JULY 2015 NEWSLETTER - NATIONAL CAUCUS
FOR THE PERSECUTED CHURCH
Page 1 - Middle East
Page 17 - India
Page 18 - Pakistan
Page 23 - Nigeria
Page 25 - Sudan
Page 30 - Vietnam
Page 32 - Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks
Page 36 - House of Lords Debate on the Displacement of Refugees and
Migrants
Page 62 - Lord Alton's speech - Religious persecution of Christians around
the globe: the future prognosis
Page 70 - House of Lords Debate on the Freedom of Religion and Belief.
Page 99 - Archbishop Justin Welby
THE MIDDLE EAST
OBAMA'S RESPONSE TO CHRISTIAN KILLING FIELDS
'HORRIFYING'
President 'has head in the sand,' says Leo Hohmann, news editor for WND.
LEO HOHMANN
http://www.wnd.com/files/2014/06/lhohmann_avatar.jpg
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2015/07/obama-response-to-christian-killing-fieldshorrifying/#16LHwJ4mCLpeIVuV.99
Syrian Christian families are being forced out of their homes by rebel factions operating
with the support of the U.S. and its allies in Syria’s civil war while President Obama
continues his policy of ignoring a genocide in the making.
A coalition of Sunni Islamist forces working to overthrow the Shiite government of Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad is attempting to seize the key northern city of Aleppo with help
from the U.S., Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Aleppo has been home to Syria’s largest Christian community, numbering in the tens of
thousands, but two-thirds of this community has been scattered throughout the surrounding
countryside into neighboring towns while others have migrated across the border to Turkey
or into Lebanon.
The rebel coalition, which is fighting ISIS as well as Assad, is no different than ISIS in its
utter contempt of Christians. And a July 3 report from National Public Radio confirms
this, saying: “The alliance has extremists in its own ranks who have mistreated
Christians and forced them out of their homes.”
Syrian Christians are being run out of their homes and businesses not only by ISIS but
by al-Nusra Front and other Sunni radical groups.
NPR reporter Deborah Amos traveled to Antakya, Turkey, once known as the ancient city of
Antioch. This is the site of one of the first Christian churches organized by the Apostles Peter
and Paul. She met a priest there, Father Ibrahim Farah, who was kidnapped last March by alNusra Front, an affiliate of al-Qaida that fought alongside ISIS before later branching off
from the caliphate. The al-Nusra terrorists held Father Ibrahim for 20 days. In Syria, his
church in the provincial capital of Idlib is now shuttered and he is living with Christians
across the border in southern Turkey.
At the turn of the century, Syria was home to about 1.5 million Christians, who made up 10
percent of its population. Those numbers swelled to about 1.75 million by the time the civil
war started in 2011, largely because the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 left Islamists in charge
there, forcing many Iraqi Christians to flee to Syria.
According to George Marlin’s new book, “Christian
Persecutions in the Middle East: A 21st Century Tragedy,” acts of violence by Islamic groups
forced about 150,000 Iraqi Christians to escape to Syria. Available on Amazon....
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_0_22?url=searchalias%3Dstripbooks&fieldkeywords=christian+persecutions+in+the+middle+east+a+21st+century+tragedy&spref
ix=christian+persecutions%2Caps%2C163
Now, the Christians are running out of places to hide in an increasingly Islamic Middle
East. “Christians in Syria and Iraq are generally caught in the middle of these conflicts and
find they are targeted by all sides, because they support democratic reform and are perceived
to be sympathetic to the West,” said Marlin, chairman of Aid to the Church in Need, USA.
“Many elements on both sides would not be unhappy if Christians disappeared from the
face of the Middle East and they (the Islamists) would destroy all the Christian
historical sites, the relics and the documents dating back to the founding of the Church,
that are there,” he continued. “Peter centered the church in Antioch before he moved it up to
Rome. Syria is the cradle of Christianity.”
He said Christians were generally left alone under Assad and lived peacefully. As of
December 2014, 600,000 Syrian Christians had fled their country or have been internally
displaced, Marlin reports. In Aleppo, more than 65 percent have been forced to leave.
He told WND most Syrian Christians will not go to the United Nations refugee camps
for two reasons. First, they are afraid they will be harmed and, second, they do not want to
leave their country. “The Christians are afraid to go to those camps, because the camps
are basically populated by Muslims, and they’re afraid of retaliation and harm in these
camps,” Marlin said. “So what is happening with the Christian refugees is the Christian
community is basically taking care of these people, they’re staying in the churches, they’re
staying in Christian homes, and we at Aid to the Church in Need are trying to get aid to the
churches that are housing them.” Ed - ACN have done much to house these Christians - and
Yazidis - see the House of Lords debate below and previous newsletters.
He said many rural Syrians have been run off their farms and have fled to the mountains
between Syria and Lebanon, while others have gone into Lebanon. Many would rather die
than abandon their ancient homeland, but there could come a day when they run out of places
to flee.
“In Aleppo and elsewhere, Christians who are escaping, they are staying at Christian homes,
churches, places where there is solidarity so they are not necessarily leaving the country or
trying to get into refugee camps,” he said.
This could explain why so few Syrian Christians are among the refugees being sent to
Western countries. In the U.S., for example, more than 90 percent of the Syrian refugees
being sent to the U.S. from U.N. refugee camps have been Muslim.
Marlin said the persecution of the Church in Syria has followed the same pattern as every
other country where Islamists have taken over.
“In the eight countries I cover in the book, the tactics are pretty much the same, with the
exception of Saudi Arabia which doesn’t have any Christians and focuses on harassing
Christians there as guest workers,” he said. “In the other seven countries, the churches are
being blown up on high holy days; the pastors are being abducted and murdered. We’ve kept
these records so people can recognize the pattern.”
He said the response of the Obama administration to the war on Christianity in the Middle
East has been abysmal. “My hope in writing this book was to remind the West that the
unthinkable is real and to jolt the conscience of the West, where too many people have
been putting their heads in the sand, including the White House,” Marlin said. “I was
horrified at their response of the White House when those Coptic Christians were murdered
on the beach in Libya, specifically because they were Christians, and our president referred to
them as ‘migrant workers from Egypt.’
“Pope Francis said they were murdered solely because of their faith, and no one has stepped
up to the plate on this, no one in Europe, no one at the White House, to condemn what is
going on and try to effect change.”
Marlin believes part of the lack of response comes from the fact that Europe, and
increasingly America, has lost touch with its Christian roots and thus feel no connection
with the persecuted Christians of the Middle East.
“Secretary of State John Kerry said we don’t recognize this, that ISIS acts like they’re in the
18th century. This did not begin with ISIS; this is what’s been going on for centuries, Mr.
Kerry, so this again is just the West putting its head in the sand.”
It has been said that “the last acceptable prejudice is against Christianity,” Marlin said. “And
when people like Mrs. Clinton said a few weeks ago that we must change our religious views
(on same-sex marriage), that is where we’re heading. That’s what’s coming next, it’s no
longer freedom of religion but freedom from religion. You can practice your religion in your
home and within your church, but not in the public square. So yes, language matters, culture
matters, and we’re seeing a change in the language to justify actively shutting up of
Christians in the public square.”
And without that voice, the suffering of Christians in the Middle East will not be given a
willing ear.
In just one of many examples of the blood-lust of al-Nusra, Marlin documented the attack in
late 2013 on the Christian village of Maaloula. “They destroyed the crosses on the monastery
of St. Serge and threatened the nuns at the convent of St. Thekla. They forced their way into
Christian homes screaming, ‘We’re here to get you, worshipers of the cross.’”
When the Islamic invaders demanded in one household that three Melkite Christians convert
to Islam, they proceeded to murder them, after one had said, “I am a Christian and if you
want to kill me because I am a Christian, than do so.”
Al-Nusra Front then kidnapped 12 Orthodox Christian nuns from the convent in December
2013 and held them for four months.
In October 2013, the al-Nusra Front captured the Christian town of Sadad, about 200 miles
north of Damascus, where 45 Christians were brutally murdered, Marlin reported, and 2,500
families fled after their homes, shops and churches were destroyed.
Marlin cited a report by Catholic World Report in October 2014 in which a nun who had
worked in Syria for years assessed the situation. “There are slaughterhouses, many
slaughterhouses, in Syria where Christians are taken to be tortured and slaughtered.
People who are not political, who do not choose or take sides in the conflict, are taken
from their families, kidnapped, forced to deny their faith and then – whether they have
or have not – are killed, often by beheading. This is not about siding with the
government, not about siding with President Assad, but about sheer persecution of a
peaceful but vulnerable minority. Yet the world says so little, and often nothing at all.”
The U.S. government under President Obama, with the help of its ally Turkey, has helped
stoke the civil war against Assad’s regime, training rebels, helping transfer arms and creating
a refugee crisis of unimaginable scale.
The U.S. has agreed to accept 2,000 Syrian refugees during the 2015 fiscal year and many
more in 2016 and beyond. But of the nearly 1,000 resettled in the U.S. so far, 90 percent of
them have been Muslim and only 4.5 percent Christian.
Aleppo now stands poised as the next bloody front in the now five-year-old civil war.
Christians there are preparing for mass exodus as the Middle East continues to empty itself of
followers of Jesus Christ. Ed: See Operation Safe Havens Appeal below.
Are Kurds last best hope for protecting Christians?
Half of Aleppo is now held by the Islamist rebels. Many
Christians in the Turkish frontier towns just across the border are stepping up
emergency plans for when Aleppo falls. They expect a mass exodus of Christians.
Of all the groups in the Middle East that have had success fighting ISIS, the Kurds are clearly
the one group most worthy of American support, says Joel Richardson, author of the bestseller “The Islamic Antichrist” and “Mideast Beast.”
Richardson, earlier this year, visited Kurdish strongholds in northern Iraq. The Kurds also
control areas within Syria and the New York Times recently reported that the Kurds have
made advances against ISIS in northern Syria, increasing their control of a strategic highway
and cutting off a main supply route from Turkey. Many Christian men have fought alongside
Kurdish militias.
“I can attest that not only do Christian churches exist there, but the Christians are treated
well. Americans of all parties must ask themselves why the Obama administration has, up
until this point, refused to adequately get behind the Kurds,” Richardson told WND.
“The U.S. has openly supported the Syrian rebels, despite the fact that it is well documented
that many of these rebels have gone on to join al-Nusra or ISIS,” he said. “It is also well
documented that many of the Syrian rebels have been brutal in their persecution of the
Christians, and other non-Sunni minorities throughout the region.”
What is Obama seeking to accomplish?
Richardson said he has been in regular contact with Syrian Christian leaders, and they have
repeatedly reminded Americans to look at the history of the Assad regime. “Under Assad,
Christians in other minority groups have lived with a relative freedom and security,” he said.
“Why then has the Obama administration chosen to cast (the Assad regime) aside as the
greatest evil in Syria above all others?”
No one is suggesting that Assad is an angel, Richardson said. “But look at the nation of
Libya, after Obama and Hillary Clinton decided to remove Gadhafi. Of course, no one will
say that Gadhafi was an angel, but Libya under his control was 1,000 times more stable and
secure than it is today, after the Obama administration effectively handed that nation over to
Islamists. One would think that they would have learned their lesson, and taken a different
approach in Syria.”
Turkey Says Refugee Burden Unsustainable
By Jamie Dettmer - Syndicated News - 11th July
http://www.aina.org/news/20150711141415.htm
Syrian refugees gather at the Turkish border as they flee intense fighting in northern Syria
between Kurdish fighters and Islamic State militants in Akcakale, southeastern Turkey, June
15, 2015.ISTANBUL -Turkish officials said they will be unable to cope with any new influx of refugees from the civil
war in Syria, warning that Europe could be faced with growing numbers of Syrians trying
to reach its shores aboard people-smugglers' boats. "Turkey has reached its total capacity
for refugees. Now, there is talk that a new wave of refugees may emerge ... and it would put
the EU face to face with more migrants," said Volkan Bozkir, Turkey's European Union Affairs
minister during a trip to Brussels.
Bozkir is calling on the Europeans to provide more financial support for his country, host to
nearly 2 million Syrian refugees. "We have spent $6 billion so far," he told Turkey's Hurriyet
newspaper. "The total amount that the EU has provided is 70 million euros and it is still
just a promise, it has not yet arrived."
Turkish officials are bracing for fresh waves of Syrian refugees, with battles seesawing
between Kurdish militias and Islamic extremists in north and northeast Syria, and
redoubled fighting between Syrian government forces and rebels in Aleppo.
Turkey's disaster agency (AFAD) has started to build a second camp for up to 55,000
refugees in Kilis, a border town of 108,000 where an existing camp already holds 123,000
Syrians.
Last week, Turkey's National Security Council predicted the government of President Bashar
al-Assad would allow, where it can, free passage to Islamic extremists for them to redouble
their attacks on rebel groups and sow greater chaos in northern Syria.
Turkish authorities have been reluctant to add to the 28 camps already established. "We are not
very keen to announce new camps, because it would be regarded as encouraging Syrians to
leave their homes even if there is no need," AFAD chairman Fuat Oktay told reporters.
Grim milestones
United Nations agencies announced midweek yet another grim milestone in the Syrian refugee
crisis, saying more than 4 million people -- a sixth of the country's population -- had been
driven to seek shelter in neighboring countries. The U.N. estimates at least 7.6 million more
have been forced from their homes inside Syria.
Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said the exodus was the biggest
refugee population from a single conflict in a generation. "It is a population that needs the
support of the world but is instead living in dire conditions and sinking deeper into
poverty," Guterres said.
That can be seen in the Turkish border provinces of Gaziantep, Kilis, ?anl?urfa and Hatay and
even further north in Istanbul, where increasing numbers of Syrians can be seen begging or
hustling for casual jobs and where the socio-economic impact of the refugee crisis is clear -from a jump in crime to overcrowded housing. More than 200,000 Syrian refugees are
estimated to be living in Istanbul.
In recent weeks, shopkeepers and business owners in popular Aegean and Mediterranean resort
towns have complained to authorities about the presence of thousands of refugees, fearing that
they will scare off tourists.
In Bodrum, local authorities have set up a temporary shelter to coax refugees away from
sleeping in public gardens.
"It is sad, it isn't their fault, but what can we do we are already having a difficult time and there
are fewer tourists around," said the owner of a clothing store in Bodrum, who asked to be
identified only as Ahmed.
Many of the refugees are searching for smugglers for clandestine trips to the
neighbouring Greek islands. The number of illegal immigrants seeking to get to Europe via
the Aegean and Mediterranean has been increasing each year. According to the official data,
a total of 11,919 illegal migrants, mostly Syrians, were caught attempting to travel from
the Turkish seacoast to Europe in the first six months of 2015 alone. That is double the
number intercepted the same period last year.
In Antalya, the government prohibits Syrian refugees from residing or working in the town,
but landowners and farm operators in rural areas troubled by labour shortages have
secured a deal for thousands of Syrians to work temporarily on farms. Syrians argue the
agribusiness managers were keen to employ them because they will work for less money
than Turkish labourers. Locals also complain the Syrians are driving down wages because
they are willing to work for a pittance. Manual labourer wages have dropped by up to twothirds.
"Turkish businesses don't treat us well," said 42-year-old Mohammed, a refugee from
Aleppo and father of four, who rents a ramshackle apartment in a run-down district of
Gaziantep. "At the end of a day they often won't even pay the wages they agreed. But we
can't argue -- if we did, they might not give us any work," he said.
Rents have also skyrocketed -- in the border town of Kilis by 100 percent. Turkey's 28 camps
are full and house only 278,000 refugees.
The Turkish authorities see the camps as temporary housing, providing refugees the
opportunity to adapt to new lives and find accommodation in residential areas.
But while camp life is difficult, trying to make headway outside is a huge challenge. With rents
high, refugees are forced to share apartments, with often seven to 10 people sharing two rooms.
This year, Turkish officials acknowledged for the first that most of the refugees who've
arrived are likely to stay long-term.
During the June parliamentary elections some opposition politicians accused the government
of having no serious plan to integrate refugees. Others called for the expulsion of Syrians,
arguing demographic changes would cause social unrest and be a drain on Turkish resources.
Turkish family life is also affected, with an increase in the number of Turkish men
marrying young Syrian women, often as second or even third wives. Rights workers say
the marriages are highly exploitative, often abusive and generally don't last, leaving the
Syrian girls who are discarded in an even more vulnerable position than they were before
getting married.
Ibrahim Halil Demircioilu, a lawyer in Kilis, told Turkey's Zaman newspaper that divorce rates
in border towns had increased dramatically, with Turkish men ditching their Turkish wives for
young Syrian women. A coalition of think tanks in Turkey's border cities found last winter that
39 percent of the marriages between Turkish men and Syrian women were informal and that
the average age of Syrian women entering formal or informal marriages with Turks ranged
from 15 to 18 years old.
When Muslims Betray Non-muslim Friends and Neighbors
By Raymond Ibrahim -Frontpage Magazine - 9th July
http://www.aina.org/news/20150709143123.htm
Days after the Islamic State [IS] entered the Syrian city of Hassakeh, prompting a mass exodus
of Christians, a familiar, though often overlooked scene, took place: many otherwise "normal"
Muslims joined ranks with IS, instantly turning on their long-time Christian neighbors.
This is the third category of Muslims that lurks between "moderates" and "radicals": Muslims
who appear "moderate" but who are merely waiting for circumstances to turn to Islam's
advantage before they join the jihad; Muslims who are waiting for the rewards of jihad to
become greater than the risks.....
Georgios, a man from the ancient Christian town of Ma'loula ....told of how Muslim neighbors
he knew all his life turned on the Christians after al-Nusra invaded in 2013:
"We knew our Muslim neighbours all our lives. Yes, we knew the Diab family were quite
radical, but we thought they would never betray us. We ate with them. We are one people. A
few of the Diab family had left months ago and we guessed they were with the Nusra. But their
wives and children were still here. We looked after them. Then, two days before the Nusra
attacked, the families suddenly left the town. We didn't know why. And then our neighbours led
our enemies in among us.
He explained with disbelief how he saw a young member of the Diab family whom he knew
from youth holding a sword and leading foreign jihadis to Christian homes.
"We had excellent relations. It never occurred to us that Muslim neighbours would betray us.
We all said "please let this town live in peace -- we don't have to kill each other." But now
there is bad blood. They brought in the Nusra to throw out the Christians and get rid of us
forever. Some of the Muslims who lived with us are good people but I will never trust 90 per
cent of them again.
A teenage Christian girl from Homs, Syria --which once had a Christian population of
approximately 80,000, but which is now close to zero --relates her story:
"We left because they were trying to kill us. . . . They wanted to kill us because we were
Christians. They were calling us Kaffirs [infidels], even little children saying these things.
Those who were our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went
through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our house. I've kept in
touch with the few Christian friends left back home, but I cannot speak to my Muslim friends
any more. I feel very sorry about that.
When asked who exactly threatened and drove the Christians out of Mosul, which fell to the
Islamic State a year ago, an anonymous Christian refugee responded:
"We left Mosul because ISIS came to the city. The [Sunni Muslim] people of Mosul embraced
ISIS and drove the Christians out of the city. When ISIS entered Mosul, the people hailed them
and drove out the Christians....The people who embraced ISIS, the people who lived there with
us... yes, my neighbors; our neighbors and other people threatened us. They said: "Leave
before ISIS get you." What does that mean? Where would we go?... Christians have no support
in Iraq. Whoever claims to be protecting the Christians is a liar. A liar!
