Briefing by Ambassador Jonathan Allen, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, at the Security Council briefing on the Security Council visit to Colombia

Thank you very much, Mr President. Let me continue where you left off with Day Two of the visit to the Security Council.

So on the 13th of July, the Council traveled to Caldono in Cauca, an area just been highly affected by conflict over the last five or more decades. Our first meeting there was with community leaders from Caldono and the surrounding region. Those leaders represented diverse stakeholders, including local indigenous authorities and civil guards, women’s groups, Afro-Colombian groups, human rights defenders, cooperatives of rural workers and the Church. These stakeholders expressed their concerns regarding several challenges which were hindering their work: a lack of channel for democratic participation at the local level; slow pace of implementation of the transitional justice and crop substitution aspects of the peace agreement; polarization of the national political discourse; and killings and threats against community leaders and human rights defenders. And on this last point, I’d like to note with concern that one woman community leader decided not to attend the meeting with the Security Council due to threats that she had received the night before. And I think all of us would hope that no further threats are made against her or against her colleagues who were able to attend the meeting with us.

This meeting was an important opportunity for Council members to hear firsthand from those whose daily work focuses on building peace at the local level in Colombia. The discussion with them brought to life many of the challenges outlined in the Secretary-General’s report. We commend their ongoing commitment to their work.

From Caldona, the Council travelled to the Santa Rosa territorial area for training and reincorporation, where we met government representatives, including Foreign Minister Holmes Trujillo, who we see here today, and Presidential Adviser Archilla, local authorities and ex-combatant residents. We also toured a productive project where ex-combatants and community members were growing tree tomatoes for sale in local and external markets. And we heard about other such projects. In meeting, our open meeting, the government representatives outlined the efforts the government has been taking to roll out the development plan with a territorial focus in Cauca in concert with local indigenous authorities. We also heard about government-led reintegration programmes in the surrounding area.

Regional and local government representatives reaffirmed their commitment to peace. Local indigenous authorities called on the national government to accelerate implementation of the peace agreement and expressed their concern about the killings of community leaders and overall insecurity in the region. FARC leaders and former combatants called for the consolidation of peace, the acceleration of implementation of the peace agreement and increased efforts to ensure political reintegration – especially ahead of local elections in October – alongside an increased state presence in areas previously occupied by the FARC-EP, where other illegal armed groups now threatened to increase their activity.

The visit to the tree tomato productive project allowed the Council to see how agriculture plays a central role in the reintegration of former combatants and to hear from them about their collective efforts and commitment to reintegrate into civilian life. The former combatants were proud of the results their project has shown over the six months since it began and were now looking to expand past the local market and sell directly to national and international supermarkets and distribution channels. Members of the Security Council showed their appreciation for the quality of the tree tomato product in their personal consumption, and without wishing to name names, I would simply suggest to those stakeholders that if they are looking for an external export market, they might start with Russia. This visit to the field was an important complement to our day in Bogota, and we are grateful to the verification mission, the government, the FARC, the former combatants, the community leaders and all other stakeholders who were involved in the organisation of the visit and the discussions we held. And we welcome very much the commitment of all whom we met to building and sustaining peace in Colombia.

Thank you, Mr President.

Statement by Ambassador Jonathan Allen, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, at the Security Council briefing on the Security Council visit to Colombia

Thank you, Mr President and for the second time tday, welcome.

We have just spoken in the previous session about our visit, but I think it was truly invaluable for all of us to see for ourselves the situation. And I believe, we have all returned with stronger understanding as a result. And lastly, may I thank Carlos Ruiz Massieu for his briefing to the Council and through him to his colleagues on the ground and all the hard work they are doing.

We share the Secretary-General’s report’s assessment that now is a critical moment for the peace process in Colombia, because almost three years on Mr President, the Colombian Peace Accords continue to set a positive example to the rest of the world. And in that light, we welcome the commitment of President Duque and his government to the peace process, which he reaffirmed, and members of his government reaffirmed, repeatedly during the Security Council’s visit last week. We particularly welcomed President Duque’s request in consultation with FARC members that the Security Council should extend the United Nations Verification Mission’s mandate by one year. We look forward to giving this request due consideration with our Council colleagues in the coming months.

We are pleased to see that the Truth Commission, the Commission for the Disappeared, and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace have all started their work. And we also welcome the government’s efforts to clearly set out a plan for ending threats and attacks against community leaders, social leaders and human rights defenders.

