Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent steps his Department has taken to tackle religious persecution internationally.

The promotion and protection of the right to freedom of religion or belief is one of the UK’s human rights priorities. We actively raise individual cases and work to combat discriminatory legislation and practices through multilateral systems and targeted project work. In the last month alone, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Ministers have expressed grave concern about persecution of individuals on the grounds of their religion or belief in Syria, Pakistan and Iraq.

Most recently, at the Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council on Iraq on 1 September we and international partners sponsored a resolution which commits the Council to working with the government of Iraq “to foster religious freedom and pluralism by promoting the ability of members of all religious communities to manifest their religion and to contribute openly and on an equal footing to society, and to take appropriate measures to prevent attacks against persons on the basis of their religion or belief and to prosecute the perpetrators of such attacks.” We will work actively with the newly formed government of Iraq to support them in this aim.

As a recent example of our project work, last week we also sponsored a conference to share best practice between human rights defenders and journalists working on freedom of religion or belief issues in South Asia.

We will continue to be active bilaterally, multilaterally, through project work and in providing training to our staff to tackle religious persecution internationally.