Nor is such Muslim treachery limited to Christians. Other "infidels," Yazidis for example, have
experienced the same betrayal. Discussing IS invasion of his village, a 68-year-old Yazidi man
who managed to flee the bloody offensive--which included the slaughter of many Yazidi men
and enslavement of women and children--said:
"The (non-Iraqi) jihadists were Afghans, Bosnians, Arabs and even Americans and British
fighters.... But the worst killings came from the people living among us, our (Sunni) Muslim
neighbours.... The Metwet, Khawata and Kejala tribes--they were all our neighbours. But they
joined the IS, took heavy weapons from them, and informed on who was Yazidi and who was
not. Our neighbours made the IS takeover possible.
Lest it seem that this phenomenon of Sunni betrayal is limited to Islamic jihad in Mesopotamia,
know that it has occurred historically and currently in other nations. The following anecdote
from the Ottoman Empire is over 100 years old:
Then one night, my husband came home and told me that the padisha [sultan] had sent word
that we were to kill all the Christians in our village, and that we would have to kill our
neighbours. I was very angry, and told him that I did not care who gave such orders, they were
wrong. These neighbours had always been kind to us, and if he dared to kill them Allah would
pay us out. I tried all I could to stop him, but he killed them -- killed them with his own hand.
(Sir Edwin Pears, Turkey and Its People, London: Methuen and Co., 1911, p. 39)
And in Nigeria--a nation that shares little with Syria, Iraq, or Turkey, other than Islam--a jihadi
attack on Christians that left five churches destroyed and several Christians killed was enabled
by local Muslims:
"The Muslims in this town were going round town pointing out church buildings and shops
owned by Christians to members of Boko Haram, and they in turn bombed these churches and
shops.
Such patterns of behavior--patterns that cross continents and centuries and that regularly appear
whenever Muslims live alongside non-Muslims--are easily understood by reference to to Koran
3:28:
Let believers [Muslims] not take infidels [non-Muslims] for friends and allies instead of
believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with God--unless you but guard
yourselves against them, taking precautions. But Allah cautions you [to fear] Himself. For the
final goal is to Allah.....
if and when circumstances appear which make Islam supreme , Muslims are expected to join
the jihad--"for the final goal is to Allah."
Unafraid of ISIS, Iraqi Assyrian Girl's Faith Beyond Viral
By Gary Lane 17th July
http://www.cbn.com
Best friends Miriam and Sandra, two Assyrians girls from Baghdede (Qarawosh), Iraq, who
were separated when their families fled from ISIS.ERBIL, Iraq -- It's now been one year since
the Islamic State overran much of northern Iraq. ISIS has brutalized, raped, and murdered
thousands.
CBN News shared many of the horror stories, but we also learned of one little Christian
overcomer who inspired us. The unshakeable faith of young Maryam Behnam has encouraged
Christians in Iraq and around the world (AINA 2015-03-26).
For Iraq, the summer of 2014 was like no other as a militant Muslim group know as the Islamic
State overran the city of Mosul and nearby villages. Thousands were killed, or kidnapped and
more than a million people fled into Iraqi Kurdistan.
Over the last year, CBN News brought you many reports from Iraq about Christians who have
been forced from their homes because of ISIS. But young Maryam's story went viral, so we
thought we'd introduce you to her once again.
Late last year, the world was amazed to hear Maryam tell a Sat 7 reporter she forgives ISIS.
Reporter Essam Nagy asked Maryam, " What are your feelings towards those who drove you
out of your home and caused you hardships?
Maryam responded, "I won't do anything to them, I will only ask God to forgive them."
CBN's Gary Lane recently caught up with the 11-year-old and her younger sister Zomorod as
they returned from school. Their family recently moved into a small, two bedroom trailer in a
community of displaced Christians in Erbil.
So, why is Maryam unafraid of ISIS, and why does she forgive the jihadists who drove her
from her home in Qaraqoush?
"In the Bible Jesus said to us, 'Don't be afraid, I am with you.' And also, He said forgive others
no matter who they are hating you. You have to forgive them," she said. "Jesus is my father,
and He is my creator. I have no one else better than him. When ISIS drove us out of our home,
His hand was on us and He saved us."
Future Dreams: When Maryam grows up she wants to join Doctors Without Borders.
"There are people everywhere, they need treatment but they cannot get it because they don't
have enough money to go to the doctor and the doctors aren't available usually," she said
passionately. "So, this is why. As Jesus said, 'You've been given freely, you should give freely.'
This is why we should love them and provide treatment."
Maryam said she cherishes the Bible because it is God's love story to humanity.
"The only story in the Bible is the story of the resurrection of Christ Jesus the Lord because
through that story, we can have hope. "
The young displaced Christian said when she prays, it isn't for a bigger home or more
possessions.
"When I pray, I pray that God might help us to go back home. And also that the peace of God
might come all over Iraq and also, may God forgive ISIS."
So, what is the source of Maryam's unshakeable faith and the words of wisdom beyond her
years?
"The words I am speaking to you are not coming from a random place. They come from the
Holy Spirit," she insisted. "The Holy Spirit gave me these words to tell you."
Maryam's father Walid is proud his daughter became an Internet sensation. He thanks God for
Maryam, because He "gave me a nice daughter to disseminate the Word of Jesus to all the
world through the media, not to famous her, but to give the regard of God to all the people and
to the peace."
Maryam and her sister Zomorod love singing hymns. Their mother Alice has taught them the
words to many Christian songs. "It seems like the Holy Spirit put in their hearts to love those
songs and dedicate this part of their personality to love God and praise God," she told CBN
News. "So they admire this way of worshiping."
Maryam advised Christian children in the United States and elsewhere to love God and share
their faith with friends. "They don't need to be frightened and also, things that happen in their
lives, they should learn from us and our lives," she said.
"This should not be to get something or to get glory for ourselves," she continued. "It is for the
sake of God because God lives and we want to do everything for the glory of God and also for
exalting God in our lives."
Isis Monsters and Christian Victims
By Jack Kerwick - Frontpage Magazine - 17th July
http://www.aina.org/news/20150717103910.htm
Christina Khader Ebada, a 3 year-old
Assyrian girl, was abducted from her family by ISIS as they were leaving Baghdede.Today in
the Islamic Middle East, Christians like the Abada family in Iraq suffer real persecution the
likes of which most of us can scarcely imagine.
It has been nearly a year now since Ayda and Khader Abada have laid eyes upon their threeyear-old daughter.
On August 22 of last year, ISIS militants snatched little Christine from the arms of her mother,
Ayda. To this day, her parents haven't a clue as to her fate.
Ayda and Khader Abada are the parents of five children. On August 6, 2014, a little less than
three weeks before their daughter was snatched from them, Islamic State zealots took command
of their home city of Qaraqosh. But because Christine's father, Khader, is blind, he and his
family, not unlike many of their neighbors with comparable disabilities, were left with little
option but to stay put.
According to Open Doors, since the Abadas had "'no place to escape,'" it was their hope that
their conquerors would extend "'mercy'" to "'the blind and disabled'". Unsurprisingly, their
hope was in vain, for in no time, ISIS corralled the Christians of Qaraqosh for what they said
was to be a medical examination. Just as unsurprisingly, ISIS lied.
The Christians were robbed of their property and the purging of the city was under way. Open
Doors reports that among "the valuable belongings" of which Christians were divested were
clothes, gold, and their identification cards. Given the "chaotic" nature of the event, the Abadas
were overlooked.
But they were far from safe. The Abadas and the other Christians were commanded to board a
bus the windows of which were covered with dirt so as to prevent them from seeing out. Ayda
held little Christine closely to her as her Muslim captors walked up and down the aisle. When
one of them, someone named "Fadel," approached Ayda, he looked her over.
Then he wrenched little Christine from her mother's arms. The child cried for her mother and
her mother cried and pleaded for mercy, begging the kidnapper to return her daughter to her.
"Fadel" was unmoved. He walked off the bus with Christine and re-entered the building to
which the Abadas and their Christian neighbors were originally taken.
"Then," a heart broken Ayda stated, "one of the Daesh came and inspected the people on the
bus. He walked up to us. He took my little girl from my arms and just walked away."
The bus remained parked for a while as "Fadel" passed in and out of the building--without
Christine. Finally, a man who appeared to be the ring leader, someone who Ayda referred to as
"the prince," emerged from the den with Christine in his arms. As the daughter continued to
wail for her mother and Ayda, frantically exiting the bus in an effort to retrieve her daughter,
continued to cry and beg for her little girl, not only was the "the prince" not in the least bit
sympathetic, but he was contemptuous toward Ayda. "The prince did not say a word, but only
looked at me and made a despising gesture with his arms like he was saying get out of my
eyes[.]"
The ISIS militants put a gun to Ayda's head and ordered her to get back on the bus. "From the
cruel look in the eyes of the prince, I realized that I had no other option but to go back. And so
I did. The man holding Christine then walked away with her. That was the last time I saw her."
Ayda recalls what a good child Christine had been. Though she was only three years of age,
Christine used to help guide her blind father by taking him by his hand.
Nearly a year later, on July 15, Ayda's 24-year-old son married. Though this was a joyous
occasion for the Abadas, Ayda admits that "my biggest joy would be when my child Christine
would be returning to us."
Several attempts by their church to secure information regarding Christine's fate have
thus far been to no avail. Through Open Doors, Ayda asks for "everyone to pray for
Christine and for us, as we are living in the hope that someday Christine will come back."
It brings this Catholic no pleasure to consider that at this time, as the Abadas and legions of
Christians around the Earth endure horrors of this sort at the hands of Islamic savages who
revile them because of their faith, that my Pope--the most visible spokesperson for Christianity
in the world--prefers to direct his moral outrage at "capitalism" and "inequality."
INDIA
Hindu mob storms Christian prayer meeting in India injuring
eight believers
https://barnabasfund.org/news/Hindu-mob-storms-Christian-prayer-meeting-in-Indiainjuring-eight-believers?audience=GB
Barnabas Fund - 30/06/2015
Eight Christians were injured when a mob of Hindu nationalists stormed a church prayer
meeting held at the municipal library in Attingal, in India’s southern Kerala state, on Sunday
14 June. The assailants accused the Christians of forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity
and shouted “Bharat mata ki jai” (Victory to Mother India) as they attacked the pastor and
congregation and smashed up furniture and musical instruments. Since the attack, radical
Hindus have threatened to wipe out the town’s Christian population and burn the pastor.
Christians in Orissa, India,
praise God for new homes rebuilt by Barnabas after mobs burned their village to the ground
in 2008
Around 400 Christians had gathered together for the Sunday prayer service when a mob of
200 Hindu radicals surrounded the building. Around 30 managed to break into the hall and
began beating the pastor as he was preaching. “I was literally terrified,” said Pastor Shiju.
“They hit me in the face and then kicked me all over the body. They first targeted me and
then the congregation.”
After the attack, Christians and some local officials gathered to condemn the attack. But
Hindu radicals belonging to the Hindu United Front organised a counter-protest. The Hindu
United Front appears to be a loosely organised group of Hindu radicals that falls within the
Sangh Parivar – an umbrella term for the country’s Hindu nationalist organisations.
Gathering nearly every day since the attack, they have held posters with slogans threatening
to wipe out Christians from the town. Targeting the pastor in particular, “The Hindu radicals
vowed to burn pastor Shiju if he continued the church in Attingal,” said a local resident.
The attackers are thought to be members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a
radical Hindu nationalist group which supports the ruling Indian nationalist Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), both of which also fall within the Sangh Parivar. Police have arrested five people
in relation to the attack and registered complaints against 20; authorities are continuing to
look for their accomplices. Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian
Christians (GCIC), told AsiaNews, “the GCIC is very grateful for the authorities’ swift action
against militants”.
Indian “freedom of religion” laws, which are implemented to varying degrees in six Indian
states, make it illegal to convert someone from one religion to another by means of force,
fraud or allurement. Christians are often falsely accused by Hindu nationalists who want
India to be a Hindu-only nation.
"Kerala is known as ‘God’s Country’,” said Sajan George. “Unfortunately, Christians cannot
freely worship him because of rising radicalism in the state.” Christians in Kerala trace their
roots back to the 1st century when they believe the apostle Thomas brought the Gospel to the
region.
Christians form around 2.5 per cent of India’s population, but are present in Kerala in much
higher numbers. While some records estimate the Christian population of Kerala at 19 per
cent, others say it is as high as 40 per cent.
PAKISTAN
Police rescue Pakistani Christian from ‘mob justice’ over
blasphemy
World Watch Monitor - 3rd July - by Asif Aqeel
https://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/2015/07/3915368/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_
medium=email&utm_content=Police+rescue+Pakistani+Christian+from+%27mob+just
ice%27+over+blasphemy&utm_campaign=Police+rescue+Pakistani+Christian+from+
%27mob+justice%27+over+blasphemy
Rukhsana and other family members were beaten and had their faces blackened by an angry
mob, June 2015
A Christian father of four was beaten, had his head shaved, his face blackened, and was
dragged through his Pakistan village before he was rescued by police June 30.
Awais Qamar’s wife, Rukhsana, and two other family members also were beaten and had
their faces blackened with soot by a mob angered by the fact that the family had been using a
salvaged advertising banner as a mat to cover their floor. The banner, containing the emblems
of various colleges, also included a short verse from the Qur’an: "My Lord, increase me in
knowledge."
Qamar, 35, who also is known by the name Gharibu, which means "a poor man" in the local
language, was boring for a new tube well about two kilometers away from his village Maki
460 in Farooqabad, about 50 miles northwest of Lahore. It was about 9:30 a.m., and a man in
the local mosque had announced from its loudspeaker that Qamar had desecrated the Qur’an.
Qamar was summoned to the village for "committing blasphemy."
A crowd already had begun to converge in the village. A Christian neighbor of Qamar, Nazir
Masih, tried to intervene.
'Teach Gharibu a lesson'
"As soon as I had come to know about this issue I rushed to meet the people and assured
them that Christians would teach Gharibu a lesson, but they should not take law and order
into their own hands," Masih told World Watch Monitor.
"The mistake was too big but the villagers should forgive it and start living peacefully again,
as Gharibu was an absolute illiterate," Masih said. "But they said that the sin was too grave
and was unpardonable and the only remedy for desecrating the Qur’an is death."
"I even offered them that Gharibu could be banished from the village, but they urged to kill
him."
One-room house where Gharibu and his family lived
Masih said two instigators of the violence — brothers Muhammad Riaz, 23, and Muhammad
Niaz, 30 — shaved Qamar’s head and blackened his face, and blackened the faces of his
wife, their daughter Farzana, and of Qamar’s sister-in-law, Rehana.
"Men were beating Gharibu while women were beating his wife, Rukhsana, and then the mob
made a garland of shoes and put it in Gharibu’s neck and dragged him in the streets while
beating him," Masih said.
Rev. Asif Bashir, pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist Church next to Qamar’s house, said he
called police.
Even before the police arrived, they urged some of influential Muslims from a nearby village
to intervene. One of those who stepped in, a man who asked not to be named, told World
Watch Monitor that he employed both Qamar’s father, Siraj Masih, and brother, Ashraf.
Beaten up
"I had to intervene after I heard Ashraf’s wife, Rehana, was also being beaten up," the man
said. "Also, a police officer informed me that there was no issue of blasphemy and only
illiterate villagers were making something out of nothing. I took Ashraf with me and reached
where the crowd was beating and humiliating them. I told them that they immediately stop
torturing them or else they should be ready to face consequences as the police were also on
their way."
Additional Superintendent of Police, Muhammad Jawad Tariq, said he was near Maki 460
village when he was alerted to respond to the violence. He arrived with another officer.
"The mob didn’t resist much and handed over these fellows to us," Tariq told World Watch
Monitor. "We just bundled them in police vans and sped from there."
Qamar, his wife and the other vicitms were evacuated to a safe place, said District Police
Officer Sohail Zafar Chattha.
Facebook post from police officer Sohail Zafar
Chattha, June 2015
Chattha, who maintains a popular Facebook profile, posted a message to the social-media site
saying that police who got to the scene before him "averted a big human tragedy."
"My direction to them was categorical: save the couple at any cost even if you have to shoot
the perpetrators," he wrote on his Facebook post. He said police arrested a mullah who had
incited the violence. His name has not been released.
The mob, however, still was demanding action against Qamar and his family. "Some of them
were even raising slogans to throw out all Christians from the village and set their houses on
fire," Masih said. "Others were saying to socially boycott all the Christians and never hire
them for labor."
Chattha said police refused to file a report against the family. He said almost half of the
police force of the district was deployed to bring the situation under control.
"The police will remain deployed in front of the church for some time," he told World Watch
Monitor. "If there will be a need, a permanent checkpost can be set up to keep peaceful
environment. However, I have advised for Gharibu and his family not to return to the place as
it could be jeopardizing their lives."
Trouble between Qamar’s family and the two brothers whom Masih said had whipped up the
mob stretches back earlier than the June 30 violence.
The brothers, who are barbers, earlier this summer placed a stall outside their shop – and in
front of Qamar’s house -- and sold ice from it, Masih said. Others would gather at the stall in
the evenings and peer into the house and hurl abusive language. Rukhsana complained to the
brothers’ mother, to little effect.
Meanwhile, Rukhsana had brought a used roll-up banner from Faisalabad where her parents
lived, Masih said. On June 30, a visiting friend told her the banner carried a verse of the
Qur’an. Rukhsana offered to sell the banner, and the friend went home to obtain the money.
When she came back, she was accompanied by a man who slapped Rukhsana and took the
banner, Masih said.
Blasphemy allegations
Chattha said police refused to file a First Information Report against the family partly
because the state inspector general had given police orders to investigate blasphemy
allegations personally before determining whether to file a report.
"We will still not let the people go off scot free who triggered this tragedy in the first place
and those who blackened the victims’ face and beat them," he told World Watch Monitor.
Rabia Ghani, project manager for the Pattan Development Organization, which works with
members of Pakistan’s parliament on human-rights issues, applauded the police’s quick
rescue of the victims and refusal to lodge a report against them.
"It’s the need of time to push governments to have standard operating procedures for such
cases and SOPs on how police should deal with cases of religious minorities," Ghani wrote in
an email. "The police should identify specific actions and behaviors to not just ensure nondiscrimination, but strict action, transparency, and equipped with knowledge of an adequate,
sensitive and proper response."
NIGERIA
July 5th - Islamists in Nigeria burn down 32 churches and kill five
believers in a church suicide bomb attack
Source: Barnabas Fund:
https://barnabasfund.org/news/Islamists-in-Nigeria-burn-down-32-churches-and-killfive-believers-in-church-suicide-bomb-attack?audience=GB
A day of extreme violence in north-eastern Nigeria on 5th July saw 32 churches and around
300 homes torched in several villages, with nine people killed.
Earlier that same day, five Christians were killed after a man walked into a church on the
outskirts of Potiskum, in Nigeria’s north-eastern Yobe state, and detonated the explosives
strapped to his body, just as church members were beginning to arrive for the Sunday service.
“I saw [the bomber] walked into the church and he didn’t raise any suspicion,” said
eyewitness Garba Manu. “As soon as he entered, a loud explosion ripped through the
church,” he said.
A woman and her two children were among the dead; the church pastor was also killed. Had
it been a little later when more people had arrived at the church, “the casualty figure would
have been higher,” said Red Cross official Hassan Alhaji Muhammad.
Despite the fact that no one has yet claimed responsibility for the incident, it bears the
hallmark of a Boko Haram attack. Boko Haram militants are also suspected to be behind
Sunday’s brutal attacks in several villages in north-eastern Nigeria which they had already
attacked earlier that week. According to Stephen Apagu, chairman of a self-defence group in
the Askira-Uba local government area of Borno state, the Islamists returned to scenes of
earlier attacks and burned down 32 churches and around 300 homes; nine people were also
killed.