So Mr President, we will continue to work with the Colombian Government as it builds on these successes to ensure a lasting peace in the country. And we see three key areas of focus for this work:

First, it is clearly crucial that rural reform efforts be accelerated as this is one of the interlocking sets of commitments of the Peace Agreement. This goes hand in hand with rural development. The Government has drawn up many promising plans for development over the past year and has approved a number of projects. But the Government itself says that the time has now come for concrete action. And while we recognize the significant political hurdles the Governments faces, we fully support President Duque’s efforts to build consensus. We hope that progress on the Development Plans with a Territorial Focus, land ownership and registration processes, and crop substitution initiatives can help Colombia build confidence in its commitment to peace. Now, we know it will not happen overnight, but we know too, that the government is committed to results soon, which we think is essential for the ongoing peace process implementation.

Secondly, the Colombian government should give full political and financial support to the institutions which work for peace. We welcome the signing of the law governing the Special Jurisdiction for Peace as well as the beginning of work by the Commissions for Truth and the Disappeared. I think it’s fair to say, Mr President, we had an inspiring meeting with representatives of those three bodies. They face a huge task, but they are hugely impressive people. But to inspire confidence among the Colombian people, these institutions must be well resourced and given public support by the Government.

Thirdly, the intimidation and killing of social leaders, community leaders, and human rights defenders continues to damage confidence in the perceived commitment of the government to the Peace Agreement. Now, I think we all recognise the difficulties and complexities after our visit in particular seen situation on the ground. But we believe the Colombian government must continue its efforts to enforce the rule of law in rural areas, to prevent attacks against community leaders, and bring those responsible to justice. In many regions of Colombia, insecurity is increasing the risk that citizens might lose faith in the state’s ability to provide safety. The risk is not only to this, but to future peace processes.

Let me take this opportunity again to commend our SRSG and the Verification Mission for their valuable work, where they have a crucial role in supporting the government in its work to build a lasting and sustaining peace. And again, let me welcome the Government’s plans, activities, commitment, and achievements to date.

Mr President, we said many times on our visit how important it is that there is an inclusive Colombian peace process supported by all sections of Colombian society. The Colombian peace process is a bright spot on this Council’s agenda and a shining example to the world. And I thank all Colombians for their determination to ensure a sustained peace.

Thank you, Mr President

Thank you. Good afternoon. It’s an honour to be amongst such a distinguished group of world leaders all committed to the freedom of religion or belief. And may I say I’m grateful to the United States for bringing us together but particularly to Secretary Pompeo and to you Ambassador Brownback.

Sam, if I may. Your partnership, your friendship is of incredible value and we look forward to strengthening that further. Your Excellencies it is said in the innocence of a child we find our most profound profound answers. My little boy Mansoor who is studying at a Jesuit Catholic school asked me recently, “Daddy, what kind of Muslim am I?”

I, being a politician, turned it around and asked Mansoor, “What kind of Muslim do you think you are?”

He paused for a moment and with a great poignancy, he said “Daddy, a Christian Muslim?”

Freedom of religion or belief has long been at the heart of UK foreign policy and diplomacy. That innocent remark of my own son demonstrates the strength of the country that I am proud to represent, the strength of building relationships between communities of all faiths.

In Sudan this year, we hosted a Religious Freedom Conference in January. I am grateful to both our colleagues and friends from the United States and Canada which ensured that we saw the Hatoun term government drop restrictions on the opening of Christian schools.

We have also seen progress in Algeria over the past year. Our ambassador has hosted meetings between Christians and Muslim leaders and the space, the religious space for Christians and indeed Ahmadi Muslims has become slightly better, but more needs to be done.

Whilst we take pride in our achievements there is so much more that needs to be done, if real change is to be affected and that is why our foreign secretary commissioned an independent review of the situation of persecuted Christians and I am pleased to announce today that we have fully accepted the review’s ambitious recommendations in full.

These include making religious literacy compulsory for all our relevant diplomats a personal priority for me. We will also work with parties to agree a Security Council resolution calling on governments in the Middle East and North Africa to ensure the protection and security of Christians and all faith minorities.

In conclusion, your Excellencies, as champions of freedom of religion or belief, all of us here recognise that it is a right that should be enjoyed by everyone everywhere.

Now is the time to be the voice to the voiceless millions of persecuted religious minority. Now is the moment, right here, right now, for our collective commitment to build that world free of religious bigotry and hate.

Now is the time to act. For our biggest challenge, your Excellencies is not when we stand up for our own rights and beliefs. The real test is when we stand up for the rights and beliefs of others.

Thank you.

Thank you Madam President. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

The United Kingdom aligns itself with the statement by the European Union and its Member States.

Urgent action is needed to accelerate delivery towards the Sustainable Development Goals. This year, the UK was glad to join other Member States in presenting our first Voluntary National Review. We remain committed to accelerating progress, with a focus on leaving no-one behind.

We are facing a climate emergency. This risks undoing development gains made in recent decades and could push an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030. September’s Climate Action Summit is a pivotal moment for urgent action on cutting emissions, building resilience and mobilising finance. The UK is delighted to champion resilience and adaption with Egypt and partner countries.

We are leading efforts to adapt and better cope with climate shocks. The UK has committed to align its Official Development Assistance with the Paris Agreement and is the first G20 economy to legislate for a domestic net zero emissions target by 2050. Internationally, we are on track to deliver our commitment to provide at least $7.3 billion to help countries mitigate impacts of climate change and pursue clean economic growth. We look forward to working closely with the Secretary-General to deliver transformative outcomes at the Climate Summit and beyond.

Financing is another challenge. The UK is proud to spend the 0.7% target of GNI on official development assistance, but with an annual investment gap of $2.5 trillion in developing countries, official development assistance alone is insufficient. For example, as a leading donor to regional preparedness for Ebola, we recognise that finance is urgently needed to further support preparedness in countries at risk of infectious diseases and to protect global health.

The UK’s Voluntary National Review has reinforced the importance of partnerships. For example, we are focusing on mobilising private investment, and ‘impact investing’, by building the evidence base for public demand for sustainable investing at home. We want the international community to commit to a common framework for measuring impact, which will help unlock more impact investing capital to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

At this High Level Political Forum, the UK has sought to highlight peace, justice and strong institutions – all vital to achieving Agenda 2030. Concerted action and a whole-of-society approach are more important than ever to deliver Goal 16. Closing civic space and restrictions on media freedom are significantly undermining efforts. Last week, the UK conference on media freedom announced up to $19 million to pioneer bold approaches to keep media outlets independent.

Equality, including on gender, remains a priority for the UK. We must ensure global commitments are translated into real change on the ground. Inclusive growth to the benefit of all of society, including people with disabilities, must be prioritised. Our commitment to the Inclusive Data Charter highlights our determination to ensure that everybody is counted so that they have a fair opportunity in life.

Finally, the UK encourages Member States to commit to raising global ambition across all of the Goals, at the first SDG Summit in September.

Thank you very much.

Good morning everyone. My name is Sara Khan and I am the Lead Commissioner at the Commission for Countering Extremism.

It’s great to be here – with a room full of people all committed to challenging extremism.

I’m honoured to be introducing the Home Secretary.

Today is one of the first major public interventions by government since the Counter Extremism Strategy was launched in 2015.

As the Commission’s work has shown – and you all know this – we face very different challenges in 2019.

For the last 18 months, I’ve been discussing extremism…

With communities impacted by it; those working to challenge it and those who are sceptical of the agenda.

I’ve been sharing what I’ve heard with the government ahead of our report of my conclusions and recommendations due out in September.

I’m therefore looking forward to the Home Secretary starting to map out a refreshed direction for countering extremism.

If I’ve learnt one thing from my work over the last 18 months, it’s this…

When we talk about ‘extremism’ we tend focus on what we’re against.

I believe we need to start talking about what we stand for as a country and what we are defending.

Let’s celebrate that we live in a wonderfully plural, tolerant and open-minded society.

An inclusive society embodied by our incredible and diverse world cup winning cricket team.

Let’s be unashamedly patriotic, proud and positive when we’re talking about countering extremism.

But I don’t want to wait until September to share what I’ve found with you.

Today we have published academic papers on the Far Right.

Dr Chris Allen from University of Leicester, Dr Joe Mulhall from Hope Not Hate, and Dr Ben Lee from Lancaster University, have written about the modern and changing British Far Right.

From the violent and now proscribed neo-Nazi National Action to those targeting the mainstream with anti-Muslim politics, exploiting the free speech debate and distrust of the media and politicians.

Professor Hilary Pilkington and Dr Ajmal Hussain from Manchester University and experts from the Peace Foundation have brought together young men and women with Islamist and Far Right beliefs to begin a unique dialogue to help counter the extremist narrative

Finally, we have a paper from Dr Daniel Allington, Dr David Hirsh and colleagues, which uses innovative polling to explore the attitudes of the Far Left.

These are all important and powerful contributions.

Today we’re also publishing figures from our call for evidence.

We had 3,000 respondents.

Many of you here today kindly shared your views and experience.

The headline is that just over half of respondents had witnessed extremism in some way.

Of these, two fifths reported seeing it in their local area and 45% had seen it online.

That’s a shocking number and one I’m relieved government are responding to.

Our findings show extremism isn’t confined to one race, one religion or political ideology.

People are scared that violent extremists will incite or carry out an attack.

