Extract from
Commons statement on Brunei
The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark
Field): I think I should put the issue in context.
This is not in any way to justify what is happening specifically in
relation to Brunei, but it is worth recognising that 30
Commonwealth member states have the death penalty, four have
imposed a full or partial moratorium and 19 have abolished it.
Obviously, we are working on trying to increase that number. There
are 35 member states that still criminalise consensual same-sex
relations, primarily as a result of colonial-era legislation, which
does not apply in relation to Brunei, obviously. Since CHOGM 2018,
two Commonwealth member states have decriminalised same-sex
relationships, namely India and Trinidad and Tobago, which
together account for well over 1 billion people. Two member states
are able, in principle at least, to impose the death penalty for
same-sex relationships. Brunei and some 12 states in the north of
Nigeria have adopted elements of sharia law through a component of
their legal system. That does not mean, of course, that the death
penalty will necessarily be enacted...
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Extract from
Westminster Hall Select Committee statement from the Digital,
Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Sub-Committee on
Disinformation
(Folkestone and Hythe)
(Con):...Elsewhere in the world, encrypted channels are
increasingly becoming the principal mechanism for sharing
information in election campaigns, particularly WhatsApp
in India and Brazil. In any country that
has a smartphone-connected electorate—as so many countries now do
—sharing of political information through encrypted media will be
an increasingly big problem. In our report, we tried to address
many of the issues that exist today, and there are things that we
can get on and deal with now. However, we may look back in five
years’ time and say that, even having done all those things, the
challenge of responding to disinformation being spread through
encrypted media is one we still have to crack. We cannot leave that
challenge to the tech companies on their own; we cannot leave it to
them to solve that problem for us. We need to establish a clear
legal framework, whereby it is clear what duty of care and
responsibility tech companies have to ensure that their technology
is not abused by people who seek to do others harm...
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Extract
from Westminster Hall Select Committee statement from the
Foreign Affairs Committee on China and the Rules-based
International System
(Tonbridge and Malling)
(Con):...I will say that the UN law of the sea, which
guarantees freedom of navigation in all parts of the world, is an
extremely important underpinning of world trade. It is extremely
concerning that nations are restricted in transiting through
international waters, because that can have severe repercussions
on not just our own community and trade but those of very
important allies such as India and Japan, which share our
interest in free trade. We therefore need to be very supportive
of democratic states in the area, whose economic lives will—I
hope—be increasingly linked to our own...
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