Andrew Mitchell, Minister of State for Development and Africa, responds to a Westminster Hall debate on the persecution of Christians and freedom of religion or belief.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Maria. I should tell you that in the 35 years I have been in this House and in my three stints in Government, this is only the second time I have responded to a debate in this Chamber—but it is the second time in two days. It is a bit like buses: I wait for 35 years and then two come along almost immediately.
I am in effect standing in for Lord Ahmad—it is obvious why—who, as a number of people said, is the Minister who has considerable knowledge of this issue and worked extremely hard on it. He will read our debate with the greatest possible interest.
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing the debate and I commend him for his long-standing commitment to freedom of religion or belief for all. His speech today was littered with the wisdom and authority that he commands in the House. He is much respected across the House for what he has to say. He ended his remarks by looking at the Gospel according to St Matthew, and our debate was enriched by that contribution.
I also thank the all-party parliamentary group on international freedom of religion or belief, which continues to raise awareness of this human right among parliamentarians and the public alike. The shared passion across the House to protect freedom of religion or belief is clear, warranted and to be warmly welcomed. I will try to respond to the various points that have been made during the debate and to highlight the UK action in respect of that.
I will come to the comments of the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) later in my remarks, but I thought he spoke for the entire House today. He praised my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce)—he did not quite offer her a job, but he nearly did—and saluted her ecumenical approach politically. The whole House will agree with that. He urged us to use our diplomatic influence to stop persecution—we most certainly are, and will—and on his point about Colombia, one of the other Foreign Office Ministers will shortly be there to amplify and emphasise the cross-party approach that we are taking.
It is fitting that this debate falls just ahead of Red Wednesday, a day to stand in solidarity with persecuted Christians. The Foreign Office will demonstrate our support by lighting our building in red. We have noted the report from Aid to the Church in Need, released yesterday, and we will study its findings closely.
I pay particular tribute to Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for his work standing up for persecuted minorities and on development. He speaks with unique authority about our moral duty to the poorest and least well-off. In the same spirit as the hon. Member for Leeds North East, I express my admiration and praise for the faith communities across Birmingham who work so impressively together and to great effect and success. The royal town of Sutton Coldfield makes an enormously constructive contribution to such important issues. In the royal town, we have the Bishop of Aston, who makes a great contribution and resides in my constituency.
Like this House, the Government believe that violence against any person because of their religion or belief is wholly unacceptable. Although this debate particularly highlights the plight of persecuted Christians, we do not forget or in any way diminish the experience of those persecuted for holding other religions, beliefs or no religious beliefs at all. The Government are committed to championing freedom of religion or belief for everyone—something enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights and in our own organisational values. My noble Friend Lord Ahmad, the Minister responsible for human rights, continues to work closely with the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, to deliver precisely on that commitment.
We demonstrated the depth of our commitment this summer by hosting an international ministerial conference that brought together more than 800 faith and belief leaders and human rights actors and 100 Government delegations to agree action to promote and protect these fundamental rights. As a result of the conference, 47 Governments, international organisations and other entities made pledges to take action in support of freedom of religion or belief.
In addition, we are pursuing three broad strands to advance freedom of religion or belief and tackle the associated human rights concerns: first, working through multilateral bodies; secondly, working with states directly to encourage and support them to uphold their human rights obligations; and thirdly, through our continuing work to implement the recommendations of the Bishop of Truro’s 2019 review.
On multilateral action—the first strand—we work with organisations such as the United Nations, Council of Europe, G7 and the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance to promote and protect freedom of religion or belief. Again, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton for her dedicated work as the UK representative and chair of the alliance. Under her leadership, participation has grown to 42 countries. I welcome the joint statements recently issued by the alliance on concerns related to Ahmadi Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baha’is, Ukraine, Nicaragua and Nigeria—on which I will say more in a minute, if time permits.
In September, my noble Friend Lord Ahmad spoke at the United Nations and urged the international community to call out Iran for systematically targeting members of minority communities, to press Afghanistan to protect minorities targeted for their beliefs, to challenge the discriminatory provisions in Myanmar’s citizenship laws and to hold China to account for its egregious human rights violations in Xinjiang.