People are also deeply worried about the non-violent impact of groups exploiting local tensions to spread hate and division.

There are concerns from women, minorities within minorities and LGBT people… concerned that their right to choose how they live their life, or to talk about what is important to them, has been stripped away by repressive activists and community leaders.

There is a real worry about the intolerance, abuse and polarisation in our public debate and how this is linked to extremism.

The voices of victims of extremism have been missing from traditional counter extremism policy.

I believe we can, and must, do more to address the concerns we have heard.

In 2019 the threat is broad, it’s severe and we need to keep up.

Yet we must guard our right to debate and speak our minds.

Our right to be radical.

We are free to protest, to speak truth to power and to be offensive.

This is our amazing – and at times infuriating – democracy.

Making sure it stays that way, is for me, the vital role of counter extremism.

We shouldn’t lazily throw around the word ‘extremism’. We need to use it with precision and care

We need to develop proportionate, open-minded and fair responses, based on our rule of law and human rights standards.

Leadership is essential in challenging extremism.

The government’s 2015 strategy was an important milestone that laid the foundations for vital work.

But as I have made clear to the Home Secretary, there’s a real need to update the strategy to keep pace with the nature of the problems in 2019.

Yet in a democracy the state must only have a limited role in countering extremism. We must all play our different parts.

Our new figures show that people expect to see politicians, social media companies, the media, faith and civil society leaders taking on intolerance, harassment and abuse in their own backyards as well as sounding the alarm about hate from outside.

Politicians in particular – whatever party you represent – my message is you all set the standard. And once this bar slips others are emboldened.

Before I finish I want to say thank you to the members of my expert group for their ongoing advice and challenge.

And he would hate this… but I’m going to single out Lord Anderson who is standing down after a year on the group.

I am so grateful for the time he put into the Commission. Few people bring such experience and thoughtfulness to this agenda.

Impartiality is crucial to this Commission.

In the last 18 months I’ve praised the government when they’ve made good decisions and I’ve criticised them when I don’t agree with what they’d done.

I want to thank the Home Secretary for his unwavering support for my work and my approach.

But also, for his outspoken commitment to challenging extremism in all forms.

Few politicians have been as consistent and courageous in their approach.

Today he is going to start to set out plans for a new strategy.

I hope this work begins as I did today with a positive vision for the country we love…

I hope it unambiguously makes the case for our right to be radical…

And I hope it doesn’t shy away from the breadth and severity of the challenges we face and the need for a proportionate, fair and open-minded response.

It is therefore with huge pleasure that I introduce Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be among so many distinguished guests today.

When I addressed the conference yesterday I noted that global media freedom has been in decline for over a decade, and we see evidence of this daily. In the last month alone, Myanmar’s authorities blacked out the internet in Rakhine state, where the army has committed horrific abuses of Rohingyas; Sudan’s military rulers shut down the internet to silence reporting of crimes against protesters.

A journalist in Russia had drugs planted on him as revenge for his investigations. Chinese censors deleted reporting of the turmoil in Hong Kong, and Turkish prosecutors launched a criminal probe against Bloomberg reporters who Bloomberg said were reporting ‘fairly and accurately on newsworthy events’. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, a country of 200 million people, the authorities continued to literally mute TV news content they considered unfavourable and even took the video feed of the main TV news program off the air.

I spoke yesterday of one of my clients, Maria Ressa, a brave journalist and former CNN bureau chief from the Philippines who dared to criticize the actions of her President and as a result has been the victim of every kind of government-sponsored harassment and persecution. She is attacked by online trolls who insult and threaten her in the vilest terms. The authorities tried to revoke the operating license of her news site, Rappler, and applied laws retroactively to criminalise her work. And the justice department has now launched a succession of cases against her that threaten to bankrupt her and send her to prison for up to 63 years.

The current media crisis involves both the silencing of truth and the amplification of misinformation to levels we have never seen before. I believe that the way the world responds to this crisis will define our generation and determine whether democracy can survive.

So when the Foreign Secretary asked me to be the UK’s Special Envoy on Media Freedom, and to serve on a dedicated Panel of Legal Experts, I agreed.

In discussions with the Foreign Secretary, he made it clear that he wanted to establish a powerful new initiative that could create meaningful and lasting change, an initiative that should continue to operate regardless of which individual or political party was in power. He explained that the initiative would include the establishment of an independent and international panel of lawyers to advise governments on how they could better protect freedom of the press, and a Media Freedom Fund to help journalists access legal advice and training in the field.

I understood that the campaign was an opportunity for the UK and Canada to lead by example by supporting new initiatives to ensure that more robust international mechanisms would exist next time a journalist was arbitrarily arrested or attacked.

