Universal Declaration on Human Rights: Article 18

Baroness Berridge Excerpts

Thursday 22nd October 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate. I am particularly grateful for his advisory board membership on the University of Birmingham’s recently launched Commonwealth initiative on freedom of religion or belief, which I co-direct and declare as an interest. I shall begin with a quote:

“free to practise a faith or to decide not to follow any faith at all. We are free to build our own churches, synagogues … and mosques and to worship freely”.

No, this is not from the FCO human rights report but from this week’s Home Office counterextremism strategy. In this global village, what is happening overseas may be connected to our domestic context, and the question, “Does religion influence human beings to commit violence?”, has to be tackled by Governments, not just students writing essays. The UN special rapporteur, Dr Heiner Bielefeldt, has said:

“The relevance of the issue with respect to freedom of religion or belief is obvious since violence in the name of religion is a source of many of the most extreme violations of this human right”.

The Department for Education has announced that human rights are to be added to the school curriculum in the UK. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister how freedom of religion or belief is featuring as part of that change. With this domestic background, I am sure that the Minister will be reassuring this House that a change from specific priorities to thematic values in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has not downgraded the importance of freedom of religion or belief.

It is vital that the plight of persecuted Muslim minorities around the world is not neglected. While the Foreign Secretary said on Tuesday in the other place that he does not expect the Shia Muslim Ali al-Nimr, a juvenile, to be executed, is the Minister concerned about the recent spate of killings of Shia Muslims in eastern Saudi Arabia? Although perpetrated by people linked to IS, could the Minister undertake to investigate allegations that Saudi government clerics are calling Shia Muslims infidels on TV stations such as Wesal, and specifically investigate to confirm that these stations are not being broadcast here in the UK?

The international headquarters of the Ahmadi Muslims is here in the UK. It was such a relief that last month’s suspected arson attack on the Baitul Futuh mosque in Morden took place while it was unoccupied. However, many of the claims for asylum here in the UK are from Ahmadi Muslims fleeing persecution in Pakistan. This Commonwealth country is going through much communal tension and violence, often in the name of religion. For a Commonwealth country to deny the right to vote unless Ahmadis declare that they are non-Muslim is unacceptable. I would be grateful if the Minister could look at raising this at the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta.