Freedom of Religion or Belief: 40th Anniversary of UN Declaration

Brendan O'Hara Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this hugely important but sadly still all too relevant debate. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds), who gave an extremely thoughtful and considered contribution to the debate, as have so many others, and I thank the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for securing it. I thank everyone who has taken part; it is good to see that the subject of freedom of religion or belief has such deep and widespread support across the House. I, too, pay tribute to everyone’s hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for all that he does on the all-party group on international freedom of religion or belief.

On this 40 days ago, 25 November 1981, the United Nations made its landmark declaration on the elimination of all forms of intolerance and of discrimination based on religion or belief. As the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) said, article 1 of that declaration states:

“Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

Article 2 confirms:

“No one shall be subject to discrimination by any State, institution, group of persons, or person on the grounds of religion or belief.”

It is thoroughly depressing to think that in the intervening four decades, the world appears to have gone backwards on ensuring freedom of religion or belief across great swathes of the planet. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) said, all one has to do is look at the Open Doors watch list for 2021 to see that practising one’s Christian faith or expressing a deeply held Christian belief could come at the cost of one’s life.

Of course, religious persecution is not exclusively against Christians—indeed, far from it, and I sincerely thank my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Ms Qaisar) for reminding us that these problems exist very much on our doorstep. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) for highlighting the appalling ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, which, as he said, has been described as

“the most egregious violations of human rights in recent memory”.

I also thank him for raising the treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. That should remind us all that people of all faiths and none are facing persecution and that they all deserve equal protection from those who would seek to do them harm for practising their faith or expressing their belief.

Sadly, the evidence in front of our eyes and ears tells us that right now, across the world, there are hundreds of millions of people living in fear of persecution simply because of the convictions they hold or the faith that they profess. We have heard from Members that there is no typical model for how that manifests itself. It can come in the form of direct state suppression—a heavy-handed state crackdown, as we would recognise in China or North Korea. As we have seen in Myanmar, it can come through state-sponsored terrorism.

Persecution can also manifest in the form of discriminatory laws that favour one group ahead of another, as we are currently seeing in India and Pakistan. Of course, persecution can come in the form of organisations such as Daesh, who set out to eradicate the Yazidi people by murdering men and boys and condemning women to a life of sexual slavery—a despicable and heinous tactic that is now being used in Africa by organisations such as Boko Haram and ISWAP. But wherever it comes from and however it manifests itself, we as individuals, as groups and as Governments have to call it out. We have to be seen to be doing everything we possibly can to stop it. It is incumbent on all Governments to take whatever action they can.

It is fitting that we are having this debate on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Yesterday, to mark Red Wednesday, the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need published a report, “Hear Her Cries: The kidnapping, forced conversion and sexual victimisation of Christian women and girls”. It is a harrowing read, but essential for anyone who wants to understand the day-to-day reality facing too many of our Christian sisters around the world.

“Hear Her Cries” comes in response to the Bishop of Truro’s 2019 independent review, particularly its recommendation 5, which set out the need for further research on how issues of freedom of religion or belief intersect with basic human rights issues such as people trafficking, gender equality, gender-based violence, kidnapping, forced conversion and the forced marriage of young women and girls. On that point, I think that it is appropriate to mention the case of Leah Sharibu, who has been held captive by Boko Haram in Nigeria since February 2018. I urge the Government to do everything they possibly can to help to secure Leah’s release.

One of the main findings in Aid to the Church in Need’s 2021 report on religious freedom in the world is that crimes against women and girls, including abduction and rape, are happening in a growing number of countries. However, we have to accept that even that reported increase is the tip of the iceberg: the abduction, rape, forced conversion and marriage of young, mainly Christian girls remain chronically under-reported, as the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said. That was recognised by the Nigerian Government, who admitted that last year’s officially recorded figure of 210 cases of conflict-related sexual violence did not reflect the reality of the situation on the ground.

Similarly, one report said that 1,000 Christian and Hindu girls were victims of abduction, rape, torture and forced conversion across the whole of Pakistan last year, while another equally important report said that the same figure represented just one province in Pakistan. It really should not come as a great surprise that these awful crimes are chronically under-reported. The United Nations recognises that in Nigeria, as elsewhere in the world, the under-reporting is due to people’s fear of being stigmatised within their community and their fear of bringing shame on themselves or their family.

In 2019, the charity International Alert reported that when many of the thousands of women and girls who escaped from Boko Haram managed to return home, they faced rejection, marginalisation and stigmatisation from their friends, their family and the wider community. In Iraq, Archbishop Semaan of the Syriac Catholic Church recognised the same problem among women and girls from minority faith communities who had been abducted by Daesh, saying that they will not talk about it because they are ashamed. As wrong as that is, it is the sad reality.

Those who do have the courage to speak up are all too often met with indifference or open hostility from the authorities. We have seen too many examples of the judiciary siding with the perpetrator and sometimes sending very young girls back to the home of their abductor and rapist because a court chooses to recognise a false marriage certificate. Even if they escape, report the crime and actually win the court case, those young girls and their families have to live in constant fear of reprisal from the perpetrators and their religious supporters.

That point brings me to the awful case of Maira Shahbaz, a Pakistani girl aged 14 who was kidnapped by a gang of men. She was raped, tortured and forced to marry one of her rapists before falsely claiming to have converted. Maira’s mother went to the police, but when the case came to court, Maira was sent back to the man who had raped her. She escaped and they are now living in hiding, while the men who raped her go door to door hunting for them. They are understandably terrified. She has effectively swapped one form of imprisonment for another. In the foreword to “Hear Her Cries”, Maira asks, on behalf of thousands of girls:

“Who will help us? Who will speak up for us? Who cares about our situation?”

I know that the hon. Member for Congleton and others have lobbied the UK Government, and I hope and pray that the UK Government will be able to step in. They are aware of Maira’s situation because of these interventions. In response to a letter that I wrote in September, the Home Secretary said that her officials were “exploring all possible options”. I should be hugely grateful if, when he replies to the debate, the Minister could update the House on the progress of the application for asylum for Maira and her family.