On Tuesday 30 June, 48 people were shot dead in the Munguno local government area, in
Borno state. Militants waited until Muslim residents had finished their prayers before they
“separated men from women and opened fire on them,” a local resident told the BBC. Then
they rampaged through the village gunning down women at random and set the village on
fire.
On Wednesday 1 July, 148 people (including 22 children) were brutally gunned down in
Kukawa, in Borno state, near Lake Chad, when more than 50 Islamists raided the village. The
next day, suicide bomb attacks in Malari, also in Borno state, left at least seven dead. The
violence continued on Friday when six suicide bombers blew themselves up in Maiduguri,
capital of Borno state, killing “scores” of civilians.
Later on Sunday, two blasts in the city of Jos, in central Nigeria, left at least 60 people dead
after militants attacked a mosque and a Muslim restaurant popular with state governors and
regional politicians. A Muslim cleric known for his preaching on the peaceful coexistence of
people of all faiths was speaking at the mosque where the militants struck.
Boko Haram specifically targets Christians and churches, educational institutions,
“Western-style” government or security bodies, and also Muslims who do not share its
severe interpretation of sharia law.
Violence in the region has escalated rapidly since President Muhammadu Buhari took office
on 29 May. According to Agence France-Presse, at least 654 people have been killed in Boko
Haram attacks since that day, and more than 200 people have been killed in suspected Boko
Haram attacks in the past week alone. The recent surge in violence may be attributed to a
statement released by Islamic State’s (IS) spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani inciting the
group’s followers to engage in jihad throughout the fasting month of Ramadan, which began
on 18 June. Boko Haram pledged its allegiance to IS in March this year.
According to Amnesty International, at least 17,000 people, mainly civilians, have been
killed in Boko Haram attacks since 2009 when the Islamist group began its violent
campaign in the region. Three north-eastern states (Borno, Yobe and Adamawa) which have
been witness to most of the violence, have been under a state of emergency since May 2013.
SUDAN
S Sudan pastors' lawyer arrested day before they were due
in court
By World Watch Monitor - July 2, 2015
There is still no announcement from the Khartoum trial about the outcome for the two South
Sudanese Presbyterian pastors, Yat Michael and Peter Yen, which is scheduled to end today
after the judge has finished questioning the two men.
The judge indicated in the last hearing on 25 June that he will decide on 2 July whether to
drop the case against them or allow it to continue, in which case the two men will face the
possibility of the death penalty or life imprisonment in the event of a guilty verdict.
Michael and Yen were charged jointly with acts of criminal conspiracy (Article 21 of the
Sudanese Penal Code); undermining the constitutional system (Article 50); espionage (Article
53); disclosure and receipt of official information or documents (Article 55); promoting
hatred amongst sects (Article 64); breach of public peace (Article 69); and offences relating
to insulting religious beliefs (Article 125). Of the six charges, Articles 50 and 53 carry the
death penalty or life imprisonment in the event of a guilty verdict.
Espionage
WWM has recently learned that they have been charged with espionage (Article 53 of the
Sudan Penal Code) and promoting hatred amongst sects (Article 64), instead of waging war
against the state (Article 51) and arousing feelings of discontent among regular forces
(Article 62), as previously reported. The espionage charge (Article 53) carries the death
penalty or life imprisonment in the event of a conviction.
Both men have been detained at the high security Kober Prison in Khartoum North since 1
March, before which they were being held incommunicado. The two are no longer in solitary
confinement, but are reported to have been chained up. Michael was taken into custody on 21
December 2014 after preaching that morning at a church in Khartoum. Peter Yen was
arrested on 11 January 2015 after he delivered a letter to the Religious Affairs Office in
Khartoum asking about his colleague Michael’s arrest in December.
Their wives have managed to see them, a source has told Radio Tamazuj. Their visit last
Thursday came after the judge allowed the two men to speak with their families for just 10
minutes. Prison authorities continue to ban regular visits despite it being unconstitutional to
deny prisoners a visit from family members and friends.
A lawyer speaking on behalf of the detained pastors said: “This is meant to put more
psychological pressures and warfare on the arrested pastors.”
Pastors' lawyer arrested
In a new development, Mohamed Mustafa, the lawyer representing the two men, was
arrested yesterday along with Pastor Hafez of the Khartoum Bahri Evangelical Church,
the church where Yat Michael preached and spoke out against the persecution of
Christians in Sudan, and an ongoing land dispute between the church and the government.
According to the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), local sources (unnamed for
security) understood that the church asked the men’s lawyer to come to the church because
the police had showed up with engineers to demolish it under a government order. At the
scene, lawyer Mustafa asked to review the order. It clearly authorised the government to
destroy section 5D of the church compound, but the police were instructing them to destroy
section 5H. The engineer took the matter up with the police present. Angered by the situation
the police then arrested Pastor Hafez, put him in handcuffs and walked him to the police
station through the public market. Mustafa stayed on the church compound and overheard the
engineer continue to press the police officer on the matter. At that time, the police told
Mustafa he had no right to stay on the property; he responded calmly that he was the legal
representative, had done nothing wrong, and was there to observe that the court order was
followed properly.
He was then arrested and taken to the police station and held for five hours before being
released on bail. Both Hafez and Mustafa are now out on bail, but will have to defend their
actions before a criminal court. They have been charged with violating article 99 of the
Sudanese Penal Code of 1991 which criminalizes obstructing a public servant during the
course of his duty. If convicted they could receive up to six months imprisonment, a fine or
both.
"This arrest of [the pastors'] attorney is of great concern. While we are pleased that he was
promptly released on bail, the arrest shows a potential that high-level individuals are
attempting to interfere in the judicial cases involving both the church land dispute and Pastors
Michael and Yen," said Tiffany Barrans, International Legal Director at the American Centre
for Law and Justice (ACLJ).
Meanwhile in another part of Khartoum, 12 Christian women were arrested on 25 June on
public indecency charges by Sudan’s Public Order Police after leaving a celebration service
at the city’s El Izba Baptist Church. They were charged with indecent or immoral dress under
Article 152 of the Sudanese Criminal Code. The women, who were wearing skirts and
trousers, were taken to a police station and forced to remove their clothes, which were
submitted as evidence to the prosecutor.
“The penal Code of Sudan was introduced in 1991 and is based upon a narrow interpretation
of Shari’a (Islamic law),” according to research by Amnesty International (AI). “It contains,”
it says, “legal provisions that amount to a denial of fundamental human rights including
limitations on the rights and freedoms of non-Muslims. Sudan’s legal system allows and
promotes the conversion of the Sudanese people from Christianity and other religions to
Islam, but makes proselytizing of Sudanese Muslims a crime punishable by flogging, and
conversion from Islam is considered apostasy, and is punishable by death.
“Suppression of non-Muslim and Muslim minority groups and violations of freedom of
religion is wide spread in Sudan, reports AI. Since 1989 a specific interpretation of Islam was
allowed to dominate the country’s laws, institutions and policies. As a result thousands of
non-Muslims have been forced to convert to Islam, priests and church leaders persecuted and
thousands of Christians punished according to Shariá law,” the report adds.
'Prisoners of conscience'
AI considers Michael and Yen to be “prisoners of conscience who were arrested, detained
and charged solely because of the peaceful expression of their religious convictions”.
The case of the two pastors has drawn worldwide attention as an abuse of human rights.
One online campaign by CitizenGo has so far collected more than 100,000 signatures
that will be sent to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Sudanese
president. The campaign was motivated by the success of people power in helping free
Meriam Ibrahim when she was detained by the Sudan government.
Michael and his wife arrived in Sudan on 13 December with their child whom they had
brought to Khartoum for medical attention. During his visit he was asked to preach at the
Sudan Evangelical Presbyterian Church, in the Khartoum suburb of Bahri, on Sunday 21
December 2014. During Michael’s sermon he had apparently condemned the controversial
sale of the church land and property and the treatment of Christians in Sudan.
The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) reported at the time that “the sale
was made by the Community Council of the Church, a body appointed by the Government of
Sudan’s Ministry of Endowments and Guidance - which reportedly does not have a mandate
to sell church land. Sudanese police forces violently raided the church on 2 December 2014
to break up a sit-in demonstration organized by members of the congregation protesting the
sale. Thirty eight people were arrested and 20 convicted of disturbing the public peace and
membership of criminal or terrorist organisations [following the protest]”.
Peter Yen arrived in Sudan in September 2014 and was arrested on 11 January 2015 from his
home attached to Al Gereif Church in Khartoum, after he delivered a letter to the Religious
Affairs Office in Khartoum asking about his colleague Michael’s arrest in December. Yen
had apparently also been vocal about his opposition to the sale of land by the Community
Council and voiced concern on the situation facing Christians in Sudan.
ACJPS has stated “the serious criminal charges against Michael and Yen have been
levied solely on the basis of their religious convictions and outspoken criticism of the
ruling party, and as such, that their continued detention and criminal proceedings are
discriminatory and in violation of constitutional and international legal guarantees of
equality. There is also speculation that the trial of the two men is intended to send a message
to other Christian leaders in Sudan to refrain from criticizing the treatment of Christian
minorities in Sudan and the policies of the ruling party”.
CSW update as of July 14th...
The defence team closed their case after presenting two witnesses at the hearing on 14
July, The next hearing is scheduled for 23 July, when the judge will hear closing
statements. The verdict is expected on 5 August.
The pastors were once again denied access to their legal team ahead of the hearing,
despite an earlier direction from the judge that they would be allowed 15 minutes with
their lawyers. At the last hearing on 2 July, the judge permitted the defence team 15
minutes with the pastors in order to prepare their case. The pastors’ lack of access to
their families and legal team is an ongoing concern.
Since being transferred to Kober High Security Prison in June, the pastors have been
denied access to their lawyers. Their chief counsel (the head of their legal team),
Mohaned Mustafa, was arrested on 1 July while representing the church, after police
arrived to demolish a section of the church’s property. The pastors have been told they
will have only 15 minutes to meet with their legal team before the next hearing.
Take action to set them free - Write to the Sudanese Embassy here...
http://e-activist.com/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=88&ea.campaign.id=40129
We’ve seen international action have a dramatic effect before. Thousands spoke up last
year for Meriam, the Sudanese Christian mother accused of apostasy who was forced to
give birth in chains in prison - and she was set free, her death sentence overturned.
Please speak up for Reverend Yat and Reverend Peter today!
VIETNAM
Persecution of Vietnamese Christian Montagnards is “state policy”, says
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
Barnabas Fund 30 June:
https://barnabasfund.org/news/Persecution-of-Vietnamese-Christian-Montagnards-isstate-policy-says-Human-Rights-Watch?audience=GB
“Vietnam’s official media made it shockingly clear that persecution of religious minorities is
state policy,” said Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Asia director, Brad Adams, after the
advocacy group released a report on Friday (26 June). Compiling interviews with Vietnamese
ethnic Montagnards seeking asylum abroad, the report reveals the government’s deliberate
actions to persecute the ethnic minority because of their desire to follow Christianity.
Central Highlands of Vietnam,
where ethnic Montagnard Christians are persecuted for their faith.
“I was hit everywhere; they even used electricity to shock me,” said one of the Christian
Montagnards interviewed by HRW. “The police hit me with their hands on both sides of
the face… The police told me if I continued going to church, then the police would
continue arresting me.”
Labelled an “evil way” religion by communist Vietnam, these followers of Christianity are
the victims of constant surveillance, intimidation, arbitrary arrest and abuse under
detention.According to HRW, an official media report released in January said that the
Vietnamese authorities had organised a campaign to “deal seriously with their leaders
and core members”. And in the same month, General Tran Dai Quang, a government
minister in the Central Highlands (where most Montagnards reside), called on security
forces to “actively fight” followers of unauthorised Christianity.
General Tran Dai Quang
The threat to Montagnard Christians in the Central Highlands of Vietnam is causing many to
flee into neighbouring Cambodia and Thailand, where they seek a place to worship Christ in
freedom, a reality that even the Vietnamese officials recognise.
Reaching Cambodia, however, they are deported back into Vietnam despite the fact
that this goes against the 1951 UN Refugee Convention of which Cambodia is a signatory
country. According to the report, over the past year Cambodia had sent back at least 54
Montagnards “without allowing any opportunity to seek refugee status, and had denied
at least another 109 the possibility of registering there as asylum seekers”.
In Thailand, a press conference that was due to coincide with the launch of the report on 26
June was cancelled just minutes before it was set to begin. The decision to stop the
conference was said to have been to protect diplomatic ties between Thailand and Vietnam.
HRW, however, is concerned that Vietnamese authorities may have requested Thai officials
to intervene in an attempt to prevent the issue from ever being heard.
But this recent campaign against the Montagnards is sadly nothing new. In 2001, hundreds of
ethnic Montagnards fled across the border into Cambodia after a government crackdown led
to numerous arrests of Montagnards demanding greater religious freedom and the return of
their lands which had been seized by the authorities.
Ethnic Montagnards are an originally animist people group who began converting to
Christianity in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1990s, house churches mushroomed and today
they are a predominantly Christian ethnic group. In addition to being persecuted for their
Christian faith, Montagnards also believe they are targeted because of their allegiance to the
U.S. in the Vietnam War. “The war is over but they still punish us because we fought
alongside the Americans,” said Rong Nay, head of the Montagnard Human Rights
Organisation (MHRO). “Until today,” he said, “they accuse the Montagnards of [attempting
to] overthrowing the government of Vietnam… How can we overthrow it? We have empty
hands.”
How does a man kill ‘in God’s name’? asks former UK
Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
By Ronald Boyd-MacMillan - July 8, 2015
Ten years on from the 7/7 London bombings, in which 52 people were killed and hundreds
were injured by four separate suicide bombers, the world is still looking for an answer as to
why religious people kill in the name of God.
“When religion turns men into murderers, God weeps.”
So starts the first line of Jonathan Sack’s new book, Not in God’s Name: Confronting
Religious Violence, revealing a book bv a believer distressed not only by the violence, but
puzzled by the theological tragedy that drives the violence. He wants to know what makes
religious people kill in the name of God, and shows broad learning in evolutionary biology,
social psychology, sociology and theology to present an argument that is sure to enlighten as
well as provoke.
Sacks is well placed to muse on this theme as the former Chief Rabbi of Britain and a prolific
author on religious conflict. In fact, he has carved out a niche for himself as the man who
gave theological coherence to the Samuel Huntingdon “clash of civilisations” thesis while
also critiquing it. Sacks’ 2004 book, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of
Civilisations, remains one of the wisest texts for negotiating religious pluralism in the modern
world.
Sacks has no time for the politician’s mantra that violence committed by religious extremists
like ISIL has nothing to do with Islam. Yes, the vast majority of the conflicts in the world
today are nothing to do with religion, but “when terrorist or military groups invoke holy war,
define their battle as a struggle against Satan, condemn unbelievers to death and commit
murder while declaring ‘God is great,’ to deny that they are acting on religious motives is
absurd” (p.11). Harder work needs to be done to glimpse the twisted logic and primitive
psychology of these groups, he says, otherwise the proffered solutions will never create a
compelling enough counter-narrative that weans believers from hate to love, and to value
weakness rather than power.
Religious violence is rooted in the same source as all violence – identity wars, and Sacks
worries that the West, which secularized so merrily, has created societies and institutions that
cannot provide enough identity because it has forgotten humans are meaning -seeking
creatures; “The result is that the twenty-first century has left us with a maximum of choice
and a minimum of meaning” (p.13). Having thought religion was finished, now the West has
seen it roar back - partly because of the vacuum secularisation created and, tragically, the
religion that has returned is not gentle or ecumenical, but adversarial and aggressive. Make
no mistake he warns “the greatest threat to freedom in the post-modern world is radical,
politicised religion” (14). So if you don’t realise you are dealing with religion – however
twisted – you are not going to find any meaningful responses.
So Sacks takes us on his epic journey to the roots of the problem. First stop is evolutionary
biology and the fact that humans always group; we are altruistic to our in-group, and
aggressive to our out-group - which is where violence comes from. We learn not to kill
strangers through reciprocal altruism, and religion evolves as the main means of ensuring that
groups of strangers do not keep killing each other. So “violence has nothing to do with
religion as such…it has to do with identity and life in groups” (p.39).
Yet we cannot do without an identity, and the chronic tribalism that fuels religious violence
today has occurred primarily because the three great secular substitutes for religion –
nationalism, communism and race – have failed to unite us according to Sacks. People take
up religious violence fundamentally because they long for a community that engages
something greater than just the self he argues.
But the kind of religion that seduces them into violence as opposed to altruism is due to
dualism for Sacks. Dualism, where God is split into a ‘good’ and an ‘evil’ Person, results in
an attitude that sees the in-group as all good, and the out-group as all evil. Sacks urges us to
take a tougher path, and see God as the source of bad as well as good, of “judgement as well
as forgiveness, justice as well as love” (p.53). A pathological dualism drives violence
because it does three things: “It makes you dehumanize and demonize your enemies. It leads
you to see yourself as a victim. And it allows you to commit ‘altruistic’ evil, killing in the
name of God…” (p.54).
Sacks continues to build his case. What then turns dualism into a pathology? After all, not
all dualists sign up to ISIS. He turns to the cultural anthropologist Rene Girard, who argued
that the best way for two rival groups to end a cycle of violence is to kill a third party, a
scapegoat. Of course, religion ritualized this, but for Sacks for many centuries, the way
different religious groups avoided destroying each other was to scapegoat the Jews. Girard
and even Freud himself argued that it was not religion that led to violence, but violence that
led to religion. For Girard, the source of all violence was memetic desire, which is wanting
what someone else has because they have it. This is behaviour seen most baldly in the
interactions of children, and since sibling rivalries are the spine of the book of Genesis – Cain
and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers – Sacks comes at last to
his favourite ground – theology.
If anyone is interested in reading a thrilling and detailed guide to the stories of the book of
Genesis, they could do worse than to enjoy the middle third of this book. Sacks’s limpid
prose, allied to wise exegesis, goes through the great family stories and shows that God never
overlooks those he appears to reject – Ishmael, Esau – but actually blesses them
differently. In fact, he argues, God makes two promises, a humanitarian one to everyone
because they are made in His image, and a covenant one to a specific group because they
have been called His children. In a striking reversal of sibling rivalry, the covenant promise
to Isaac, Jacob and Joseph subverts the sibling rivalry, the pay-off being that if you can
identify with your rival in a role reversal, you can find a better way to eschew violence. That
is what the best kind of religion offers, but one must attempt this whether from a religious
motive or not.
Fundamentalism in religion subverts this he claims, because it “reads texts as if God were as
simple as we are.” (p.207). Sacks finishes up with a few prescriptions that are powerfully
phrased but vague.
He may be a theologian but he is no policy wonk. “We must put the same longterm planning
into strengthening religious freedom as was put into the spread of religious extremism” he
says (p.262). And, “we must train a generation of religious leaders and educators who
embrace the world in its diversity, and sacred texts in their maximal generosity.” (p.262).
Noble imperatives, but it will take another kind of person than Sacks to convert these into
workable policies and programs.
Sacks’ great gift to us has been to lift the lid on why someone can behead someone else,
convinced they are bringing glory to God. It is not enough to denounce it as merely
pathological. It has a pathology with a religious lineage. Miss that, and you can never
win. Start there, and you are on your way. Still a long way to go, but the only effective
starting point – however unfashionable it may be to say – is to start with theology. As he
writes, “wars are won by weapons, but it takes ideas to win a peace.” This book, while not
startling for its originality of thought, is so clear, cogent and wise, it must rank as a vital text
for anyone aspiring to “win the peace.”
Dr. Ronald Boyd-MacMillan, Dir of Research and Strategic Trends, Open Doors
International.
Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence is published by Hodder & Stoughton,
London, 2015)
House of Lords Debate on the Displacement
of Refugees and Migrants: 9th July
(Edited in the interests of space)
Moved by Lord Alton of Liverpool: That this House takes note of the displacement of refugees
and migrants from Asia and Africa and to the long-term and short-term measures to address
their plight.
Hansard source (Citation: HL Deb, 9 July 2015, c287)
Lord Alton of Liverpool
...In returning to a crisis which we briefly addressed in Grand Committee on 18 June, there
are three things which I want to address: first, the scale of the challenge; secondly the
circumstances which prevail in the countries from which migrants originate; and thirdly, our
response.
In 1938, after Kristallnacht, and the attempts of many Jews to flee Nazism, the remarkable
Independent Member of Parliament, Eleanor Rathbone, known as the refugees’ MP, and
noted for her hostility to appeasement, established the Parliamentary Committee on
Refugees. Two years later, on 10 July 1940, in a six-hour debate, she intervened no fewer
than 20 times to insist that Britain had a duty of care for the refugees being hunted
down by the Nazis. She said that a nation had an obligation to give succour to those
fleeing persecution, and in her words,
“not only in the interests of humanity and of the refugees, but in the interests of
security itself”.—[ Official Report , Commons, 10/7/40; col. 1212.]
We might bear in mind those words as we reflect on the debate that she initiated. She said
that those debates,
“always begin with an acknowledgement of the terrible nature of the problem and
expressions of sympathy with the victims. Then comes a tribute to the work of the
voluntary organisations. Then some account of the small leisurely steps taken by the
Government. Next, a recital of the obstacles—fear of anti-semitism, or the jealousy of
the unemployed, or of encouraging other nations to offload their Jews on to us”.
We may no longer be dealing with Jewish refugees, but there are many parallels. Perhaps her
hard-headed humanitarianism should form the backdrop to our debate, which is taking place
in the context of the largest movement of peoples since World War II.
I turn to the scale of the challenge facing us. At the conclusion of 2014, the United Nations’
refugee agency, the UNHCR, reported that, worldwide, 54.9 million people were
refugees, asylum seekers or internally displaced persons, with a further 59.5 million
forcibly displaced.
The UNHCR says that Africa has 4.6 million refugees and 10 million internally displaced
people under its mandate. Darfur alone, where I visited refugee camps, has seen the loss of
300,000 lives, more than 2 million displaced, with 400,000 more IDPs added last year alone.
In Asia, there are 9 million refugees and 15 million internally displaced people. Afghanistan
generates the second largest number of refugees worldwide, while Burma is awash with
refugees, including thousands of Rohingyas, cast adrift in rickety boats in the Andaman Sea.
These new boat people bring to mind the Vietnamese boat people, whose camps I visited as a
young MP. I also served as president of Karenaid. Last week the noble Earl confirmed that
there are 110,094 Karen refugees in camps, which I visited on the Burmese border. Some
have been there for decades.
Will the noble Earl say whether we are talking to ASEAN about developing a strategy for that
region’s refugees and what practical help we are giving to search, rescue and resettlement?
Of course, much closer to home, destitution and desperation have arrived on our own
European doorstep, with half a million more people reported to be in Libya waiting to
join the exodus. Some 46% of those making these perilous crossings originate from Eritrea
or Syria, where we continue to witness the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our time.
Human beings are being turned into flotsam and jetsam, with some 3,500 people fished from
the sea, dead, with 1,800 corpses reclaimed this year alone. And who can forget the
harrowing images of the hundreds who died in April when their fishing boat capsized, or the
rescue from “Ezadeen”, a livestock freighter, when 360 Syrian refugees—including 70
children—were seized from the clutches of racketeers?
This year 137,000 migrants, including 6,413 children, 4,063 of whom were
unaccompanied, have so far reached southern Europe. Will the noble Earl say—when
children, inevitably the most vulnerable, are involved—how we meet our obligations under
the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? Is he aware of the call made only yesterday by
Save the Children that, as a matter of urgency, the United Kingdom should take 1,500
children immediately, a request that I certainly agree with? Some of those children have
been brought to safety by the gallant crew of HMS “Bulwark”; we all pay tribute to their
rescuing thousands of migrants. However, its replacement, HMS “Enterprise”, has a much
smaller capacity. The Government need to tell us how they expect “Enterprise” to balance
rescue operations and the apprehension of smugglers, and to clarify the legal status of those
who are rescued by a Royal Navy ship, as asked for on 18 June by my noble friend Lord Kerr
of Kinlochard.
Those fleeing have to raise staggering sums of money, often indebting themselves to the
smugglers, leading to exploitation and slave labour. Italian sources say that smuggling is
generating revenue for organised crime and terrorist organisations such as ISIS. Will
the noble Earl tell us how many of these profiteers have been arrested or prosecuted?
Italy has spent some €800 million on rescue operations and in camps such as Lampedusa.
Matteo Renzi, Italy’s Prime Minister, rightly describes the EU’s collective response as
“largely insufficient”. Italy and Greece are inundated with refugees, and now a land route
has opened between Turkey, Macedonia and Serbia, with an estimated 60,000 people
illegally entering Hungary in 2015. As recently as Tuesday, 19 died when a smuggler’s boat
heading for Greece capsized.
Last week, Hungary indefinitely suspended EU asylum rules and is considering erecting high
fences along its borders, in a Europe which once rejoiced in the smashing down of walls. But
is that so very different from the high-security fences being erected in Calais, where, in the
course of just four hours, 350 stowaways were evicted from British-bound lorries in scenes
reminiscent of bedlam? Fifteen people living in makeshift camps in Calais have died in the
last 12 months. This week, we heard of a further death of someone on a cross-channel freight
train. FRONTEX, the European border agency, says that it is completely overwhelmed, and
with Italy also threatening to disregard the Schengen rules it is clear that no one country
can deal with this crisis and that it requires careful reflection about free movement. It is
a global crisis in need of global solutions.
Those numbing statistics tell only a part of the story. What surely matters most is why
people are risking their lives and what our response should be. It is abundantly clear that
populations will continue to haemorrhage unless we tackle the reasons for these vast
displacements at source. Four of the countries generating the most migrants and refugees
are Syria, Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea. I shall use them to illustrate my point as I
argue that the House should carefully consider the connection between our foreign
affairs, defence and development policies, and their interplay with mass migration, a
crisis that is compounded by climate change. I know that that is something that the noble
Lord, Lord Lawson, who is in his place, is particularly interested in, but if climate change is
happening this situation is only going to get worse.
Despotic governments and terrorist organisations have been the major immediate
catalysts for conflict and mass migration, but aerial bombardment without a presence on
the ground, a post-conflict development strategy, or a new attempt at creating peace will
simply generate more refugees. Last week I met a leading figure from a humanitarian group
working in Syria and Lebanon. He described the 1.5 million refugees in Lebanon as,
“a demographic bombshell, threatening the stability of that country”.
In the 1980s I visited Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps at Shatila and Sabra; leave people
to fester in a refugee camp such as those and you create cannon fodder for terrorists
and militias. I wonder whether the new refugees will suffer a similar fate of being in camps
30 years later. In the short term, what we are doing to ensure that bolder steps are taken under
United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2165 and 2191 to deliver aid securely to Syria
for longer periods of time, reaching more civilians in need, might help to stem that flow of
refugees. I would be grateful if the Minister would tell us what we are doing about that.
Ministers have rightly argued that those responsible for Syria’s atrocities should be tried in
the International Criminal Court, but have we taken that proposal back to the Security
Council, which initially rejected it because of the vetoes of China and Russia?
Today is the fourth anniversary of South Sudan’s independence, but there is little to celebrate.
At a briefing this morning that my noble friend Lord Sandwich and I attended we were told
that conflict there has generated more than 2 million displaced people and half a million
refugees, while in the north, 12 July marks five years since Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir
had genocide added to the list of crimes he is accused of having committed—the 300,000
deaths in Darfur and 2 million refugees I referred to earlier. Yet, last month, al-Bashir
travelled freely to an African Union summit in South Africa. Failure to arrest him was a
blow to every refugee forced to flee their home, and to the rule of law. It undermines the
authority of the United Nations. What does this culture of impunity say to other despots
who we now want to bring before the ICC?
Even while al-Bashir was safely travelling home, the United Nations published the findings
of its commission of inquiry into human rights in Eritrea—my third example of the need to
tackle the sources of migration. The United Nations found that,
“systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being
committed in Eritrea under the authority of the Government”.
The report also says: that it is wrong to describe the drivers fuelling mass migration as purely
economic, and:
“Eritreans are fleeing severe human rights violations in their country and are in need of
international protection”.
Every month around 5,000 people leave Eritrea—more than 350,000 so far—around 10% of
the entire population. The UN says that, during their journeys:
“Thousands of Eritreans are killed at sea while attempting to reach European shores. The
practice of kidnapping migrating individuals, who are released on ransom after enduring
horrible torture or killed, targets Eritreans in particular”.
Noble Lords will have seen reports that some Christian Eritreans who reached Libya have
been beheaded by ISIS, which it then publicised, with all its barbarity, on YouTube.
Those Eritrean refugees who have been forced to return have then been arrested, detained and
subjected to ill treatment and torture. So refugees from Eritrea, Sudan and Syria, comprising
more than half the Mediterranean migrants, represent what we need to do—tackle the
problem at source. Then we would turn the tables on mass migration, ending the
tsunami of people. However, not all people fleeing their countries are refugees; some are
economic migrants. We will not properly address this crisis without some bigger-picture
policies aimed at them, which must include the aim of helping Africa become peaceful and
prosperous, and therefore more attractive as a permanent home. This is where our
development policies interplay with mass migration.
The bigger picture includes a Europe, US and Japan which make it harder for Africa to
prosper by propping up murderous, corrupt dictators with our misguided aid and arms
sales; dumping our subsidised agricultural surplus on their markets; and laundering
money stolen by their elites. We also need to balance the work we have done in using
development programmes to train women, which were admirable, when boys and men also
need economically useful skills and a sense of purpose, too. They make up the lion’s share of
mass migration. In countries where economics drives migration, there should be public
information campaigns, highlighting the fate of too many of those who have been lured into
embarking on their perilous journeys.
That takes me to my final point: our response A thoughtful, generous, humane, international
strategic response is the only way to address this phenomenal global challenge. The
children’s parlour game of pass the parcel had its origins in 1888, when a lighted candle was
passed along a row of people. The first recipient says, “Jack’s alive and likely to live. If he
dies in your hand, you’ve a forfeit to give”. As nations now argue about who will have to pay
the forfeit, and as we hold lives in our hands, we must combat xenophobia and assert
humanity’s shared responsibility. Here we should be looking at ideas like that of the noble
Lord, Lord Marlesford, and one which I and colleagues flagged up in a letter to the
DailyTelegraph on creating safe havens where people can be properly assessed. We must
look at “taking our fair share”, as Sir Peter Sutherland, the UN Special Representative, put it.
Sweden has taken 40,000 vulnerable people and Germany has taken 30,000. Although I
am not arguing that this country can take everybody or solve all the problems of the
world, we must certainly play our part.
As the son of an immigrant whose first language was Irish and who married a demobbed
Desert Rat whose brother gave his life in a war against Nazism, I have always loathed racism
and xenophobia. In cities like the one I represented in the House of Commons, Liverpool,
which calls itself the whole world in one city, I am deeply aware of the extraordinary and rich
contribution which many who have arrived here have made to British society. However, I am
also clear that the scale of what we currently face has the capacity to undermine community
cohesion and destroy good relationships between people of different racial and religious
origins. This also means that there are significant security implications in failing to tackle this
challenge effectively and humanely.
I began by quoting from Eleanor Rathbone’s speech made in 1940. She concluded that it was,
“not only in the interests of humanity and of the refugees, but in the interests of security
itself”,
to tackle these problems head-on. I beg to move.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
How can we live with the endless stories of the misery and suffering of people who feel that
they have no choice but to risk life and limb in order to leave their countries? .... I regret that
the European Union, including the UK, continues to renege on its humanitarian duties to put
in place adequate and humane policies and practices. Hundreds of thousands of people faced
with seemingly hopeless situations, which they feel powerless to change, are now fleeing
their countries and seeking refuge and, indeed, a better life.
Human Rights Watch has said,
“research shows that most of those making the crossing are taking terrible risks because
they have to, not because they want to”.
For instance, the Syrians who are seeking to travel to Europe are not after UK welfare
benefits, as some would suggest. They are seeking to leave a county experiencing a vicious
civil war, in which their children’s schools are attacked by barrel bombs and they live every
day in fear of chemical weapons. Does the Minister agree that it would be best if the
Home Secretary stopped referring to the “pull factor”, which suggests that these people
who head for Europe are taking unimaginable risks because they are making a lifestyle
choice? Surely it is more accurate to refer to “push factors”—60% of the people seeking
refuge originate from Syria, Eritrea, Somalia and Afghanistan. They flee their homes
because they have to and because they fear extreme violence, egregious human rights
abuses, desperate humanitarian conditions and, of course, the absence of hope.
Our call today has to be for the UK to improve its active response to these tragedies. The
Government have sadly already downgraded their contribution to the search-and-rescue
mission and now seem to be focused on smuggling networks rather than saving lives. Does
the Minister agree that the call for the creation of safe and legal routes should be at the
forefront of the UK and EU response to the crises in the Mediterranean? Surely the people
who in desperation make perilous journeys across land and sea deserve that. They are taking
life-threatening risks because they have to, not because they want to.
Among those compelled to take such risks are the impoverished and persecuted Rohingya, in
Rakhine State in Burma, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said. They are oppressed by
draconian travel restrictions and the denial of education, land rights and healthcare and are
widely described as the most persecuted people on earth. More than 140,000 Rohingya have
been confined to squalid camps. They are the world’s largest group of stateless people and
are effectively banned from citizenship because the Burmese Government have scrapped the
Rohingya white identity cards, and the voting rights that go with them, in Rakhine State,
where they live in a state of virtual apartheid and dire poverty. Will the UK support the view
that the UN Secretary-General should now take the lead in negotiating humanitarian access to
Rakhine State?
There are also the gross violations of human rights, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has
mentioned, which are the background to the mass exodus of desperate Eritreans, who are
fleeing a totalitarian state. Some 5,000 Eritreans embark each month on their journey to
escape what the UN has described as “gross human rights violations”. The truth is that the
cruelty and oppression of President Isaias Afewerki and his regime is such that all rights and
freedoms are being denied to those people. What is the Minister’s assessment of the claims
made that, in spite of the deteriorating situation described by the UN rapporteur, the EU is
now minded to engage with Eritrea on the basis that, such has been progress, engagement is
now appropriate?
Finally, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has said:
“European countries must shoulder their fair share in responding to the refugee crisis, at
home and abroad”,
and that:
“To deny that responsibility is to threaten the very building blocks of the humanitarian
system Europe worked so hard to build”.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
... We cannot in this country deal with the 54 million migrants whom the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees has spoken about. But we should be coming to terms with the
European Union in dealing with those migrants from north Africa who are flooding into
Europe. We ought to recognise that other countries in Europe are doing far more than
we are to face this tragedy. Since the resolution of the European Union in April, following
the death of 800 people, we have given some support to the saving of lives. We have initiated
the work of the Navy—HMS “Bulwark” and, later, HMS “Enterprise”. It seems that we need
to maintain this at the level which we started at, as the risks are very serious. A UN study
indicates that this year 137,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean and that migrant
deaths amount to almost 2,000. That is a human tragedy of gigantic proportions for which we
must take responsibility.
In particular, we must recognise that we need to help the Italians and the Greeks, who are
making considerable financial and social efforts to deal with the problem. The Italians have
indicated that the majority of the people arriving in Italy by sea are from Syria—42,323
out of 170,000. The second-largest group comes from Eritrea, at 34,329. The UN inquiry
into Eritrea demonstrates that, contrary to the view of the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office, the country’s citizens are suffering greatly from crimes against humanity. There are
extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, indefinite national service and forced labour. Recently the
UK Government have indicated that the Eritreans are reducing national service to 18 months
but, according to the UN inquiry, there is no evidence of that at all. Forced labour is not
something that we should reconcile ourselves to.
We must also recognise that the neighbouring countries of Syria have been burdened
almost beyond belief by the high numbers of refugees. One in four people now in
Lebanon is a refugee from Syria—25% of the population. Some 2 million people in
Turkey are refugees. We have offered 187 places to the Syrians. That is ludicrous and
we really must do something about it. On 13 May, the EU Commission issued an
interesting and constructive report which advocates an emergency relocation and resettlement
system. Unfortunately, we have not responded positively to the decision reached by the EU
Council on my birthday, 26 June, that EU leaders should agree to the relocation from Italy
and Greece of 40,000 people in need of international protection. We have opted out of this. If
we want to take a leadership role in global society, we should work with our partners in
Europe to tackle these problems.
Baroness Cox
... It is with a heavy heart that I report the findings from my recent visits to Burma and Sudan,
where I met many hundreds of refugees and forcibly displaced people. I focus on these areas
as they are largely inaccessible to international aid organisations and are off the radar screen
of the international media.
In Sudan, the Government continue with their aerial bombardment of civilians and ground
offensives in Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan, the latter states known as the Two
Areas. For example, in May, the South Kordofan Blue Nile Coordination Unit reported that
an estimated 180 bombs, including four cluster bombs, and about 300 shells were dropped on
civilian locations in the Two Areas, killing and injuring civilians, destroying livestock, and
deliberately targeting crops, markets, hospitals and schools. In Sudan, there are an estimated
3.1 million internally displaced persons: 2.5 million in Darfur and more than half a million in
the Two Areas. Some 3.7 million people in Sudan face crisis and stressed levels of acute food
insecurity, and that number is likely to reach 4.2 million during the July to September socalled peak lean season.
In Burma, I was pleased to report positive developments following a visit to Chin state in
February, but a subsequent visit has sadly revealed that military offensives by the Burmese
army continue to cause mass displacement and great suffering in Shan and Kachin states,
despite ceasefire agreements and peace negotiations. More than half a million people have
fled to neighbouring countries, and more than 600,000 have been internally displaced.
Furthermore, the Government are encouraging unscrupulous mega-developments, including
dam-building and mining, creating displacement of local populations without adequate
consultation and sometimes with no compensation, causing further large-scale displacement.
For example, according to International Rivers, in one project alone, 60,000 people have been
forcibly relocated by the Ta Sang-Mongtong dam on the Salween river.
Conditions in the camps for displaced people are dire and worsening. Flooding has recently
caused food shortages and the destruction of shelters in the camps for the Rohingya, many of
whom, as we know, have risked and lost their lives as they flee from violent attacks on their
communities and unbearable conditions in the camps, as highlighted by the noble Baroness,
Lady Kinnock. On the Thai-Burma border, in camps for the Shan and Kachin IDPs, problems
abound with health risks such as the rise of dengue fever and severe food shortages. For
example, the daily allowance for IDPs in Kachin state has been cut to the equivalent of less
than 20 US cents a day. It is not possible to live on that, and the Kachin Peace Network
claims that only 17% of the basic needs of IDPs are currently being met. We have visited
these camps and seen the conditions.
