would work to both minimise any such risk and consider properly how these partnerships and funding streams are scrutinised.
Reprieve reviewed the CSSF budgets and programmes for 2018-2019, based on details of the fund’s programmes in several countries including Pakistan, Somalia and Iraq, which were made public by the government last month. Newly disclosed initiatives under the fund, which is partly funded under the foreign aid budget, include a £27m multi-regional international counter-terrorism unit. The unit is aimed at fighting extremism and radicalisation, according to the summary documents; however, it did not disclose which countries the unit would operate in.
The organisation, which fights against the death penalty, estimated £181m in CSSF funding remained unaccounted for.
Maya Foa, director of Reprieve, said: “On 15 November, while the press focused on resignations from Theresa May’s cabinet, the government quietly slipped out details of more than £1bn in overseas security funding, much of it sent to regimes where the risk of human rights abuses is dangerously high, by the Foreign Office’s own reckoning. There were precious few details, and the human rights assessments behind these programmes remains unpublished, raising the appalling prospect that British taxpayers are unknowingly complicit in torture and death sentences.”
“For instance, the government appears to be supporting prosecutions in Pakistani courts which hand down scores of death sentences every year. Clearly if the UK is actively assisting capital prosecutions, this would gravely undermine the government’s stated opposition to the death penalty.”
MPs raised concerns about the Pakistan rule of law and other CSSF programmes at an inquiry hearing on the fund last month. Details of the Pakistan programme, in the summary documents published on the government website, include justice support in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab province to support government and judicial leadership reform, as well as across institutions in the justice system.
The Conservative MP for Tonbridge and Malling, Tom Tugendhat, told the committee last month he was “deeply concerned” about the Pakistan programme, after the Bibi case. It raised questions for the UK’s “significant assistance to the government of Pakistan, in the light of the government’s seeming tolerance of extremist violence and propaganda against the interested of human rights we rightly support much more widely”, he said.
He asked David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, to release details of the external assessment of the programme in the year 2017-18. David Lidington said he would seek to be as “transparent as possible” and would take advice over the national security implications of releasing such details.
An FCO spokesman insisted its CSSF programmes have “robust measures in places” to protect the human rights of beneficiaries, were risk assessed and analysed beforehand and were in line with foreign policy objectives. They receive “robust scrutiny” to ensure all spend represents value for money for UK taxpayers, it said.
In a statement, the FCO said: “Our CSSF programmes in Pakistan have supported the reform of the criminal justice system, including the investigation and prosecution of serious crimes, in a manner compliant with human rights.
“We take transparency of our programmes extremely seriously, however we will not publish information where it could lead to security risks for our beneficiaries or our staff, or where the information could risk the UK’s national security.”
Source: The Guardian, Karen McVeigh, December 11, 2018
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