Persecution of Christians: Role of UK Embassies

Caroline Spelman Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

We are honoured to have the right hon. Gentleman here. He brings his years of wisdom and knowledge to the debate. His words are exactly what we need, and I thank him for them.

Turning back to China—in my Ulster Scots accent, some of the words and names will never sound like Chinese—Pastor Zhang Shaojie was sentenced to 12 years in prison for fraud and for gathering a crowd to disturb public order. He was detained without formal documentation on November 2013, along with 20 other members of the Nanle county Christian church. Church members, lawyers and Christians visiting the family of the detained Protestant pastor were beaten, harassed and detained by hired thugs, police and Government agencies. In December 2013, there were significant questions about the fairness of his trial. Reports from the pastor’s daughter are that he is on the verge of death after suffering various forms of torture while serving his 12-year sentence.

In Burma, following hundreds—probably thousands—of allegations and the co-ordinated documentation by Rohingya groups of mass killings, mass rapes and the destruction of whole villages, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights sent a team to interview Rohingya refugees who had recently fled to Bangladesh. Some 70,000 had fled. Based on more than 200 interviews, which is a substantial evidential base, OHCHR issued a damning flash report on February 3, complete with harrowing tales of the burning alive of elderly Rohingya men and the slitting of children’s throats— unspeakable wickedness. The UN estimates that Burmese authorities may have killed as many as 1,000 Rohingya men in recent violence alone.

The Conservatives’ 2017 manifesto declared that they would

“expand…global efforts to combat…violence against people because of their faith”.

In the recent Shrove Tuesday, Easter and Finsbury Park mosque attack statements, our Prime Minister said that we must take measures

“to stand up for the freedom of people of all religions to practice their beliefs openly and in peace and safety.”

With that in mind, I look to the Minister, with whom I spoke beforehand. I wish him well in his new position. I know that he knows the issues well, and I have no doubt that his response will be exactly what we in this Chamber want to hear. I am anticipating a good response; I believe and know from our conversations that that is how the Minister’s mind works and his heart thinks. I would be grateful if he clarified what the measures will be, and I offer the APPG’s assistance in taking them further. We are here to enable Government to take such things forward. We had a meeting last week in which we had the opportunity to hear from Government officials about how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development and other bodies work together. In his intervention, the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) mentioned the Defence Committee. I think there is a role for that Committee on where we go and how we can collectively work together better.

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

At that excellent meeting with the Minister, it was important that the Members present stressed the need to take a cross-departmental approach and to explain to the British public why using taxpayer funds to tackle things such as the persecution of religious minorities abroad is important for security back home.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her intervention, and for her contribution to the meeting we had with the Minister. I think all of us at that meeting were focused on how we could do better.

I come to what I hope the Minister and his Department will be able to do. Will he ensure that displaced communities in Iraq and Syria are able to return home safely? I think that would be an aspiration of us all, but how will that happen? I am ever mindful that the Minister has just taken up his role, but knowing his history and past comments, I am sure he will be able to respond.

In the light of the above cases, we ask Her Majesty’s Government to ensure that UK embassies are resourced to have a human rights focus incorporated in the work of the embassy and, specifically, to report and monitor on freedom of religion or belief. That is one issue we spoke about last week. In his response, the Minister indicated a willingness to make that happen; for it to happen, we look to the Minister for those resources. We need the people in those places to have the necessary training. If done properly, that will allow UK embassies to assess the appropriate time to intervene on issues of persecution, before they escalate too much, and will also allow embassies to assess the appropriate means of raising cases.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office toolkit on freedom of religion or belief has been sent to all FCO country desk officers and embassies to help in situations of persecution. The toolkit explains what to look out for in potential cases of persecution, providing a list of questions to check against. It provides guidelines on what can be done to ameliorate the situation. The toolkit outlines the methodology of response, but we ask the Government to ensure that embassies are asked what they are doing to use and implement the toolkit. It is all very well to have it in the armoury, but if it is not used or used incorrectly, we will fail to move forward in the way we should.

Embassies are due to take a lead in determining projects for the human rights and democracy fund. In his intervention, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) referred to human rights. The embassies have the opportunity to address that now, and we need to be using the toolkit regularly where it is possible, necessary and applicable. The hon. Gentleman is right, and I support that wholeheartedly. Considerable consultation should be taken up with civil society and faith-based actors on this matter. That is a way forward.