In this context, the decision of the UK Government and DfID to refrain from providing
any cross-border aid to civilians trapped behind closed borders in Sudan and to reduce
cross-border aid to community-based organisations working across the border in
Burma, other than the Thai-Burma Border Consortium, is immensely disturbing. The
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that more than
50% of IDPs in Burma are in non-government controlled areas and are therefore not
receiving any aid from the Burmese Government, aid channels or international NGOs. It has
always been the policy of my own small NGO, the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust—HART—
to work with local, community-based organisations which can reach people who are trapped
in these situations and which do not withdraw in times of danger and insecurity. We visit
them regularly and have seen again and again how these organisations are highly effective at
delivering aid to their people in greatest need. We receive comprehensive reports and are
continually impressed by their accountability. These CBOs provide food, medical and
educational supplies, and they are trusted by the local people. I hope, therefore, that Her
Majesty’s Government and DfID will reconsider their position on working with such
community-based organisations.
In conclusion, perhaps I may highlight three priorities that are essentially similar for both
countries and ask the Minister how Her Majesty’s Government are responding or will
respond to these challenges. The first is the urgent need to end the impunity with which
the army and the Government in both Burma and Sudan continue to perpetrate
military offensives and human rights abuses against their own civilians: in Sudan in
Darfur, Blue Nile and South Kordofan; and in Burma against the Rohingya, Shan and Kachin
peoples.
The second priority is the need for the international community to promote political solutions
which will bring genuine peace and justice for all civilians. While Her Majesty’s Government
are supporting the political process with regard to forthcoming elections in Burma, many
ethnic national peoples fear that this will not bring justice for them. In Sudan, too, it is
immensely hard for the people suffering there to see any effects of Her Majesty’s
Government’s interventions to bring the Sudanese Government to account for their
continuing genocidal policies in Darfur and the Two Areas.
The third priority is the need for immediate, urgent short-term interventions to relieve
the suffering of these displaced civilians, especially those trapped in areas where their
Governments do not allow access to humanitarian aid. I sincerely hope that the Minister
will be able to offer reassurance as to how the United Kingdom will contribute to the
international community’s duty to protect these civilians, and provide life-saving
humanitarian aid to the refugees and displaced people currently dying at the hands of their
own Governments in Sudan and Burma.
Lord Marlesford
...Migration is a global challenge rather than an EU problem; that must mean that it is
dealt with on a global basis. The forces for migration can never be removed until we live
in a very different world. Conflict, chaos and persecution are the prime causes of the
present migration crisis. We must continue to work on these causes, but underlying
them all is the natural desire to migrate for economic benefits. That will not change.
Most of the migration from sub-Saharan Africa is economic—especially, of course, from
Nigeria, the largest of those countries.
The present crisis of the Mediterranean boat people is largely reinforced by economic
migrants. It is simply impossible to process people once they have arrived in Europe in a
disorganised way, having either travelled illegally or been rescued because they were at peril
on the sea. Once they are in Europe it is hard to sort them out, and still more difficult—
and in practice often impossible—to remove them because there is nowhere that they
can be sent. There are also serious security implications. With the chaos of the present
system, it is hard to believe that Islamist jihadists in dangerous numbers have not been
entering Europe through the Med route. Still less will the EU Commission proposals for
allocating quotas, totalling 20,000, to each EU country deal with the scale of the challenge
facing Italy, Greece and Malta. In the case of the UK, we have, of course, an opt-out from
such a quota system.
The criticism that we in the UK have taken only a few hundred refugees from Syria
misses the point. We have provided £900 million to help more than 4 million Syrian
refugees in third countries. If the whole of that sum were diverted to taking refugees
into Britain, it would cover perhaps only 90,000 refugees—on the basis that the cost to
the public purse for the care of each refugee in the first year is a minimum of £10,000.
The only solution to the immediate crisis is urgently to set up holding areas outside
Europe to which people can be returned for safety, sustenance, care and assessment.
However, the last thing we want to do is create more overcrowded refugee camps. That
is why I suggest that, through the UN, we seek to create holding areas which could in
due course become new countries where there might be hope and, eventually, prosperity
and even some form of democracy. I have proposed an initial holding area, probably in
north Africa and perhaps somewhere on the coast of Libya. The fact that Libya is in
chaos may be a reason for selecting it. The holding area would be established under a UN
mandate legitimised by the Security Council. It would have to be negotiated with the
Government of Libya, who would need economic and financial inducements to agree it. I
envisage it becoming eventually a new world state, which I have suggested could be named
Refugia. It would require a military presence to establish, protect and guard it. This, I hope,
could be provided by NATO, the only world force of sufficient capability and moral integrity.
Again, that would be under the authority of a Security Council resolution.
One great natural resource that such an area would have is sunshine. I have in mind the use of
solar power not just for the energy that the community would need but for desalination, so as
to make the desert bloom and produce food—as Libya did a couple of thousand years ago
when it was a granary for the ancient world. Indeed, it included the most important of all the
Greek colonies in Cyrene and Apollonia. The Israelis and the Australians are among those
who have the technological expertise and experience to make this happen.
It is axiomatic that the necessary human resources in the form of health and education would
be provided from the start. World experience as to how best to do this would be mustered by
the UN agencies. In April 2013, I visited a UN school for young Arab boys aged eight to 12
in Bethlehem in the West Bank. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life to see
their bright eyes sparkling with hope.
An example on a smaller scale, which I have also visited, were the comprehensive facilities
provided in Hong Kong for the Vietnamese boat people. More than 200,000 refugees from
Vietnam came to Hong Kong in the 25 years from 1975. Two-thirds were resettled round the
world and a third were eventually repatriated to Vietnam. Let us remember that Hong Kong
was itself established in 1841 under the auspices of the British Foreign Secretary Lord
Palmerston, in an area which he described as,
“a barren island with hardly a house upon it”.
In authority and power, in some ways Lord Palmerston represented the United Nations of his
time.
The cost of Refugia would be a world responsibility and a prime task of the UN mandate. The
EU, including the UK, should be expected to make a substantial financial contribution, not
least because Refugia would be a location to which illegal immigrants arriving in Europe
could be taken. What I have suggested would not be easy. It is an aspiration, but from
aspirations can come hope, and from hope happiness.
Lord Desai
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who not only has given us an opportunity
to debate the issue but has done excellent work over many years on this problem. My
comments follow from what the noble Lords, Lord Marlesford and Lord Luce, said. I believe
that this is not just an African problem but, as the subject of the debate suggests, a problem in
Asia as well. It is a global problem and it is not going to go away. It is a global problem
because of climate change, state collapse, dictatorships, resource scarcity—whatever. There
are a lot of these people, and I do not think it makes any difference whether we call
them refugees, asylum seekers or migrants. We should not engage in cheese-paring
about what they are and who we will accept. This problem not only is not going to go
away but will be with us over the next decade or so. It is a consequence of globalisation.
We all accept that capital can move anywhere it likes—why do we not want labour to
move anywhere it likes? What is this?
One or two things need to be said. Europe as a whole has gone anti-immigration—it is
regrettable, but it has. When new Labour was in power, it had a most generous open-door
policy of accepting migrants from the newer members of the European Union. In the last
election, not a single party could be found which would actually say something positive
about immigration. That is the situation, and we have to have a global solution. That means
that the European Union, especially the members who are also permanent members of the
Security Council—the UK and France—ought to move the United Nations and everybody
else to seek a global solution to the refugee problem.
I will use a 19th century example. In the last 30 years of the 19th century, one-third of the
population of Europe moved to America—mainly to North America but also to South
America. Some of them were facing persecution, especially those from the Polish borders and
so on. There is the very famous episode of Tom Mann, the trade union leader, going to the
dockside in London and saying to the incoming people on the ships, “Brothers, you are
welcome here, but I wish you had not come”. That is our attitude to migrants.
I believe that the global solution could be as follows, although it is rather Utopian. There are
a number of countries in the world that are empty, for example a lot of those in central
Asia such as Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan et cetera. The density of population in those
places is sometimes fewer than 10 people per square kilometre, whereas ours in Europe is
somewhere between 200 and 300 people. It seems to me to be a very good global solution to
take people who want to leave their country for whatever reasons to countries that have room
for them.
Why should they take them? This is where we must use our resources to give incentives to
the recipient countries to accept these people, train them and make them settle there. I know
that it is wildly Utopian, but it is a very difficult problem to solve. However, if we could
engineer over the next 10 years a transition of people from Africa, Asia or wherever they are
to the relatively empty countries of Asia—I do not think that there are many other empty
countries left—that could be a solution to this problem....
The Earl of Sandwich
....Alongside conflict, climate change and terrorism, and because of all these things,
international migration has become one of the most acute problems of our time. At
times, even in this debate, it seems insoluble. First, I acknowledge the extraordinary
courage of aid workers and UN staff who work against the odds to bring water, food
and sanitation to registered refugees and—this is often forgotten—to many others who
are unregistered or displaced around the world. The UNHCR has been given the massive task
of receiving these refugees and internally displaced persons—IDPs.
I will provide just one example from Sudan, which was mentioned by my noble friend. As he
said, he and I were briefed by Oxfam only this morning on the fourth anniversary of South
Sudan’s independence, for which we had such hopes. More than 4 million people there face
severe food insecurity, largely as a result of the conflict that affects about 40% of this young
country’s population. It has already made more than 1.5 million people homeless and caused
another 500,000 to flee to neighbouring countries. The UNHCR is frequently overwhelmed,
as we saw many times in South Sudan last year—and in the north—not just by the numbers
but by the UN itself becoming almost a party to the conflict, concealing victims from both
sides of a racial and political divide.
Palestine is another country where the UN mandate has made it almost impossible for
UNRWA workers to remain independent. It is a paradox that aid workers the world over are
trained to be neutral while inevitably they take the side of the victims. In the same spirit, we
can imagine the Greek islanders, in the midst of their own economic struggles, opening their
doors to thousands of Syrians—sometimes as many as their own population—as well as
Eritreans, Somalis and even Afghans alongside their regular tourists and visitors. Most of
these people melt away into other EU countries, somehow avoiding all Greek, Italian and
FRONTEX reception centres on the mainland, making their way northwards towards
healthier economies and prospects of greater security.
It seems that up in the UK we have not yet grasped the urgency and scale of the problem. A
large proportion of those crossing the Mediterranean, perhaps one-third, are escaping from
conflict in Syria. It has lost 3.9 million people to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, leaving
another 12.2 million in need of humanitarian assistance. We should make a particular effort
to shelter more of these refugees in Europe—I know that we are doing a lot in Turkey and
other countries—because this is a crisis of exceptional proportions.
To take one example of what we can do, what is happening to the UK’s share of the
UNHCR’s resettlement scheme? The Government are already receiving up to 750
refugees from different countries under the Gateway programme. More recently, they
committed to providing a safe route for some hundreds of vulnerable Syrian refugees,
selected because they are elderly, disabled or in some way victimised, who are given five
years’ humanitarian protection status. This seems to be an admirable scheme—yet, as
was mentioned, up to March only 183 had been resettled through this route. Perhaps the
Minister could give us an up-to-date number and say what will happen next.
The Government are often criticised for their poor response. They protest that more than
4,000 refugees have been granted asylum during the whole crisis and that large sums have
been given to refugees in Turkey. Yet, as the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, said, we do not
match the generosity of other EU members such as, in this particular case, Germany and
Sweden, and we hide behind the Dublin convention. This dictates that refugees belong in the
countries of first asylum such as Spain, Italy and Greece. Is it time for this convention to be
reviewed?
The Government have done well to help rescue thousands of migrants from the ocean. Of
course, the MoD is playing its part, and at its own expense. However, the Government also
need to come out with new policies on migration. The only concern expressed so far is that
welfare benefits must not act as a pull factor. That may be understandable: in the first debate
today, we heard that the NHS may be unsustainable. Yet, to the extent that we are a healthy
economy and a wealthy country, we will always be a pull factor and we also know that our
economy benefits from migration. Other EU countries, whether they are in Schengen or not,
need to know that we are taking our responsibilities seriously and not dumping them behind
barbed wire in Calais.
What about these safe havens? We have heard some Utopian suggestions. Does the Prime
Minister still consider that we can receive refugees for processing somewhere offshore—or
what exactly is he proposing? We are still very short of ideas, let alone solutions. I am glad
that the EU home affairs sub-committee intends to look at migration this year. Perhaps the
Government should do some more joined-up research into these problems.
The Minister may remember that the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, last week made a telling
point about government. He said that we used to separate domestic affairs from foreign
affairs but that,
“there are no longer any issues in Britain that are domestic and that do not have an
international dimension”.—[ Official Report , 2/7/15; col. 2260.]
Of course, there was no answer to that in the debate, but this has serious repercussions for
Ministers answering these debates, and it helps to explain why our national response to
migration is quite blurred.
My noble friend mentioned dealing with the problem at source, but how can a Foreign Office
Minister be expected to deal with issues of international development, defence and
immigration that belong to other departments? Do civil servants now groan under the weight
of more joined-up cross-departmental meetings? These are the added pressures of foreign
policy and accountability, and to help meet them I hope that Ministers will support the
proposal for an international affairs committee of this House, which is long overdue.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, the potential number of refugees and the practical challenges of dealing with
this issue are so huge and daunting that it is all the more important to be clear about the
fundamental principles at stake. The principles may be very difficult to implement, but
let us at least be clear what they are and remain true to them.
First, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, so eloquently argued, the only long-term solution to this
problem is to tackle it at its roots. This means the creation of stable Governments and
economic prosperity in the countries from which people are fleeing. It is easy to despair
about achieving this, but we must continue to do what we can, in co-operation with other
Governments, to resolve issues of civil strife, as in South Sudan; to bring about Governments
who respect human rights, for example in Eritrea; and, of course, to end the killings in Iraq
and Syria.
Secondly, there is a clear practical imperative to do all we can to hunt down the traffickers.
We can do this only with the active co-operation of the Governments of the countries in
which they are operating. In a country such as Libya, where government has virtually broken
down, this is obviously very difficult. Huge sums of money are being made by traffickers. It
is vital that we halt an operation that puts so many lives at risk. I am sure the whole House
will be very anxious to learn from the Minister what success the Government are having in
this regard and whether they are satisfied with the co-operation they are getting from the
relevant Governments, including the split power structure in Libya.
Thirdly, there is a clear obligation to help rescue those whose lives are immediately at risk.
The importance of the long-term goal—stability in the countries from which people flee—
and the intermediate one of halting the traffickers, must not be allowed to obscure what has to
be done now. Yesterday, the Minister stressed that we must tackle the root cause, not just the
symptoms, but they are not mutually exclusive. If you are in pain you do indeed want to find
the reason for it and address its cause, but meanwhile you take pain killers.
As we know, 3,500 people died crossing the Mediterranean in 2014, and the number this year
could reach 2,000. When people’s lives are immediately at stake, as they are for those
crammed into unseaworthy vessels, the moral imperative is to rescue them. We would ask
this for ourselves if we were in that situation, and they are asking it of us. We now know that
HMS “Bulwark”, which was capable of rescuing 1,000 people, has been replaced by HMS
“Enterprise”, a survey ship only one-fifth the size. Furthermore, the task of HMS
“Enterprise” will be to gather intelligence on migrant flows to prevent the smugglers’ vessels
leaving North Africa in the first place. In addition, two Border Force cutters will continue to
take part in EU search and rescue operations. Is the Minister satisfied that the search and
rescue operation is large enough, given that HMS “Bulwark” alone saved some 4,000 lives?
Of course, as the Government stress, we must break the link between getting a boat, and life
in Europe, but this cannot be at the expense of letting people whom we could save drown.
Clearly linked with the imperative to save these people—a good number of them children—
from drowning is the need to treat them, once rescued, with humanity. The burden of this
irregular immigration is being borne by Italy and Greece. Italy is coping with 56,000 people
and Greece with 48,000. The cost to Italy is £800 million a year, but the EU is supplying only
£60 million. Sharing responsibilities and burdens is fundamental to not only the whole
principle of membership of the European Union but a successful policy on this issue. Does
the Minister not believe there is a case for more shared support for Italy and Greece from the
European Union?
Fourthly, we have a clear obligation, which as a country we accept, to offer asylum to
those who are genuinely fleeing persecution and whose lives are in danger in their
country of origin. It is not always easy to distinguish such asylum seekers from
economic migrants, who will often, in their desperation, tell whatever story they can in
order to find something better than the endemic poverty and insecurity they may have
known at home. Clearly, there is a difference of opinion between the Minister, given
what he said yesterday, and the view of many others such as Amnesty International,
who believe that the majority of those fleeing are not in fact just economic migrants but
people fleeing from countries such as Syria and Eritrea where their lives are in danger.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, put it, there is a push factor, not just a pull factor.
Even given this disagreement, there is a clear imperative to have a fair legal process in
place that is able to assess the claims of those who seek asylum. Is the Minister satisfied
that that is the case, and what percentage of those rescued from the Mediterranean have in
fact sought and been granted asylum? The Minister is reported as saying that Britain is
making the biggest contribution to the joint European asylum processing effort in the frontline states, with more than 1,000 days being contributed by British staff. That is not in fact
very much, in terms of people deployed....
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port
...People who are hungry are hungry; people who are destitute are destitute; people who
are forced to leave their families need all the attention they can get, and their cry should
be heard. They should not be categorised, stereotyped, put in a neat box and written out
of the equation. We have a world full of people who migrate for those reasons, and in the
present emanation of this phenomenon, we have to add to that not just the breadwinner
migrating but his wife and children too. This issue will not go away; we have to find a way
to face it and deal with it. The dams will burst and the crowds will come, and when it
happens, we who have watched it for so long must not cry wolf or say that we had not seen it
or heard of it. It will come through the softer underbelly of the eastern sides of Europe as it
did when the Goths, Ostrogoths, Huns and Vandals—we are all capable of looking back into
history—crashed into the Roman Empire and overthrew mighty Rome itself.
The Earl of Listowel
Some of your Lordships will have seen the obituary on 1 July of Sir Nicholas Winton—he
may have been mentioned earlier in the debate. This good man saved the lives of 669
children from Prague. .... I should like to make one request to the Minister ...will he think
very seriously about committing to provide space for 1,500 unaccompanied asylumseeking children in this country?
Lord Judd
.. the awful truth is that the scale of the problem with which we are dealing will be
dwarfed by what lies ahead. The consequences of climate change, the movement of
peoples, and unresolved conflicts and tensions are not going to abate, and we are going to see
an acceleration in the issues that face us. But there is one other issue that we have to face,
particularly in this House. If we are intent on a world based on the market and the free
movement of capital and goods, how on earth will we stem the inevitable movement of
people that flows from that? People will go to where the centres of economic activity are
strongest. This is inevitable, and we are just burying our head in the sand if we pretend
otherwise.
That brings home to us that we have a global responsibility that is second to none in
helping to build and strengthen the economies of the people of the world as a whole, and
in ensuring that we are not consuming the wealth and raw resources of the world in a
completely selfish way that accentuates the awful reality of life for the majority of
people in the world.
I have one absolute conviction which I think has become an obsession; we are utterly
interdependent with the world and our leadership, of whatever political persuasion...
will in future be judged by how they enabled this country to join the world, to belong to
the world and to play its part together with others in finding the solutions that are
necessary for humanity, because, believe you me, there is no way in which in the long
term the well-being of the British people can be secured without fulfilling that
partnership in international community.
Baroness Hamwee
...Reference has been made to the Minister’s remarks yesterday about this being an
issue primarily of economic migration. I share the views expressed in the responses of
the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord
Harries, and we know that a number of agencies have challenged those remarks with
their figures. In my view, the demarcation line between economic migrancy and being a
refugee is really not that clear—I will try to remember to keep the speech of the noble
Lord, Lord Griffiths, to refer to for the future. People in that situation must face huge
desperation and often display huge bravery. Of course, what they want are safe, legal routes,
because without them, lives are put further at risk. Who among their families left behind
knows the outcome? My noble friend Lady Manzoor asked me yesterday whether there is a
central DNA database of those who are drowned and whose bodies are recovered, so that
there might at some point be the possibility of their families discovering their fate. Stories of
reliance on smugglers—criminals—and the abuse and exploitation suffered at stage after
stage of the journey are legion.