In these discussions with the UK and Canadian governments I set out my vision for the legal panel based on the issues that I think are priorities for reform:

• the institution and consistent use of sanctions regimes to impose serious financial consequences on state officials who abuse media freedom
• enhanced consular duties when a journalist is detained abroad
• a system of visas for persecuted journalists seeking asylum
• an international investigative team – including lawyers and forensics experts – that could be deployed when a journalist is attacked; and
• the promulgation of model legislation to guide states on the free-speech guarantees that must be respected under international law

The legal panel will consider these issues and publish reports about what it believes can be done to better protect journalists and media freedom around the world. I am proud to say that the Chairman of the panel is one of the most distinguished judges in the world: Lord Neuberger, the former President of this country’s Supreme Court; and he has asked me to serve as his Deputy Chair.

Together we have sought to identify the leading international experts on media freedom from a diverse group of legal backgrounds: judges, defence lawyers, academics, constitutional law experts, media specialists, and leading human rights practitioners. The panel includes:

• a former Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights
• a United States federal appeals court judge
• a former Constitutional Court judge from Colombia
• the former Attorney-General of Canada
• leading barristers from the UK
• academics from the US and Korea; and
• lawyers who are at the forefront of advocacy to promote media freedom around the world including in Russia, India, Pakistan, Uganda, South Africa and the Middle East

Today, although 173 States have ratified a United Nations treaty – the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – that guarantees freedom of speech, many countries still have laws that allow the muzzling of journalists. That includes laws criminalising defamation, blasphemy and sedition; and vague laws on espionage, terrorism, fake news, public order and hate speech that have been written or applied to silence dissent.

I am proud to see the UK taking a leading role in the effort to review such laws, and it is right for it to do so. The UK is a UN Security Council permanent member that has traditionally supported international law and institutions. Many of the problematic laws that are being used to silence journalists around the world also came from British Commonwealth rule and the UK has experience in reforming or abolishing these laws to bring its legislation in line with its modern values and international human rights norms.

The UK’s laws, for instance, used to criminalise blasphemy and over 40 countries still do, including many former colonial states. British law criminalising sedition was used in colonial India to prosecute Mahatma Gandhi and the offence is still on the books today in the world’s most populous democracy, as well as other Commonwealth states.

By the time the UK officially repealed such laws just over 10 years ago they had long ceased to be used in British courts, but many Britons were concerned about the impact such laws could have on the rest of the world. During debates about their repeal in Parliament in 2009, the Justice Minister observed that the existence of such obsolete offences in this country had been used by other countries to justify the retention of similar laws that were used to suppress political dissent and restrict press freedom.

As a member of the House of Lords observed at the time: “[i]f our Parliament takes this step, it will be an example elsewhere”. This legal reform initiative in the UK was ultimately successful after a campaign by British media organisations, civil society groups, parliamentarians, and lawyers, and it can be a model for the international effort being launched today.

I know that some of you will be sceptical about an international campaign of this nature. I myself thought long and hard about whether this was likely to have impact, or be just another conference, establishing just another committee. But as I said yesterday, I believe that this campaign is important because the international system we have in place is broken.

It is so broken that we have record levels of journalists being killed, and jailed. So broken that people like Jamal Khashoggi can be murdered on foreign soil without any coordinated investigation, open trial or effective accountability. So any new initiative that has the potential to move the needle in the right direction is worth considering.

As Eleanor Roosevelt has said: “universal human rights begin …[i]n small places, close to home…[W]ithout concerned citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world”. So I believe that each of us has a role to play.

I believe that it is the responsibility of journalists to do their job by engaging in fact-based reporting that values accuracy over speed or clicks. I believe that legislators and judges should ensure that their country’s laws comply with the international standards that their government has signed up to, and that such laws are not being abused to prosecute dissent. I believe that governments that respect press freedom should stand up to those that don’t – by imposing real world consequences on officials who abuse human rights.

For my part, I will work with my colleagues on the Legal Panel to research and produce recommendations for change. We will seek advice from civil society, academia and the legal profession where necessary and we will consult with journalists on what they think is needed to keep them safe. And, when the time is right, I will report honestly on whether States are listening.

The world is turned upside down when those who commit the worst abuses are free, while those who report on them are not. And if we don’t turn things around democracy cannot survive. The global decline in press freedom has been hastened by rhetoric from the leader of the world’s most powerful democracy and it will not be reversed without strong leadership from others.

So I thank the governments of the UK and Canada for bringing us together today; I celebrate the opportunity that this gathering represents: and I hope that we will look back on this day as the beginning of an era of change.