International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day

John Howell Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on a wide-ranging speech that covered many areas. I know colleagues will mention many countries of concern across the world; I will focus on what we can do here. Today, we are standing up in Parliament to say how important freedom of religious faith and belief is to all of us, as it is to many colleagues who are not here. It is the responsibility of this country, faith leaders and indeed individual worshippers and people of no faith to stand up, regardless of their faith, for all those around the world who are being persecuted.

I was born an Anglican and worship in a Baptist church, so I call on the leaders of those Churches and of all faith groups in this country to get up every time there is a problem with persecution—there are such problems most of the time—and say, “As a Christian, I abhor the persecution by Christians of a minority,” or, “As a Muslim, I abhor the persecution of members of other faiths—Christians, Hindus or Buddhists—by a Muslim majority country.” I would like to see that, because sometimes, I fear, we are hot on looking at the persecution of people who share our faith—it is right and important that we are—but a little less vocal when it comes to the persecution of others. The hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) mentioned the case in China that has been highlighted by the BBC. It is vital that, as Christians, we stand up for Muslims who, reports suggest, are being targeted there.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. Does he share my enthusiasm for the European Court of Human Rights? Many cases have been brought to it by many different faith groups, and it has stoutly defended their rights. After all, it was born out of the second world war, which had a significant religious element—or an anti-religious element in relation to the Jewish faith.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

My hon. Friend makes a vital point. We in this country have sometimes—especially at this time—been a bit confused about the difference between the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, so let us make it quite clear. I and everybody in this room, I am sure, would never want the United Kingdom to pull out of the ECHR or to resile from our signature to the European convention on human rights.

[John Howell]

That is a very good point. Another is that, as a member of the Council of Europe, I help to elect the judges to the ECHR, which gives that court a democratic legitimacy that no other has.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We should make the point that the United Kingdom’s participation in the ECHR right from the beginning—we signed the convention after the second world war—is absolutely fundamental to who we are as a country. We need to maintain that and to not mix it up with other discussions about Europe, as I fear has happened even in my own party in the past, although not in the future, I hope.

It is important that all faith groups stand up for one another. I want Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs and atheists to stand together and fight for the rights of persecuted minorities, rather than raising concerns only if, for example, they are Muslims and Muslims are being persecuted, Christians when it happens to Christians, or Hindus when it happens to Hindus. It is vital that we all hang together in this, or, as somebody else said, we will surely hang separately.

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[Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), not only for his excellent speech but for the tireless commitment he has shown to raising this issue in Parliament over the years.

The hon. Gentleman’s knowledge and passion were extremely helpful during our recent trip to Pakistan, where we discussed many of the issues that will be raised by hon. Members today. I was very grateful to the Pakistani people for the warm welcome we were given and for the engagement and energy that we saw in every face in every meeting every day. They have hope and faith, and they are looking to us for help. We travelled from cities to slums, from the heart of the Supreme Court to the outskirts of Islamabad, and we consistently found people who recognised the significant scale of the problems faced and who are ready and willing to tackle these challenges.

Today, just two days before International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day, is the perfect time for me to discuss some of the challenges facing Pakistan and another important nation—China. I begin with something that the hon. Gentleman mentioned: the recent BBC investigation into China’s organ transplant industry. Last week, I attended a meeting about the persecution of a group I had never heard of before: Falun Gong practitioners. To say I was shocked and appalled by what I heard would be a significant understatement. Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that was outlawed by the Chinese Government in 1999. Since then, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reports that Falun Gong practitioners have been arbitrarily detained in their thousands, being regularly confined in labour camps or disappearing altogether. As if that were not bad enough, there are widespread, consistent and credible reports that China is forcibly removing organs from those prisoners to supply the vast, expanding and lucrative organ transplant industry.

Organ harvesting. I think we all need to take a moment to let the idea of that sink in. It is 2018 and we are talking about human beings—men, women and children—being treated like cattle, killed on demand for the benefit of others, and all because they practise the wrong faith. The Chinese Government of course deny that that is happening. They acknowledge that it used to happen, but say that it has stopped. I know that all hon. Members would very much like to believe that that is true, but the evidence suggests otherwise.

I refer the Minister to the 2016 report compiled by former Canadian Cabinet Minister David Kilgour, working alongside prominent international human rights lawyer David Matas and Ethan Gutmann, an award-winning investigative journalist. Their report is a meticulous examination of the transplant programmes of hundreds of hospitals in China. It draws on media reports, official statements, medical journals and hospital websites, and analyses information such as hospital revenue, bed counts, bed utilisation rates, surgical personnel, training programmes, state funding and more. Their research indicates that the Chinese regime is performing between 60,000 and 100,000 organ transplants a year—a vast discrepancy with the official estimates of roughly 10,000 a year. Where are the organs coming from?

