The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee today published a report into the Foreign Office’s human rights work in 2011 including denial of visas for entry to the UK

Having taken evidence from Pavel Khodorkovsky, Sergei Magnitsky’s law firm Hermitage Capital, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the Committee recognised that the Foreign Office’s 2011 report on human rights states that “Britain welcomes visitors from around the world … but not those who have perpetrated human rights abuses. Foreign nationals from outside the European Economic Area may only come to the United Kingdom if they satisfy the requirements of the Immigration Rules. Where there is independent, reliable and credible evidence that an individual has committed human rights abuses, the individual will not normally be permitted to enter the United Kingdom.”

In response, the Committee recognised that the Government does not routinely publicise the identity of individuals denied a visa, and that it has resisted calls to make public any denial of visas in relation to Sergei Magnitsky’s death, however, the Committee recommended that the Government should, sparingly, publicise the names of those denied entry on human rights grounds as a valuable tool in drawing attention to the UK’s determination to uphold high standards of human rights.

In describing the background to the call for visa bans, the Committee report stated that Magnitsky’s case is not an isolated one, and that according to the Foreign Office between 50 and 60 people die in pre-trial detention facilities in Russia each year. It also stated that according to the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, 107,800 people were held in pre-trial detention in Russia on 1 October 2011. Delays and a lack of progress in investigating deaths of human rights activists, lawyers and journalists continue, and prominent figures who fall foul of the Russian authorities face detention for long periods on dubious grounds (Mikhail Khodorkovsky being just one example).

Other recommendations that the Committee made to the Government were that it should admit that trade priorities can contradict human rights concerns and recognise the need to be more transparent about those conflicts, and that the Committee will be looking further at the UK’s policy towards the Arab Spring through a new inquiry.