In our bilateral work, we regularly raise specific issues with other Governments, both in public and in private, where that may result in better outcomes. My noble Friend Lord Ahmad met Pakistan’s Minister for Human Rights in October to raise the persecution of minorities, including the forced conversion of young Christian and Hindu girls. In Iraq, religious and ethnic minority populations have significantly declined since 2003 due to exclusion, sectarianism and conflict. Many of these minority communities continue to face extreme challenges in 2022. We regularly raise the need to protect ethnic and religious minorities with the Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government—most recently in July 2022, again, by my noble Friend Lord Ahmad with the Kurdistan Regional Government Minister for Religious Affairs.
I am also grateful to those who have raised the issue of Nigeria, where both Christians and Muslims have suffered devastating harm at the hands of violent extremist groups, and separately as a result of intercommunal violence and criminality. We remain committed to supporting peacebuilding initiatives across Nigeria to address the root causes of violence, protect human rights and promote dialogue and respect between different ethnic and religious communities.
Finally, the Bishop of Truro’s review set out the gravity of the issue of Christian persecution, along with practical recommendations for an enhanced Government response to the plight of persecuted Christians and people persecuted for holding other religions, beliefs or no religious belief at all. We welcome the findings of the independent review of our work to take forward the recommendations. That assessment earlier this year concluded that the majority of the recommendations are either at an advanced stage of delivery or in the process of being delivered, while noting that more can always be done.
We will continue to ensure that the changes we have made are embedded, and we will look for opportunities to ensure that freedom of religion or belief is central to wider human rights work. To provide a few examples, we have sent a clear message through our global human rights sanctions regime that the international community will not turn a blind eye to serious and systematic violations of human rights. In December 2021, we sanctioned Furqan Bangalzai for his role in orchestrating the 2017 bombing of a Sufi shrine in Pakistan, which killed over 70 people. In March 2021, Lord Ahmad hosted a meeting at the UN Security Council to raise awareness of persecution of religious minorities in conflict zones. Religion for international engagement training is now available to all civil servants to enhance their understanding of the role of religion and belief in a wide variety of contexts, in order to deliver the UK’s international objectives more effectively.
I now turn to some of the specific contributions, starting with my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton. She does so much good work and speaks so eloquently, as she demonstrated so well today. Across our country, many people in the faith communities will be grateful to her for her leadership. She is going to send information on Nigeria and share it with Lord Ahmad. Of course, it will be a pleasure to have the meeting that she requested. I will look carefully and write if I miss any of her other points. In particular, she raised the issue of the attack on St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo state. I want her to know that we condemn that horrific attack and we extend our sympathies to all those affected. We condemn attacks on places of worship. Everybody should be free to practise their religion or belief without fear.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) spoke about a number of organisations that do so much to help. I want to echo his thanks to them. He also raised Iran, whose human rights record continues to be of serious concern to the UK; the Foreign Office has designated it as one of its human rights priority countries. The continued use of the death penalty, weak rule of law and restrictions on freedom of expression and religion or belief are deeply worrying.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) spoke with his great experience, but lugubriously. He asked us to use our influence to greater effect in Nigeria. I will be going there before long, and I will raise directly the points that he made. He also raised the issue of Nicaragua, as did the hon. Member for Leeds North East. Reports of harassment and detention of members of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua are of enormous concern. Freedom of religion or belief is a universal human right, and we have made it clear there that they must be protected.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough also raised the Aid to the Church in Need petition to grant Maira Shahbaz asylum. I am very conscious of that case. I know my right hon. Friend will accept that I must be careful when commenting in public on individual cases where individuals’ or their families’ lives could be put at risk, but I want him to know that I am deeply conscious of his point.
My right hon. Friend also raised a point about Cardinal Zen. We will certainly continue to make representations. We are closely following the cases of pro-democracy figures who face charges in Hong Kong, including Cardinal Zen. Officials from the British consulate general in Hong Kong attend local court hearings related to a number of rights and freedoms issues and will continue to do so. The hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) addressed in forthright terms the evil of persecution and the various ways in which that evil is pursued and delivered. She spoke about Open Doors, for which we are extremely grateful.
To conclude, as a long-standing champion of human rights and freedoms, the United Kingdom has not only a duty but a deep desire to promote and defend our values of equality, inclusion and respect at home and abroad. I assure Members here today that the Government will do just that. We will continue to raise awareness of all persecution and we will defend the right to freedom of religion or belief for everyone, everywhere.