The alarming discrepancy with the official statistics is not the only evidence—indeed, it is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, since 2000, Chinese transplant hospitals have quoted waiting times of between days and weeks for an organ transplant—sometimes even hours. To give hon. Members some context, the average waiting time for a kidney transplant in the UK or US is two to three years, and these countries have much longer established traditions of voluntary organ donation.

That evidence, combined with testimony from Chinese medical professionals, has led to reports by major news outlets across the world, including the BBC, CNN and The New York Times. Indeed, the evidence is so persuasive that it has led numerous countries across the world to condemn the practice and to introduce legislation to prevent organ transplant tourism to China. For example, in 2016 the United States House of Representatives passed resolution 343 on forced organ harvesting in China. That resolution

“condemns the practice of state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting in the People’s Republic of China”

and

“demands an immediate end to the…persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice”.

Earlier this month, it was announced that a people’s independent tribunal on forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience would begin in London during December 2018. The tribunal will be chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, who led the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Serbia, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. I hope that hon. Members, including the Minister, will follow closely the work of the tribunal on forced organ harvesting.

The accusations are grave and difficult to believe, but does not their very gravity mean that we should do all we can to assess their validity? Should we not make absolutely sure that the claims are not true? Can we really say that we care about protecting freedom of religion or belief if we do not fully investigate such horrible reports? This Government have made very important strides against horrible practices such as modern-day slavery. Will the Minister agree to tackle this equally revolting practice? It is especially important now, as the Chinese Government seem to be expanding their persecution to Uighur Muslims. The UN has reported that 1 million Uighurs—innocent Chinese citizens; peaceful practitioners of Islam—have been detained in “re-education” camps in Xinjiang. Although I am a great believer in the importance of studying, I do not think that even I would want that kind of education. Also, The Guardian reports that millions of Uighur Muslims have been arbitrarily detained for unwanted blood, tissue and DNA tests. Why? What could possibly be the motive for that? Given the evidence mentioned earlier, one could be forgiven for concluding that it is preparatory work for including Uighurs in the forced organ transplant system. Can we really stand by and not look into this?

I shall finish my discussion of freedom of religion or belief in relation to China by quoting a passage from a report produced in 2016 by the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission:

“This is an issue that emerged in 2006 and was initially met with official scepticism. Yet…the evidence has continued to accumulate, and the issue shows no sign of fading away. The United Kingdom should address it head on. Working with others within the international community, Britain could help commission an independent investigation to examine the size of China’s organ transplant industry…the United Kingdom could enact legislation making it a criminal offence to travel to China for organs. The UK Government should raise detailed questions about organ transplant processes and facilities with the Chinese Government, specifically around how waiting times for compatible organs are so short and where organs are sourced from.”

I hope that the Minister will take those recommendations to heart.

On my recent trip to Pakistan, I was shocked to learn about the ongoing persecution of another group that I was unfamiliar with until recently—the Ahmadis. The Pakistani penal code, which the Member for Strangford mentioned, is used to prevent Ahmadi Muslims from identifying as Muslims or even using Islamic greetings, although they are Islamic people. Ahmadis are routinely arrested arbitrarily on false charges of blasphemy and have been subjected to vicious attacks in public, including acid being thrown at them. Hundreds of Ahmadis have been murdered on grounds of faith. Ahmadis are also technically prohibited from voting, because to vote they are required by the state to register as non-Muslim, which many refuse to do.

[John Howell]

I have a lot of association with the group of Muslims the hon. Lady talks about. They came to my constituency and asked whether they could hold a meeting showing that the Koran was a book of peace, rather than a book of war, because they have a great attraction to the legitimate government system within a country. It was a fantastic event. I hope that the hon. Lady will, with me, endorse their great feeling for the British system, which they showed at that meeting.

[Ms Rimmer]

I will; I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is good that the Ahmadis felt that they could come. When people who have come from a country where they were persecuted have the faith and strength to go to someone who is completely alien or slightly alien to their religion, it gives some confidence that they believe in us and this country.

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[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe. I know that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), whom I warmly congratulate on securing this debate, has a debate coming up on 27 November on the subject of armed violence against farming communities in Nigeria, most of whom are Christian. I will use the situation in Nigeria as an example of how we might approach the issue of religious freedom. Although this does not fall under my remit as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Nigeria, I do know the country and feel that I can comment in that context.

The federal and state Governments in Nigeria are prevented from adopting a state religion or discriminating in any way on religious grounds. The split between Christians and Muslims is almost exactly 50/50—there is about a 1% difference between the two. Although some 12 states follow sharia law, they do so for Muslim-to-Muslim relations, and it would be wrong to characterise an area in Nigeria as either Christian or Muslim. For example, although significant numbers of Christians live in the north, which is traditionally thought of as a Muslim area, there is no evidence of sharia courts being used for Christian activities unless they particularly want to raise a concern about a Muslim activity. Sharia law is simply for Muslim-to-Muslim activities.

