Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to (a) help ensure freedom of religion or belief in Afghanistan and (b) protect Sikh, Hindu and other religious minorities in Afghanistan.

We are deeply concerned about human rights in Afghanistan, including violence and discrimination towards religious minorities. Ethnic and religious minorities have long faced attacks and discrimination in Afghanistan and we are monitoring the situation closely. We have made human rights a central feature of all of our contact with the Taliban to date, including the visit to Kabul on 5 October by the Prime Minister's High Representative for Afghanistan Transition, Sir Simon Gass. We will continue to work closely with international partners to call for freedom of religion to be respected in Afghanistan. On 7 October, the UK co-sponsored a United Nations Human Rights Council resolution that created a Special Rapporteur mandate to monitor human rights in the country.