Ensuring that FCO and DFID partners and projects do not discriminate based on religion or belief is crucial. We need the mindset in the FCO, DFID, Defence—in Government policy singularly and collectively—to ensure that discrimination based on religion or belief does not take place. That means ensuring that the UK is not supporting any programme that provides humanitarian or other support to one group of people based on their beliefs, while withdrawing it from another.

When I first came to this House in 2010, there was a statement about the floods in Pakistan. I was aware from my own church, the Baptist church, that some of the people who were Baptists in Pakistan were not receiving the humanitarian aid that they should have received. It was discussed in our church the Sunday just before that, and it was coincidental that there was a statement. It was clear to me then that some of the authorities in Pakistan were withholding humanitarian aid from Christians. I want to see that stopped, and I believe the Minister will be able to respond on that.

In a world where nearly 85% of people globally adhere to a religion, if the FCO and DFID are to meet their commitments to promote peaceful, inclusive societies—that has to be the goal—they will need to engage with religious actors and communities, and support initiatives that build respect and trust between people of different faiths. The APPG on freedom of religious belief is there for those with Christian beliefs, with other beliefs and for those with no beliefs. We need to make sure that that is our focus. It is exactly such initiatives, led by local civil society groups, that embassies need to ensure are financially supported and provided with space to operate. Such programmes are crucial for breaking down tension between different religious groups, promoting understanding between people and reducing the drive and desire to persecute Christians and people of other beliefs.

We hear about what happens to the Baha’is in Iran and Iraq, to the Shi’ites in Pakistan and to those of other religions in Indonesia. We hear about what happens in the middle east—my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) and I were talking before the debate about how Egyptian Coptic Christians are treated—and to those in Algeria, Morocco and many other places across the world, such as south and central America. In all those places, our focus has to be on having a society in which people understand, appreciate and accept that others may have a religion that is different from the one they hold to, and that they must have access to education, healthcare and support for their children, and the opportunity have a business.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Hanson, for calling me because I omitted to put in to speak last night, for which I apologise. It was an oversight, but one that I should not have committed.

An interesting cross-section of Members of Parliament is in attendance to support my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) who, as chair of the all-party group on international freedom of religion or belief, had the foresight to call for this debate. We welcome to the Chamber new Members who are showing their concern for the persecuted, and returning Members who we know through their faith will take a stand for the persecuted. As my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) so eloquently put it, we are all here to show our solidarity, and that is the important point. Some Members may not even speak, but we are numerous and we wish the persecuted out there to know that.

I will focus briefly on the role of the Foreign Office and embassies. Thanks to the foresight of my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford, we were lucky enough to have Lord Ahmad speak to the all-party group. He underlined the fact that freedom of religious belief is a priority for the Foreign Office, but in welcoming my right hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mark Field) to his new role as Minister for Asia and the Pacific, I want to inquisition him about what that means in practice.

We are delighted that the Foreign Office has reissued its toolkit and that there are guidelines for every embassy around the world about what they should be doing to make freedom of religious belief a priority. We want to be absolutely sure, however, that that book of guidelines does not sit on the shelf gathering dust. I urge the Minister to give us answers in the debate, if he can, so I am interested to know what percentage of the discretionary funds that embassies have to spend on local projects is in fact spent on projects to support the freedom of religious belief. I want to know whether, in practice, the Foreign Office thinks in such terms, when some countries—16 in particular, as my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford said—are seeing a rise in the persecution of Christians.

The background is one of increasing persecution of Christians in parts of the world where we are significant donors of aid. How recently has the Foreign Office had a systematic review of its human rights interventions to assist persecuted Christians? We may not get the answer in the debate, but perhaps it will be possible to give interested Members some hard evidence of freedom of religious belief being made a priority.

I will finish by focusing on a test case. On behalf of the Church of England, of which I am the Second Church Estates Commissioner, may I ask where the Foreign Office is taking bilateral decisive action? We are looking closely at a recent case that occurred on 10 June in Pakistan, which is the second largest recipient of our overseas aid. The Pakistani anti-terrorism court convicted Taimoor Raza of committing blasphemy on Facebook and he has been given the death penalty. It is the first time that someone has been charged under article 295C of Pakistan’s penal code, which makes blasphemy on social media an offence. I cannot help but contrast that with restrictions that are not in place in other parts of the world, including at home—not that I wish anyone to go that far, but I would like to see some better policing of social media.

The Church of England will be paying close attention to that case. The Bishop of Coventry has tabled a series of written questions to highlight it. I, too, have a request, although it may be one that needs to be left pending, because it needs time for a response—we would all like to see what, in practice, it means to make freedom of religious belief a priority.