I read the title of this debate as extending to the plight—to use the term chosen by the noble
Lord—of those who do reach the UK. In this country, they are faced perhaps with indefinite
immigration detention, which in itself is harmful. It is a little part of what the noble Lord
called the big picture. There are very rigid rules about family reunion. A father might reach
this country and perhaps be able to bring over his dependent children and partner. However,
an 18 year-old child might have to be left behind and become reliant on smugglers. Sibling
relationships do not count. British citizens find it almost impossible to bring to the UK family
members who are in danger.
We are familiar with the sometimes very long waits for decisions about asylum status. We
know how keen many asylum seekers are to work and the importance of work for both their
own self-respect and their integration. Migrant Voice recently published a list of “Alice in
Blunderland” policies and experiences. It gave as one example:
“Because of the experiences that led asylum-seekers to flee, they can be afraid of officials”—
and then they come here and are faced with security staff of whom they are afraid. Another
example is that:
“LGBT asylum-seekers may be asked to provide sexually explicit photographs or videos …
to ‘prove’ their homosexuality”.
Noble Lords will be able to cite comparable examples of such policies.
A couple of weeks ago I met a doctor from Syria. I do not want to say much about it because
of the danger to his family. However, people arriving here bring skills that we should be
using. That fits in very much with the comments of my noble friend Lord Taverne. There is
great concern, which I share, about asylum support rates, both as they are now and as they
may be if the regulations which had to be withdrawn at the end of the last Parliament are
reintroduced.
I have been sent some articles written by journalism students who have interviewed refugees
and I thought that I would share a few extracts with your Lordships. The first extract is as
follows:
“When I arrived in Kent I didn’t speak English. [I was given] a piece of paper with writing in
so many different languages. I found my language on there and pointed to it, and that’s how
they knew that I was from Afghanistan … I was amazed when I saw so many languages. It
made me realise there were other people like me. And I thought that this must be such a good
country, if it is helping all these different people”.
Another interviewee talked about:
“Trauma, the vulnerability that comes from being [a child] separated from their parents, and
the expectation of making money to send back home”.
That has,
“an impact on a child’s ability to focus, concentrate and think about their long-term
plans for the future”.
In stressful cases, said one worker,
“children wonder what the point of committing to an education is in a country that they
don’t know if they’ll be able to stay in”.
One young man said:
“I am lost. I have nowhere to go. I can’t go forward, and I can’t go back I am worse than an
animal in a cage”.
When depression overtakes him he self-harms using a knife. He has carved the initials AFG
into his arm as if to remind himself of a self-identity that is otherwise rapidly disappearing.
As I have mentioned Afghanistan, I should also mention the local staff in Afghanistan—the
interpreters and other people—who worked with our forces. They are regarded by the Taliban
as traitors. By November last year, however, only 31 had been given leave to enter this
country, not necessarily to work or stay. Treachery? Is that betrayal by the UK?
The extracts go on to say that,
“this is not just an issue of government policy. It’s also about the messages propagated
by the media”.
One of the students wrote about the Leveson report on press standards, which covered the
media’s influence over community relations:
“the report found that, in the tabloids particularly, ‘there are enough examples of
careless or reckless reporting to conclude that discriminatory, sensational or
unbalanced reporting in relation to … immigrants and asylum seekers is a feature of
journalistic practice … rather than an aberration’”.
Another interviewee said that government officials were looking for him in Syria. He cannot
communicate directly with his family. He said:
“London is like a desert to me. I don’t speak the language. I don’t have any contacts. I am
alone. Like in a desert, but filled with people around me”.
The writer of the article said that she would not know how refugees express gratitude and
asked the interviewee if he would answer the question: should we expect Syrian asylum
seekers to be grateful? He said:
“I am lost here, my life is in Syria. I was forced to leave. But Britain has been like a caring
mother to me, and has given me everything. Britain has given me rights again. Britain is
educating me. I am grateful”.
Last night, in response to a request for some comments about his experience here, another
young Syrian wrote to me about the difficulties—it was not anything that I had expected. He
explained his experiences with great understatement. His family decided to leave because,
“the situation was very horrible and a lot of bombs fall”.
He said that,
“the most difficult thing is the feeling when you must leave your country and you cannot
return to it”.
I think his English is brilliant. He said:
“The most difficult thing here is the miss for the country, the family, and the friends, and
really it is very hard when you hear that one of your best friends is dead and this happened
with me more than ten times. I want to say thanks for the British people and for British
government to receive us and to give us the support to survive and complete our life but in
same time you should to know that about one million of the Syrian has same my situation and
they need your support and help. The first rule in my life is you can achieve your dream when
you trust with yourself”.
We pride ourselves on our history of welcoming those who seek refuge here, and those
expressions of gratitude really make you think. As my noble friend Lord Maclennan said, we
should be taking a leadership role in a global society because we live in a globally connected
world.
Lord Collins of Highbury
...The world’s focus must be on finding political solutions to the cycles of violence that
drive civilians from their homes, and on breaking the culture of impunity that has come
to characterise brutal conflicts such as those in Syria and South Sudan. Each new tragic
incident—the seizure of Yarmouk, the shipwreck off Lampedusa and the desperate
plight of the Rohingya—is more horrific than the last, and must spur political action.
Strict quotas, such as those set out in the European Commission’s proposed agenda on
migration will not work, but the lack of solidarity shown by this Government is
immoral, in my opinion. In such situations, ours should be a generous response, not a
constrained one. As the noble Lord, Lord Luce, highlighted, 86% of refugees reside in
developing countries. Conflicts and crises occur most frequently in poorer countries. They
occur and people are compelled to cross the nearest border. Refugees often have social,
economic and cultural bonds with neighbouring communities and they may prefer to remain
close to home.
The UK, as we have heard, is one of the top donors to Syria and the region. It goes without
saying that it is vital to support refugees where they are. Governments, donors and
NGOs must take a long-term view, as many refugees will be resident for years and even
decades. That also means making sure that support is given to host communities, which
are often just as poor and under immense strain, as well as to the refugees. That was
highlighted by my noble friend Lord Judd. By resettling more refugees, we not only offer a
lifeline to some of the most vulnerable people but it will give us a greater moral
authority when we call on countries such as Lebanon and Jordan to keep their borders
open and uphold the rights of refugees.
The Government’s decision to halt the paring back of search and rescue operations by the use
of HMS “Bulwark” was welcome, but does its replacement by HMS “Enterprise” signal a
reduced commitment by the UK in the Mediterranean? Can the Minister explain how the
Government expect HMS “Enterprise” to undertake its dual operational functions of refugee
rescue and the apprehension of smugglers? I fear that the response of Mr Brokenshire, the
Minister, to your Lordships’ sub-committee, which was reported in the media yesterday, will
only confirm to the rest of the world the UK’s continued reluctance to engage.
With regard to the Syrian conflict, the Prime Minister has announced a modest expansion of
the UK’s resettlement programme, particularly for vulnerable Syrian refugees in the region.
Can the Minister provide more detail on how many more places will be available? Of the
numbers accepted from Syria, can the Minister also tell the House how many were already in
the UK, including students?
My party’s view is that Britain should rejoin the United Nations official refugee
programme for the most vulnerable refugees, understanding that many of these
migrants will not even make it to a boat or get here on a plane; they will die in a camp
without our help. There are close to 3 million refugees in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of
violence and fighting in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Nigeria and elsewhere.
In the last few weeks, political tensions in Burundi have pushed tens of thousands into
neighbouring countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which itself has
close to 3 million internally displaced people. The conflict in Yemen has been so destructive
that thousands of Somali refugees and other nationalities who had escaped there are now
seeking safety in Somalia, even though that country continues to experience violence.
No country or region is immune, from Libya and the shores of the Mediterranean, through to
the Gulf of Aden, and across the sea, where the Rohingya and Bengali families were stranded
on boats for months with scarce food and water. The Prime Minister has emphasised that
those people fleeing to Europe across the Mediterranean were being driven—pushed—to
attempt these journeys, highlighting failed states and people smugglers as the drivers.
However, what he failed to mention, which we have heard in this debate, is the
persistent and widespread human rights abuses directed at their people by brutal
regimes such as Eritrea, and the unsustainable demands being made on countries such
as Jordan and Lebanon in trying to accommodate refugee populations.
UK Ministers, as highlighted by James Brokenshire’s remarks, suggest that resolving the
Mediterranean crisis is dependent on breaking a mythical link between boarding a boat and
settling in Europe. However, as we have heard, the great majority of those attempting the
Mediterranean crossing set off from Libya, a country experiencing a vicious internal conflict.
Refugees and migrants have suffered appalling abuses. The contention that these
immigrants are “economic migrants”, rather than desperate victims of human
catastrophe, is inaccurate and alarming. If we are to have an honest debate, we need
strongly to challenge this contention. António Guterres, the UN refugee chief, stressed
that most of those attempting the journey are not economic migrants: a third came from
Syria, while people fleeing violence in Afghanistan and Eritrea’s repressive regime each
made up 12%. Other countries of origin include Somalia, Nigeria, Iraq and Sudan. The
British people, who are understandably concerned about levels of migration, are more
anxious about human decency when confronted with the facts.
My right honourable friend Yvette Cooper said that we should decouple asylum from
migration targets. It skews the debate and frames an issue of decency in the context of
political expediency. Refugees should be removed from the net migration target. Our
aim should be an integrated development, defence, foreign and home policy that
recognises that the global challenges we face are interconnected. It is therefore a matter of
concern that the Department for International Development has been excluded from a number
of cross-Whitehall committees, including the National Security Council and the immigration
task force. That represents further isolation and fading influence.
We were once a nation that was proud to offer a place of sanctuary for people fleeing
horrific rights abuses worldwide, but the Government’s deliberate retreat from the
world stage has put our reputation at risk. The UK must stand up for the world’s least
wanted people, but we must do so in a manner based on sound principles and which
requires consensus. It is a debate whose urgency cannot be underestimated.
In response - The Earl of Courtown
I shall try to answer all the questions that have been posed. If I fail to, because I am very
pressed for time, I shall write to noble Lords and put copies in the Library.
As other noble Lords have said, we have all been shocked by the plight of migrants dying on
an unprecedented scale on boats in the Mediterranean and in the Andaman Sea. People are
fleeing war, violence and deep-rooted poverty. The collapse of authority in Libya has meant a
huge increase in numbers coming through the central Mediterranean. Addressing these issues
requires a complex and far-sighted response.
At a special meeting of the European Council in April, it was agreed that we had to act to
address the humanitarian tragedy unfolding before us. At that point, the UK contributed HMS
“Bulwark”—to which tribute was paid by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and other noble
Lords—to support the Italian rescue effort. She has rescued more than 4,700 people from
sinking boats that have set off from Libya.
We have also provided two Border Force cutters to support the search and rescue operations,
and to date they have rescued some further 450 people. In total, UK vessels have rescued
more than 5,000 people from drowning. But we also agreed that we could not resolve this
crisis without a long-term comprehensive approach. This is where we need to work together
across Europe to tackle the drivers of this migration.
The noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Alton, the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, the noble
and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, and many other noble Lords expressed
their concern about HMS “Bulwark” returning home and being replaced by HMS
“Enterprise”. We have always been clear that to tackle the migrant crisis we need a
comprehensive plan in going after the criminal gangs, smugglers and the owners of the boats,
potentially taking action there as well, and stabilising the countries from which these people
are coming. So it is right that we now move to the next stage under the CSDP’s mission. As a
multirole survey ship, HMS “Enterprise”, as mentioned by the noble and right reverend Lord,
Lord Harries, is well placed to assist in this phase of the operation, particularly given its
additional intelligence-gathering capability. We can do this now because other European
partners are stepping in with contributions to the CSDP operation.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, suggested that our United Kingdom contribution was
decreasing. This is not the case. As well as HMS “Enterprise”, there is another helicopter
attached to this operation and two Border Force cutters—HMC “Protector” and HMC
“Seeker”—are aiding FRONTEX’s Operation Triton. In addition, we have contributed a
further five defence personnel to the multinational operational headquarters in Rome, which
is crucial to establishing the CSDP mission.
The urge to migrate and to seek a better life is a natural human instinct. It is part of a broader
process of global change and development and a route out of poverty for millions. However,
we must seek to manage irregular migration in a rational way, addressing its root causes as
well as its short-term impact. Some people will be fleeing war and persecution, others are
economic migrants seeking a better life. We need to make a distinction between these to
ensure we address the root causes of this migration.
In the short term, we are providing humanitarian support to refugees and displaced people
across the world. The Government have just provided a new humanitarian package of
support, with an additional £100 million pledge to Syria, taking our public commitment to
£900 million to date. This is our largest-ever response to a humanitarian crisis and makes the
UK the world’s second-largest bilateral donor to the Syria crisis. It is providing food, clean
water, medical care and other essential aid that is helping hundreds of thousands of people in
Syria and its neighbouring countries and is having a big impact on reducing people’s need to
flee the region.
The Government have also just announced an additional £217 million to Africa to provide
support to more than 2 million refugees who are displaced across the region. There is also a
new £110 million programme for work in the Horn of Africa, with a focus on refugees in
Ethiopia and Sudan. The UK is now the second-largest bilateral donor in the Horn of Africa
in providing humanitarian support for displaced populations. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton,
and the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, said, on the other side of the world, Rohingya
refugees have fled their homes in north-west Burma. The United Kingdom is one of the
largest donors in Burma, providing £18 million in humanitarian assistance since 2012 to
Rakhine State, from where many of the Burmese Rohingya found on boats in the Andaman
Sea originate.
We are also tackling the networks that lie behind people-smuggling. This form of illegal
migration funds organised crime and undermines fair immigration controls by allowing
economic migrants uncontrolled access to our countries. This emphasises the importance of
our supporting the creation of a credible national Government in Libya who can work with us
to secure its coastline.
We must also develop a much richer picture of how these networks are exploiting people, so
that we can disrupt them. The Government are establishing a dedicated law enforcement team
to tackle the threat posed by illegal immigration from north Africa, in light of the surge in
numbers crossing the Mediterranean. This will bring together officers from the National
Crime Agency, Border Force, Immigration Enforcement and the Crown Prosecution Service,
with the task of relentlessly pursuing and disrupting organised crime groups profiting from
the people-smuggling trade. We will work with our international partners to identify
organised crime groups smuggling migrants to the Libyan coast; illuminate the routes and
methods the smugglers use; and understand the money flows. These insights will be shared
with our partners to disrupt those orchestrating the smuggling.
At the same time, we must be clear that we will meet our obligations to provide refuge for the
most vulnerable. The United Kingdom already participates in the United Nations programme
to resettle refugees who have fled from their home countries, including those affected by
conflict or civil war. We also set up our own scheme for particularly vulnerable people
fleeing the conflict in Syria, including women and children at risk who could not be protected
in the region. However, these are only short-term measures. These scenes demonstrate how
working with developing countries not only matters to them but, more than ever before,
matters to us too.
We must work together to tackle this issue upstream at source, as mentioned by the noble
Lord, Lord Griffiths of Burry Port.
In the long term, development assistance addresses the root causes of instability and
insecurity, reducing inequality and providing economic opportunities for all. This helps to
build more effective states and societies, reducing some of the pressures to migrate. Finding
the means to support stability, prosperity and opportunity means a more stable and
prosperous world for us all.
The United Kingdom is already refocusing its own efforts. Despite the difficult economic
times, Britain has kept its commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on aid. The United Kingdom
will spend over £4 billion on bilateral and multilateral development assistance in Africa this
financial year. Of this, £725 million will go bilaterally on development programmes to key
source and transit countries for irregular migrants in the Horn of Africa and east Africa. We
will also spend £280 million bilaterally on governance and security, building state capacity to
achieve stability, peace and respect for human rights; and £540 million will be spent
bilaterally on economic development, including a strong focus on jobs and urban youth
populations, particularly relevant in areas of the Horn of Africa.
We are supporting the cross-government effort, including the £1 billion Conflict, Stability
and Security Fund, which seeks to deliver longer-term peaceful political settlements—
ultimately the best tool for reducing flows of irregular migration into the European Union
from countries in the Middle East and north African region. At the Department for
International Development we have already refocused our priorities to be more on jobs and
livelihoods than ever before. Through United Kingdom aid we are investing a total of £1.8
billion globally on economic development this financial year, more than doubling the direct
amount spent in 2012-13. This refocusing of our programme will take time to have an impact
on the current migration trends.
A number of noble Lords have mentioned the recent debate in the Moses Room, which my
noble friend Lord Bates responded to on behalf of the Government. He has been pleased to
write to all Ministers in this House from the Ministry of Defence, the Home Office—that is
himself, of course—the Department for International Development and the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, so that all the Ministers in the Lords will be able to discuss these
matters among themselves, and I will be taking part in these discussions as well.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, and the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Collins, went
further on the problems facing the Rohingya people. The United Kingdom has taken action at
ministerial level by raising the issue with the Burmese ambassador in London. We are issuing
a joint demarche, with the US and the EU, to Ministers in Burma, and we are lobbying
ASEAN member states Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia not to turn away boats in distress.
On 29 May, we participated in the Thai international co-ordination meeting as an observer.
We call on all parties in Burma to address the dire situation of the Rohingya community in
Rakhine state. We want to see improved humanitarian access, greater security and
accountability, and a sustainable solution on citizenship.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and my noble friends Lord Marlesford and Lord Higgins all
mentioned the issue of safe havens. The scale of the present situation requires ambitious
thinking. We must contemplate difficult decisions to help break the link between getting on a
boat in north Africa and being allowed to enter and remain in Europe. Our colleagues in
Spain have valuable experience in doing exactly this when migrants arrived in their
thousands in the Canary Islands. We can learn important lessons from them, but we will be
urging the EU to look to create safe zones in transit countries where illegal migrants could
remain, or to which those who end up in Europe and who do not require asylum could be
returned when it becomes difficult to send them home directly. For this reason, the United
Kingdom is very interested in the proposal by the European Commission for a multipurpose
centre in Niger. We have joined the informal working group to develop this and will be
pressing for the level of ambition to reflect the need to fundamentally change the current
patterns of illegal migration to the European Union.
My noble friend Lord Higgins mentioned the situation in Calais. We recognise that we need
to do more with our French counterparts to tackle the issue. My right honourable friend the
Home Secretary and the French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, set out a number of
commitments in a joint declaration published last September to tackle the problems at the
port. The declaration included £12 million from the UK Government towards upgrading the
security infrastructure at Calais and other juxtaposed ports.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, also mentioned asylum. The majority of illegal
immigrants to Italy come from countries such as Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal where the
drivers for emigration tend to be more economic rather than fear of persecution. My noble
friend Lord Higgins asked what the European Union is doing. The EU needs to do more to
ensure that it is taking a lead role in responding to this crisis. As the noble Lord, Lord Luce,
said, working closely with the African Union is vital, and I welcome the proposed summit
that is to take place in Valletta in the autumn.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, and the noble Baroness,
Lady Kinnock, mentioned the human rights situation in Eritrea. The UK will continue to
press Eritrea to improve its human rights record through a range of channels, including
through our engagement with multilateral partners on their programmes. The root causes of
migration from Eritrea are complex. They are driven by a mix of economic, social, political
and other factors, but the opportunity for economic development is clearly a contributing
factor that is clearly influencing people’s decisions to migrate.