Both Muslim and Christian groups in Nigeria have complained about the Government’s handling of disputes, particularly in the central band across the middle of the country where there are long-standing disputes between Christian farmers and Muslim herders involving rival claims and complaints that security forces did not intervene when farming villages were attacked by herdsmen. It is interesting to note that when farming villages were attacked by herdsmen, there was uproar in Abuja. The President was summoned to Parliament, as were service chiefs and security advisers, and they were subjected to intense pressure from parliamentarians. Equally, however, the media regularly report claims by Christians that northern leaders, backed by the Government, are trying to Islamise the whole of the country. Of course, the presence of Boko Haram is crucial to that.

Boko Haram is a terrorist organisation. It is not one that the Government can control. Although, with the help of British service personnel who are there as advisers, the Nigerian Government are trying to attack Boko Haram, Boko Haram will not be defeated by military means alone. It will be defeated by the country sharing in the wealth creation that is going on in Nigeria and by making sure it is shared at an individual level, so that people are offered something that Boko Haram cannot offer. There are already signs of success in that.

There have also been reports that Christian groups in northern states are not given building permits—I think that was raised earlier. So we have a situation where Christian communities decide they are simply going to build the churches that they want to and will wait until the Government come and bulldoze them, which they do from time to time. It has happened in various states. However, I also came across an example of a mosque in a similar situation. It was threatened with demolition because it did not have the right planning permit. This issue goes across religions, but we rarely hear about it. Unfortunately, it appears the demolition of the mosque was stopped before it went ahead, and no one quite knows why.

It is worth noting that Muslims, too, complain of a lack of freedom of religion more generally. In one case, a Muslim was denied the chance to be called to the Nigerian Bar simply because she wore a hijab. Christians also complain that it is difficult for them to be admitted into schools, especially to study medicine and engineering, and in many states it is also difficult for them to take courses in Christianity.

There are optimistic signs, however. Some good work is being done by religious leaders on both sides of the argument, including efforts to bring peace to the areas in question. Those were started as a result of the attacks between farmers and herdsmen, particularly after 300 farmers were killed by raiding herdsmen. The violence is related to religious differences, but we should not pretend that all the violence in Nigeria is the result simply of religious differences. Economic and social factors are involved as well.

[Fiona Bruce]

I absolutely acknowledge what my hon. Friend says. For example, many of the herdsmen, who used to have grazing grounds and could roam fairly freely, now find that the grazing grounds are restricted; but we cannot deny the element of ethnic or religious discrimination in the attacks—in large part, although not in all cases.

[John Howell]

I was not suggesting that religious differences played no part in the attacks, just that they are not the sole cause. We can legitimately blame a number of other factors, including the fact that the media misreport situations widely across Nigeria. We can also blame rapid population growth: the population of Nigeria is about 190 million at the moment, but the World Bank predicts that by 2050—not long hence—it will be 400 million, making it the third most populous country in the world, after India and China. In that situation it is not surprising that tensions arise.

The tensions do have religious aspects. On 15 April 2017, 12 worshippers died and many more were injured in Aso village in Kaduna state, when herdsmen opened fire on an Easter vigil service. Media reports said the attackers boasted about disrupting the Easter celebration, but it not known whether that is true. There are efforts to promote interfaith dialogue, to ensure that feelings on all sides are listened to and that reconciliation is reached.

I intervened on my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) with a point about the importance of the European Court of Human Rights and what I might term its parent body, the Council of Europe. The right to hold religious beliefs is protected under article 9 of the European convention on human rights. A wide range of faiths have brought cases to protect their freedom to practise religion. I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) about needing to tighten that up, but it depends on countries being willing to accept the judgments of the Court. Russia has suspended itself from the Council of Europe and can no longer appoint judges, although the population of Russia still has access to the European Court of Human Rights. The Court is hearing a vast number of cases brought by Russian individuals against the Russian state.

That is important for the reason that I raised earlier. The European Court of Human Rights was born out of the conflict of world war two, which had a great deal to do with religion—the Jewish faith and the imprisonment of those of that faith in concentration camps. However, the Council has gone beyond that. We have produced a tremendous number of reports about the need to ensure respect for the religious backgrounds of refugee families coming to Europe—that must of course be mutual, and respect should also come from them. We must not forget the vital role that the Council plays. It may be ignored by many UK Ministers and the UK may be the only country never to send a journalist to monitor its actions, but it still carries out its role and the treaties are signed, by us and others, on a consensual basis. That is an important point to bear in mind.

I again congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford on bringing the debate, and hope my remarks have been helpful in elucidating some of the details.