Nepal: Religious Freedom

(asked on 15th October 2021) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, pursuant to the answer of 3 June 2021 to Question 7204 on Nepal: Christianity, what steps the British Embassy takes to engage with members of faith and belief groups and civil society in Nepal; and what trends the British Embassy has identified on religious and belief tolerance in Nepal.


Answered by
Amanda Milling Portrait
Amanda Milling
Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
This question was answered on 22nd October 2021

The British Embassy in Kathmandu regularly engages with civil society to discuss a wide range of policy priorities, including human rights, climate change, girls' education, and media freedom. The embassy also meets with representatives of faith and belief groups to hear their priorities and any concerns, and is the Chair of the Human Rights Core Group, a network of like-minded diplomatic missions, which discusses concerns related to freedom of religion or belief to drive collective action.

The UK's assessment of the trends on religious and belief tolerance is that there have not been significant recent shifts in intra-community persecution or closure of civil society space. This is due to Nepal's Constitution and legal framework forming part of the peace settlement to bring marginalised communities into Nepal's institutions, related laws being largely upheld by the courts and relevant human rights commissions, and COVID-19 related lockdowns not discriminating between different faiths or beliefs.

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