The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, asked about resettlement. We have been clear that the
United Kingdom will not sign up to a compulsory European Union quota system which risks
undermining control of our own borders and the UK asylum system. However, I am proud of
this country’s record for resettling refugees. In the past five years we have resettled more than
5,000 people, second only to Sweden in the European Union.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, mentioned humanitarian aid in Sudan. The United Kingdom
is a leading humanitarian donor in Sudan, with my department involved in a programme of
£47 million in 2015-16. The majority of this is focused on the provision of humanitarian
assistance. The noble Baroness also mentioned cross-border support in Sudan. While we are
deeply concerned at renewed military activity in the two areas, we continue to judge the risks
of providing cross-border support to be too high, due to the limited number of implementing
partners and our inability to assess or monitor programmes. However, we continue to review
this policy.
My noble friend Lord Marlesford mentioned the £900 million response in Syria. The
response to the conflict in Syria is the United Kingdom’s largest ever to a humanitarian crisis.
As my noble friend said, the UK is the second largest donor to the Syrian crisis. This
response also supports Lebanon, Jordan, which was mentioned by other noble Lords, and
Turkey to deal with the influx of refugees and the pressures this creates.
The noble Lord, Lord Luce, asked what we are doing in the regional development and
protection programmes. These are EU-led initiatives to increase efforts to deal with what is
called the stickiness of refugees in transit countries. This has two goals: to strengthen EU
member states’ co-ordination and coherence and to develop activities to strengthen migration
management in the region, and benefit refugees and migrants.
The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, also mentioned the Syrian relocation scheme. I understand
that 187 people have been helped under this scheme. On Friday 19 June, my right honourable
friend the Prime Minister announced that we would modestly expand the scheme by offering
a few hundred more places by working with the UNHCR.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, without exception we have heard a series of hugely knowledgeable speeches,
tackling a range of complex themes. I was particularly struck by the references made to
imaginative ideas, which the Minister just described as ambitious thinking. In the 18th
century that led, for instance, to the creation by Britain of a new city, Freetown, in Sierra
Leone and in the 19th century to the creation of a new country, Liberia, to help those who
were trapped in slavery at that time.
Let me end by referring to the awesome courage, dignity and determination to survive of so
many refugees and migrants. Just yesterday, I heard from a young North Korean who had
been tortured, imprisoned and forced to scavenge on the streets. He escaped from a country
where 200,000 are in concentration camps. After being given asylum in the UK and having
had two years in a UK university, yesterday Timothy received British citizenship. His
greatest desire is to use that freedom and education to return to his own country and help to
rebuild it. That is the greatest longing of most refugees and I hope that today’s important
debate will give encouragement to those such as Timothy who read it. I reiterate my thanks to
all noble Lords who have taken part.
Motion agreed.
LORD DAVID ALTON'S SPEECH
“Religious persecution of Christians around the globe”: the
future prognosis:
http://davidalton.net/2015/06/12/raif-badawi-facing-yet-more-public-beating-and-theright-to-believe-or-not-to-believe-further-questsions-in-parliament/
Franz Werfel's disturbing and prophetic novel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh (Die vierzig
Tage des Musa Dagh), written in 1933 , tells the story of genocide against Armenian
Christians and foreshadows the rise of Hitler - whose Nazi thugs were burning Werfel's
books, in his native Austria and in Germany.
In this centenary of those events it is worth reminding ourselves of how the Ottomans
attempted to eradicate the Armenian Christians and perpetrated further acts of genocide
against their other Christian minorities, including Greeks and Assyrians – incubating that
most dangerous pestilence: the hatred of whole peoples.
Not only should we recall those terrible events in order to give the lie to Hitler's question
"who now remembers the Armenians?" – insisting that we will never forget - but also because
that deadly phenomenon of deportations, concentration camps, rape and killings did not end
in 1915 with the Ottomans. Hitler thought he could get away with it because people hadn’t
really protested against the genocide, and there wouldn’t be any consequences for him. He
assumed (correctly) that people would murmur but not take any real action and therefore he
could continue his reign of terror against the Jews and others.
There is an old Armenian saying, echoed in Musa Dagh, that “to be an Armenian is an
impossibility”. It is a saying which, in the 1930s, would be understood by Jews, and which
today is the experience of persecuted Christians – from North Korea to Pakistan, from China
to Sudan: the world over. Prince Charles has described threats to Christians in the Middle
East as "an indescribable tragedy".
In the last census of the Ottoman era, conducted in 1914, Christians made up a quarter of the
Middle East’s population. Now they are less than 5%. Christians in the Middle East represent
less than 1% of the world’s Christians. If the current demographic trends continue, the
Middle East’s population of 12 million Christians will be halved by 2020. As things stand,
the current prognosis for Middle Eastern Christians could be fatal.
Systematic persecution is not a new phenomenon – consider the fate of St.Stephen or the
persecutions of Nero or Diocletian – or even the Armenians – whose ancient kingdom
became, in the fourth century, the first nation to officially embrace Christianity and who,
according to Eusebius and Tertullian, were subjected to persecution by the Romans. The
Empire had outlawed the new growing Christian faith and condemned all Christians to death.
Those events were recalled, this month, in the Glyndebourne premiere of Gaaetano
Donizetti’s opera, Polyeucte, based on Pierre Corneille’s play about the martyrdom of Saint
Polyeuctus and set in the third century in Melitiene, the capital of ancient Armenia.
Sixteen hundred year later the campaigns against the Armenian Christians and, in German
South West Africa (Namibia) of racial extermination of the Herero and Nama people, would
become the victims the first genocides of the twentieth century.
Werfel's brilliant Musa Dagh homes in on a small community of 5,000 Armenians living in
Hatay Province, with links to communities in, Zeitun, Alexandretta, Aleppo, and Mosul –
where perpetrators of genocidal, systematic, crimes against humanity once again persecute
with impunity.
Although, according to Gyula Orban, an official of Aid to the Church In Need, the
Catholic relief agency founded by Norbertine priest Fr Werenfried Von Straaten,
approximately 10 percent of the 2 billion Christians in the world suffer persecution, where
other than Syria and Iraq might a review of the plight of the world's persecuted Christians
begin?
This month, Aleppo’s Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart described
how his archbishopric in Aleppo – already hit more than 20 times by mortar shells – had once
again come under fire and how Christians had lost lives, homes and livelihoods – and are
being traumatised by the conflict.
He says: “ISIS, which has already killed thousands in the region, is terrifying the faithful in
Aleppo. After attacks on Maloula, Mosul, Idleb and Palmyra, what is the West waiting for
before it intervenes? What are the great nations waiting for before they put a halt to these
monstrosities. Let me cry with my people, violated and murdered. Allow me to stand by
numerous families in Aleppo who are in mourning. Because of this ugly and barbarous war,
they have lost so many loved ones, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters and cherished
children.”
The region’s Chaldean Bishop, Antoine Audo, says that Aleppo’s 250,000 Christians have
dwindled to below 100,000. Thousands have been killed, churches and ancient
monasteries blown up, whole communities forced to flee, bishops and priests - such as
Father Jacob Murad, Bishops Hanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazici – abducted, some executed.
Torture, beheadings and even ‘crucifixion’ - the hanging of corpses of those they have
executed on crosses – has become commonplace. Syrian Christians living in IS controlled
areas are forced to convert or pay the punitive jizya tax.
In the seventh century Christians, in what is now Syria, had to pay half an ounce of gold to
pay for the privilege of living under the protection of the Caliphate. If they didn’t pay they
had two options: they could convert of “face the sword”. In February 2014, 20 or so
Christian families still living in the northern Syrian town of Raqqa were given the same
choice. The cost of protection is now the equivalent of $650 in Syrian pounds, a large amount
for people struggling to make ends meet in a war zone.
Syria and Iraq, those hatcheries of Jihadism, have seen vast tracts of their territories become
lawless and ungovernable with fault lines opening between Islamic extremists and moderates,
between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and between Sunnis and Shias – with funds and arms flowing
in from the Gulf and Tehran.
Caught in the cross fire have been the law abiding minority communities – mainly Christians
– who have lived in places like Aleppo and the Nineveh Plains for 2,000 years and continue
to worship and speak in the Aramaic language of Jesus.
In recent weeks joint Assyrian and Kurdish forces recaptured a number of Christian villages
in north eastern Syria from ISIS – although many of the original occupants remain
unaccounted for and many of their homes have been left booby-trapped.
And will the international community do any more to protect them in the future than it has in
the past? The failure to respond to Chaldean and Assyrian requests for a protected area for
Christians near Nineveh is a scandal.
No wonder so many contemplate dangerous attempts to flee – including treacherous journeys
across the Mediterranean.
The brutality of ISIS – or Daesh -, devoid of mercy, manifests itself in deadly beheadings
accompanied by the year zero blitzkrieg of antiquities and ancient artefacts, in the depraved
destruction of Christian churches, and the defilement of Shia mosques. The fall of Palmyra
follows the bulldozing of the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud, the blowing up of
Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas and the Sufi monuments in Mali.
The Irish philosopher and British politician, Edmund Burke said that “our past is the capital
of life” and what we are witnessing at the hands of ISIS is an attempt to eradicate the
collective memory of humanity, destroying all that is “different” – while cynically smuggling
and selling on the antiquities which they do not destroy to fund their campaign of mass
murder – with Turkey turning a blind eye.
ISIS presents this as a clash of civilisations but the manner in which they debase all that is
civilised simply pits civilisation against barbarism. ISIS is not just at war with civilisation, it
is also at war with other Muslims and those of other faith traditions.
ISIS describes itself as the Islamic State – but this is a misnomer: it is certainly not a State
and many Muslim scholars challenge the Islamic basis on which it forces Christians to
convert or die invoking the Qur’ānic injunction that there should be no compulsion in religion
(lā ikrāha fī ‘l-dīn :Q.2:256).
The same visceral hatred of Christians has been nurtured by other radical groups – from the
Taliban to al-Shabaab and Boko Haram.
Last month, jihadist ideology led to the deaths of 147 students and staff in Kenya’s Garissa
University College, with Christian students specifically singled out by al-Shabaab-affiliated
Islamist militants.
Earlier this year, in Pakistan – following the 2013 killing of 85 Anglicans who were praying
in their church at Peshawar –the same hatred led to the burning alive in a kiln of a Christian
couple by a mob of 1,300 people while their young children were forced to watch. This week,
in the British Parliament, MPs raised the tragic case of Nauman Masih, a 15 year old
Christian boy, who on 9 April 2015, in Lahore, was beaten, tortured and burnt alive after he
was identified as a Christian.
MPs called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.
Given the failure to bring to hold to account those who, in 2011, murdered the country’s only
Christian Cabinet Minister, Clement Shahbaz Bhatti, don’t hold your breath.
At the time of Pakistan’s foundation its first President, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, said:
“Minorities, to whichever community they may belong, will be safeguarded. Their religion,
faith or belief will be secure. There will be no interference of any kind with their freedom of
worship. They will have their protection with regard to their religion, faith, their life and
their culture. They will be, in all respects, the citizens of Pakistan without any distinction of
caste and creed.”
In 2015, in a population of over 172 million people, only about 1.5% (3 million) is Christians
- half Catholic, half Protestant, - minorities are neither safeguarded or protected.
Think, too, of Nigeria and the depredations of Boko Haram – graphically illustrated by the
abduction of young girls and the murder, in cold blood, of twenty nine students of the Federal
Government College in Buni Yadi, Yobe State, while they slept in their student hostels.
Churches have been bombed, pastors executed, Christians targeted and, despite the
Government’s insistence that it is tackling Boko Haram, Reuters reports recent attacks, in the
past few days, which have led to more than 80 people being killed. Boko Haram openly say
their interim goal is “to eradicate Christians from certain parts of the country.”
The north-south conflict in Nigeria is reminiscent of Sudan – when, during the civil war, 2
million, mainly Christian people, were killed. Khartoum continues to target whole
communities – having dropped more than 2500 bombs on its civilian, predominantly
Christian, populations of Blue Nile and South Kordofan. In addition it has committed crimes
against humanity in Darfur, which I have visited, and where they are being ethnically
cleansed by co-religionists.
This unremitting violence has led to massive displacements and generated vast numbers of
refugees. Eritrea, Sudan’s near neighbour, is the North Korea of Africa – and last month’s
UN Commission report suggests crimes against humanity may have been committed there.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Eritrea, is responsible for
around 18% of the 200,000 people who reached Europe in 2014. Having reached Libya some
Eritreans Christians have then been cruelly beheaded by ISIS – in yet another display of their
barbarism.
Protestors recently gathered in London, outside the Eritrean Embassy, to mark the thirteenth
anniversary of the imposition of severe restrictions on churches in Eritrea, the deposing and
house arrest of the Eritrean patriarch, Abune Antonnios and imprisonment of other
Christians.
Eritrea is one of the world's most repressive regimes and the largest refugee-producing
countries. Freedom of religion and belief – guaranteed by Article 18 of the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights – means nothing in Eritrea.
There is a direct correlation between the denial of Article 18 Freedoms – to believe, not to
believe, or to change your belief – and the denial of other freedoms, the generation of
violence, displacements, and the desperation which leads to the exodus of refugees.
By contrast, in those countries where Article 18 is honoured and upheld there is a direct
correlation with internal harmony, development, prosperity and progress (something which
China should study more closely).
Freedom of belief is at the heart of the struggle for the future of whole societies and
countries.
Take Egypt – which was recently horrified by the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts who were
working in Libya.
In 2013 I suggested that we should compare the charred husk of the Fasanenstrasse
Synagogue in Berlin, in 1938, with pictures of the blackened walls of Degla’s ruined Church
of the Virgin Mary, and why August 2013 represented Egypt’s Kristallnacht.
It was one of many churches which was attacked – along with Christian homes and
businesses. Under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi the situation has improved but Dr.
Mohamed Abul-Ghar, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, warned that the forced
displacement of Coptic families by customary meetings is contrary to the Constitution, the
principles of citizenship, humanity and justice – remarks which came against a backdrop of
the displacement of a number of Coptic families in Beni Suef because a member of these
families was accused of allegedly publishing cartoons of the Prophet of Islam on his
Facebook account. The man is illiterate.
Abul-Ghar wrote in Al-Masry Al-Youm "Have you seen or heard about an Egyptian Muslim
forced to leave his home by a customary meeting whatever his mistake is? So there is clear
injustice and if there is a suspicion against a Copt, why is not he treated like a Muslim and
referred to the public prosecutor?"
The Egyptian writer and novelist Fatima Naaot in a message to the President, says that the
displacement of Christian families from their villages and the burning of their homes in the
presence of security forces is a scandal that undermines the sovereignty of the Egyptian state
and indicates the absence of the rule of law and the fall of the prestige of the Government and
the President.
Last month the Egyptian TV presenter, Islam al-Beheiry, was sentenced to five years in
prison with labour for “contempt of religion.”
At the beginning of this year President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi gave a speech at Cairo’s AlAzhar in which he called for a “religious revolution” to re-examine those aspects of Islamic
thinking that “make an enemy of the whole world.” Yet, despite his timely and important call
for religious renewal, ‘contempt of religion’ and blasphemy charges are occurring more
frequently. These can be an impediment to healthy and constructive religious debate and can
encourage vindictive acts.
It against this background – from Syria and Iraq, to Sudan, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, and many
other countries in which Christians and others are persecuted for their beliefs - that June 2015
has witnessed the staging of a UN human rights conference on combatting intolerance and
discrimination based on religion or belief.
I couldn’t work out whether it was a black sense of humour or a rather astute move to have
asked Saudi Arabia to host this event in Jeddah.
Given that Saudi is one of the worst violators of religious freedom, and that Saudi
Wahhabism has fuelled so many of these conflicts, it did seem comparable to inviting Herod
into the kindergarten.
Given the West’s oil dependent, arms providing, symbiotic relationship with Saudi it is hard
to imagine much being said at that Conference about the Saudi human rights activist, Raif
Badawi, languishing in prison for the crime of religious dissent and under threat of further
public flogging and potential execution - let alone its outright persecution of Christians. Saudi
Arabia ranks sixth on the 2014 World Watch List of most repressive countries for Christians,
a list compiled by the charity, Open Doors.
When a country like Saudi Arabia passes legislation defining atheists as terrorists, beheads or
tortures its citizens, and refuses to protect the right of minorities to follow their beliefs, or to
have no belief, is it any wonder that such actions are mimicked by ISIS? Saudi Arabia
beheads people in the public square – 100 executions already this year - a practice routinely
practised by ISIS.
The aim of the Jeddah Conference was to discuss how to effectively implement UN Human
Rights Council Resolution 16/18 on combating religious intolerance, discrimination,
incitement to violence and violence against people due to their religion or beliefs.
Unlike ISIS, Saudi Arabia really is an Islamic State and it would be the first place to start in
heralding an acceptance of pluralism of belief and the upholding of diversity and difference.
In his opening speech to the Conference, OIC Secretary-General Iyad Ameen Madani said
that the international human rights community attached great importance to combating
religious intolerance. Madani correctly observed that religious hatred needs to be addressed at
all levels, including the need to ascertain the limits of freedom of expression to determine
where it ends and transforms into incitement to hatred.
Beyond conferences and speeches, remains the challenge to world leaders to champion and
uphold the rule of law and the protection of minorities. That is the antidote to Jihadist
ideology, not assassination squads or endless bombardments.
The challenge is to bring to justice war lords and regime leaders responsible for persecution
and atrocities; to increase the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court (not providing
impunity to indicted leaders such as Sudan’s Omar al Bashir, as South Africa recently did); to
systematically collect evidence; to document these atrocities and to demand that the Security
Council instigate prosecutions.
We also need to create more safe havens to protect beleaguered groups of Christians, and
others, and every Foreign Minister needs to promote Article 18 obligations. Dag
Hammarskjold, one of the great Secretary Generals of the UN, once said that “The UN wasn’t
founded to take mankind to paradise but rather to save humanity from hell.” It’s hard to see
that, in vast tracts of the world, the international community is achieving even that limited
objective.
The UN, our Western legislators, policy makers and media need to become literate about
religion. How right is the BBC’s courageous Chief Correspondent, Lyse Doucet, when she
says: "If you don't understand religion - including the abuse of religion - it's becoming ever
harder to understand our world."
At the heart of all these challenges is the central question of how we learn to live together,
tolerantly respecting and rejoicing in the dignity of difference; emphasising our common
humanity; promoting the ability of members of all religious faiths to manifest their religion;
and allow all people to contribute openly and on an equal footing to society.
Malala Yousafzai, whom the Taliban tried to murder in Pakistan because she insisted on a
girl’s right to an education, rightly insists that “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen
can change the world”. Are we going to stand with Malala against those who try to deny
women education, who use education to promote hatred of difference, who teach that non
adherents are destined for the fires of hell and murder in God’s name?
Our aid programmes and humanitarian interventions must surely reflect our own values and
be used to protect minorities, to provide security, and to open the possibility of decent lives
for those currently trying to flee their native home lands. We can apply “soft power” – or
smart power – in the way we provide aid but also, where necessary, by shutting it off, or
threatening to shut it off – and in the ways we broadcast, educate and share our own values.
Meanwhile, the immediate and over-arching concern must be the plight of Middle Eastern
Christians, a shrinking and threatened minority throughout the region, subjected to the most
traumatic, degrading and inhuman treatment. It’s as simple as that.
The international community needs to be more consistent in its moral outrage. It denounces
some countries for their suppression of minorities while appeasing others who directly enable
jihad through financial support or the sale of arms. No wonder Western powers are seen as
hypocrites when our business interests determine how offended we are by gross human rights
abuses.
These people are being crushed in the mill, dying out, and need help. That is the future unless
we act.
This is not about Christians versus Muslims. Religious persecution is taking place all over the
world and whoever is responsible should be in our sights. A Pew research Centre Study
begun a decade a ago has found that of the 185 nations studied religious repression was
recorded in 151 of them.
It is irresponsible and indifferent for the international community to show disproportionate
concern for fringe issues and politically correct concerns while ignoring and failing to
understand the forces behind this flood of chaos.
Turning an indifferent blind eye merely emboldens the perpetrators to further spread their
hatred.
The dramatic rise in the persecution of Christians has been accompanied by a vilification of
Islam and, in Europe especially, the reawakening of Anti-Semitism.
For the future, the three Abrahamic religions need to ask deep questions of themselves about
what they can to remedy these distempers – and become transformative agents in conflict
management, reconciliation and healing.
Where secular governments are manifestly failing – and are too often tone deaf when it
comes to religion, simply failing to understand the power of the forces which are at work can the great faiths, with their innate claim to our deepest impulses, motivate their adherents
to be peace makers, peace builders, protectors of minorities, and practitioners of pluralism,
tolerance, mutual respect, and the upholding of the rule of law?
Can we devote comparable energy into countering religious extremism as the energy which
has been used to spread religious extremism?
Could we not form a generation of religious leaders and educators to promote faith that is
based on altruism, tolerance and love – the common good – not faith that designates all others
as enemies of yourself and your God?
It was Churchill who said “what is the use of living if it is not strive for noble causes and to
make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?”
Our muddled and tortured world needs to make the cause of those who suffer for their
religion or belief the great cause of our times.
Christians, Jews and Muslims privileged to live in free societies need to challenge our key
cold indifference, speak up and defend humanity.
I began by citing Franz Werfel’s The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.
It has a complex ending. Part of the novel’s denouement – based on fact - sees the rescue of
many of the besieged Armenian Christians by the French navy. The French respond to
distress signals and the sight of the Red Cross emblem. The question for us is will we, in our
day, see the distress signals of today’s besieged Christian communities and respond in like
manner or merely feign indifference?
House of Lords Debate:July 16th
Freedom of Religion and Belief
Motion to Take Note - Moved by Lord Alton of Liverpoo
Edited in the interests of space
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201516/ldhansrd/text/1507160002.htm#15071639000955
Watch the debate at: http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/53d07cde-20ee-4f53-80d3f4c075deb3d0?in=16:20:35
Why not send the link or the transcript to your MP and urge him/her to raise these issues in
the Commons?
Debate on Article 18 http://davidalton.net/2015/07/17/full-transcript-house-of-july-16-lords-debateon-article-18-stop-killing-christians-including-speeches-by-the-archbishop-of-canterbury-justinwelby-and-the-former-chief-rabbi-lord-sacks-and/
http://davidalton.net/2015/07/17/full-transcript-house-of-july-16-lords-debate-on-article-18-stopkilling-christians-including-speeches-by-the-archbishop-of-canterbury-justin-welby-and-the-formerchief-rabbi-lord-sacks-and/
To move that this House takes note of worldwide violations of Article 18 of the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the case for greater priority to be given by the
United Kingdom and the international community to upholding freedom of religion and
belief.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB): My Lords, I begin by thanking all noble Lords who take part
in today’s debate. We have a speakers list of great distinction, underlining the importance of
this subject. It is also a debate that will see the valedictory speech of the right reverend
Prelate the Bishop of Leicester, who has given such distinguished service to your Lordships’
House. The backdrop to all our speeches is Article 18, one of the 30 articles of the 1948
Declaration of Human Rights. It insists:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes
freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with
others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice,
worship and observance”.
The declaration’s stated objective was to realise,
“a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations”.
However, with the passage of time, the declaration has acquired a normative character within
general international law. Eleanor Roosevelt, the formidable chairman of the drafting
committee, argued that freedom of religion was one of the four essential freedoms of
mankind. In her words: “Religious freedom cannot just mean Protestant freedom; it must be
freedom of all religious people”, and she rejoiced in having friends from all faiths and all
races.
Article 18 emerged from the infamies of the 20th century—from the Armenian genocide
to the defining depredations of Stalin’s gulags and Hitler’s concentration camps; from the
pestilential nature of persecution, demonisation, scapegoating and hateful prejudice; and,
notwithstanding violence associated with religion, it emerged from ideology, nation and race.
It was the bloodiest century in human history with the loss of 100 million lives.
The four great murderers of the 20th century—Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot—were united
by their hatred of religious faith. Seventy years later, all over the world, from North
Korea to Syria, Article 18 is honoured daily in its breach, evident in new concentration
camps, abductions, rape, imprisonment, persecution, public flogging, mass murder,
beheadings and the mass displacement of millions of people. Not surprisingly, the AllParty Group on International Freedom of Religion or Belief, in the title of its influential
report, described Article 18 as “an orphaned right”. A Pew Research Center study begun a
decade ago found that of the 185 nations studied, religious repression was recorded in 151
of them.
Today’s debate, then, is a moment to encourage Governments to reclaim their
patrimony of Article 18; to argue that it be given greater political and diplomatic
priority; to insist on the importance of religious literacy as a competence; to discuss the
crossover between freedom of religion and belief and a nation’s prosperity and stability;
and to reflect on the suffering of those denied this foundational freedom.
Although Christians are persecuted in every country where there are violations of Article
18—from Syria and Iraq, to Sudan, Pakistan, Eritrea, Nigeria, Egypt, Iran, North Korea and
many other countries—Muslims, and others, suffer too, especially in the religious wars
raging between Sunnis and Shias, so reminiscent of 17th-century Europe. But it does not end
there. In a village in Burma, I saw first-hand a mosque that had been set on fire the night
before. Muslim villagers had been driven from a village where for generations they had lived
alongside their Buddhist neighbours. Now Burma proposes to restrict interfaith marriage and
religious conversions. It is, however, a region in which Christian Solidarity Worldwide and
the Foreign and Commonwealth are doing some excellent work with lawyers and other civil
society actors, promoting Article 18.
Think, too, of those who have no religious belief, such as Raif Badawi, the Saudi Arabian
atheist and blogger sentenced to 1,000 public lashes for publicly expressing his atheism. That
has been condemned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as,
“a form of cruel and inhuman punishment”.
Alexander Aan was imprisoned in Indonesia for two years after saying he did not believe in
God. Noble Lords should recall that Article 18 is also about the right not to believe.
Later, we will hear from the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, who
recently said that the “most common feature” of Anglicanism worldwide is that of being
persecuted. Twenty-four of the 37 Anglican provinces are in conflict or post-conflict areas.
Referring to the 150 Kenyan Christians who were killed on Maundy Thursday, the most
reverend Primate said:
“There have been so many martyrs in the last year … They are witnesses, unwilling,
unjustly, wickedly, and they are martyrs in both senses of the word”.
We will also hear from my noble friend Lord Sacks, who offered his prayer on Hanukkah last
year for,
“people of all faiths working together for the freedom of all faiths”.
My noble friend’s brilliant critique, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence, is
required reading for anyone trying to comprehend what motivates people to kill Christian
students in Kenya, Shia Muslims praying in a mosque in Kuwait, Pakistani Anglicans
celebrating the Eucharist in Peshawar or British tourists simply holidaying in Tunisia and for
anyone trying to understand the dramatic rise in Christian persecution, the vilification of
Islam in some parts of the world and, in Europe, the troubling reawakening of anti-Semitism.
My noble friend’s insights into the shared stories of the Abrahamic faiths—not least the
displacement stories of Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Leah and Rachel, and Joseph and
his brothers—and how they can be used to promote mutual respect, coexistence,
reconciliation and the healing of history underline the urgent need for scholars from those
faiths to combat the evil being committed in God’s name and to give emphasis to the ancient
texts in a way which upholds the dignity of difference—the title of another of my noble
friend’s books. If Jews, Muslims and Christians are no longer to see one another as an
existential threat, we urgently need a persuasive new narrative, which is capable of
forestalling the unceasing incitements to hatred which pour forth from the internet and which
capture unformed minds.
It is not just scholars but the media and policymakers who need greater religious
literacy and different priorities. How right the BBC’s courageous chief international
correspondent, Lyse Doucet, is when she says:
“If you don’t understand religion—including the abuse of religion—it’s becoming ever
harder to understand our world”.
It is increasingly obvious that liberal democracy simply does not understand the power
of the forces that oppose it or how best to counter them. At best, the upholding of Article
18 seems to have Cinderella status. During the Queen’s Speech debate, I cited a reply to Tim
Farron MP—for whom this has been quite a notable day—in which Ministers said that the
Foreign Office,
“has one full time Desk Officer wholly dedicated to Freedom of Religion or Belief”.
The Answer also stated that,
“the Head and the Deputy Head of HRDD spend approximately 5% and 20%
respectively of their time on FoRB issues”.
To rectify this, will we prioritise Article 18 in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
business plan and across government departments? Has the FCO considered convening an
international conference on Article 18—something I have raised with her? Is it an issue we
will raise at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta in November?
In May, the Labour Party gave a welcome manifesto commitment to appoint a Canadian-style
special envoy to promote Article 18. The Foreign Office resists this, insisting that all our
diplomats promote freedom of religion and belief. But that has not been my experience. On
returning to Istanbul from a visit to a 1,900 year-old Syrian Orthodox community in Tur
Abdin, which was literally under siege, I was told by our UK representative that his role was
to represent Britain’s commercial and security interests and that religious freedom was a
domestic matter in which he did not want to become involved. Self-evidently, there is a direct
connection with our security interests, not least with millions of displaced refugees and
migrants now fleeing religious persecution.
Paradoxically, if he had studied the empirical research on the crossover between freedom
of religion and belief, and a nation’s stability and prosperity, he might have come to a
very different conclusion. Where Article 18 is trampled on, the reverse is also true, as a
cursory examination of the hobbled economies of countries such as North Korea and Eritrea
immediately reveals. This is not a marginal concern, as the outstanding briefing material for
our debate from many human rights organisations makes clear.
Last month, the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, and I chaired the launch of a report by
Human Rights Without Frontiers. Among its catalogue of egregious and serious violations, it
says that North Korea, China and Iran had the highest number of people imprisoned, in their
thousands, for their religion or belief. It highlights Pakistan, where in 2011 two politicians
who questioned the blasphemy laws were shot dead; where Asia Bibi remains imprisoned
with four other Christians and nine non-Christians, facing the death sentence for alleged
blasphemy; and where Shias and Ahmadis have faced ferocious deadly attacks.
When did we last raise these cases and other abuses of Article 18 with Pakistan, or the
use of blasphemy laws in Sudan, where two pastors are currently on trial, facing charges
that carry the death sentence? Have we urged Sudan to drop the charges against 10 young
female Christian students who face up to 40 lashes because of the clothes they were wearing?
What of the Chinese Christian lawyers arrested this week as part of a major crackdown? Will
Article 18 be on the agenda for discussion with China’s President when he visits the United
Kingdom?
I am a trustee of the charity Aid to the Church in Need, and the noble Baroness the Minister
kindly launched its report, Religious Freedom in the World 2014, which found that religious
freedom had deteriorated in almost half the countries of the world, with sectarian violence at
a six-year high, nowhere more so than in the Middle East, where last week Pope Francis said
that Christians are subject to genocide. In a recorded message for that launch, His Royal
Highness the Princes of Wales condemned “horrendous and heart-breaking” persecution,
and spoke of his anguish at the plight of Christianity in the Middle East, in the region of its
birth, describing events in Syria and Iraq as an “indescribable tragedy”.
In 1914, Christians made up a quarter of that region’s population. Now they are less
than 5%. Archbishop Bashar Warda of Irbil, during a meeting that I chaired here in the
House, underlined their traumatic, degrading and inhuman treatment, pleading with the
international community to provide protection. Two weeks ago the same plea was made by a
remarkable Yazidi woman who gave evidence at a meeting organised by the noble Baroness,
Lady Nicholson. The Yazidi, a former Iraqi Member of Parliament, told us:
“The Yazidi people are going through mass murder. The objective is their annihilation. 3000
Yazidi girls are still in D’aesh hands, suffering rape and abuse. 500 young children have
been captured, being trained as killing machines, to fight their own people. This is a
genocide and the international community should say so”.
This view has been reinforced this week by reports on “Newsnight” and “Dispatches”. How
will we answer that woman? Do we intend to use our voice in the Security Council on
behalf of the Yazidis and Assyrian Christians? Do we intend to have the perpetrators
brought to justice in the ICC? Are we collating and documenting every instance, from
genocide and rape to the abduction of bishops and priests, to the burning of churches and
mosques, to the beheading of Eritrean Christians and Egyptian Copts by ISIS in Libya? What
are we doing to create safe havens where these minorities might be protected?
In 1933, Franz Werfel published a novel, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, based on a true
story about the Armenian genocide. His books were burnt by the Nazis, no doubt to try to
erase humanity’s memory, Hitler having famously asked, “Who now remembers the
Armenians?”. The Armenian deportations and genocide claimed the lives of an estimated 1.5
million Armenian Christians. Werfel tells the story of several thousand Christians who took
refuge on the mountain of Musa Dagh. The intervention of the French navy led to their
dramatic rescue.
A hundred years later, the Yazidis besieged on Mount Sinjar were saved, but their lives are
still in the balance. Last week the Belgians made it to Aleppo and brought 200 Yazdis and
Christians to safety. For fragile communities facing a perilous future, such as these, could we
not do the same? Are we re-examining our asylum rules to reflect the lethal threats faced by
families and individuals fleeing their native homelands?
In the longer term, should not the international community have a more consistent approach
to Article 18? We denounce some countries while appeasing others who directly enable
jihad through financial support or the sale of arms. Western powers are seen as
hypocrites when our business interests determine how offended we are by gross human
rights abuses. Take Saudi Arabia as one example.
The challenge is vigorously to promote Article 18 through our interventions and our aid
programmes, unceasingly countering a fundamentalism that promotes hatred of difference
and persecutes those who hold different beliefs. For the future, the three Abrahamic religions
and Governments need to recapture the idealism of Eleanor Roosevelt, who described the
1948 declaration as,
“the international Magna Carta for all mankind”.
She said that Article 18 freedoms were to be one of the four essential freedoms of mankind.
Who can doubt that this essential freedom needs to be given far greater emphasis and priority
in these troubled times? I beg to move.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con): ....I declare my interest as a professing Christian for most
of my life, and a practising Christian so far as I can. I am sorry to say that I have not reached
the extent of perfection in that area which I would have liked... Charities based on faith
have done tremendous service in many nations throughout the world. It surely is the
most terrible damage to a nation’s people that they are debarred from having these
services simply on the ground of the faith of the organisation that is providing them. ...
Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab): ...I want to focus on the domestic—on us. To change the
world, first we have to change ourselves. When the most reverend Primate the Archbishop
of Canterbury took office, he said that one of his three principles was the concept of good
disagreement. That is a very important concept for us....Abraham’s test of worthiness, as
we know, is the question, “Did you show kindness to strangers?”. Abraham ruled no empire,
he commanded no army, he conquered no territory, but today he is revered by 2.5 billion
Christians, 1.6 billion Muslims, and 13 million Jews. The Abrahamic faiths and others need
to walk much closer together. That is very hard to envisage today, but we can look back at
our short history to see that there have been successes. With Vatican II in the 1960s, Pope
John XXIII, in his encyclical Nostra Aetate, transformed the relationship between Catholics
and Jews, and 2,000 years of pain and sorrow were diluted as a result of that engagement.
That prompts the question: can the world be changed? If the Christian and Jewish
relationship can be changed, can the Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Sikh and non-faith
relationships be changed as well? Pope Francis’s latest encyclical, Laudato Si’, is an
encouraging example because he embraces all humankind. He makes a call in the very first
paragraph of the encyclical for care for our common earthly home. He says:
“Nothing in this world is indifferent to us”.
For a very short time in the Labour Government I had the privilege of being Minister for
Northern Ireland. I saw examples in the peace process in Northern Ireland, but I shall
illustrate just two examples today. The first is Gordon Wilson, whose daughter was killed in
the Enniskillen Remembrance Day bomb. He had to hold her hand while she was dying and
she said that she loved him. Immediately after that, he came out and said:
“I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge … I will pray for these men tonight and every night”.
The other example that I remember was Father Alec Reid, the late Redemptorist priest from
Clonard monastery in Belfast, who was a silent architect of the peace process because he
allowed Gerry Adams, John Hume and others to come together to ensure that there was a
dialogue and an understanding there. The photograph of Father Reid giving the last rites to
soldier David Howes, when he and another colleague ran into a republican funeral, is one that
will stay with us.
That is an example of the good of two individuals confronting the evils of terrorism. In a
20th-century world dominated by violence and mayhem in the name of religion, our task,
perhaps akin to the task of the miracle of the loaves and fishes in the Bible, is to multiply that
number, not 1 millionfold or 10 millionfold but 100 millionfold. Eighteenth-century author
Jonathan Swift’s statement is maybe as relevant today, and something for us to remember:
“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another”.
As we go on our journey together, it is worth remembering that.
Lord Avebury (LD): My Lords, I join in the congratulations that have been expressed to my
noble friend Lord Alton for the powerful way in which he introduced this debate, and indeed
for the consistent and wonderful way in which he always defends the rights of people’s
religious freedom. On no occasion have I heard him speak more powerfully on the subject
than he did today.
My old friend Dennis Wrigley, founder of the Maranatha community, asks if we care that
entire Christian communities have been wiped out in the Middle East and what we are
prepared to do about it? Those are questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer.
However, the challenge is in fact much greater than that. Daesh makes no secret of its
intention to expand its so-called caliphate from its base in Syria and Iraq so that it
covers the rest of the Middle East and north Africa. Ultimately it aims to spread its
interpretation of seventh-century Islamic governance and beliefs across the whole
world, eliminating all other faiths by conversion or assassination, as it has already
demonstrated by the massacres of Yazidis, Christians and Shia and the enslavement of the
martyrs’ widows in the territory that it occupies.
William Young of the RAND Corporation observed:
“Al-Baghdadi’s messages have resonated with Sunnis in the region, North Africa, Europe
and the United States primarily because he appears successful”.
I agree with his conclusion:
“The faster the Muslim world can be shown that ISIS is not invincible and does not have a
divine mandate to rule the Islamic world, the quicker young Muslims and others will stop
listening to its messaging”.
The coalition needs to ratchet up military operations against the Daesh and we should explore
the willingness of our partners in the 60-state coalition to provide troops for a multinational
ground force in Syria. We are providing 75 military instructors and headquarters staff as part
of the US-led programme to support the “moderate Syrian opposition”. Can the Minister
please identity the groups included in that phrase. They do not include, apparently, the heroic
YPG which successfully repelled the Daesh assault on Kobane at the end of last year.
Operations on that frontier would have the merit of not undermining the Assad Government’s
capacity to hold the Daesh at bay.
The so-called caliphate sends out a powerful signal to extremist Sunni Muslims
elsewhere that they can help towards the realisation of the universal Islamic state by
destabilising existing kufr Governments through acts of indiscriminate terrorism such
as the attack on British tourists in Tunisia. However, the main thrust of Daesh operations this
year outside its own territory has been attacks against the soft target of Shia mosques in
neighbouring Arab countries. In March there were simultaneous attacks on two mosques in
Sanaa, capital of Yemen, killing 137 people and injuring 357. In May there were two attacks
on Shia mosques in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, killing 29 and injuring more than
85; and on 2 June, a Shia mosque in Kuwait was attacked, killing at least 27 and injuring 227
others.
However, it goes wider than that. In Pakistan, terrorist groups swearing allegiance to the
Daesh have been responsible for three major atrocities so far this year: the suicide bombing
of an imambargah at Shikarpur in January, which killed 80 and injured 100; a suicide attack
on a Shia mosque in Peshawar, capital of troubled Balochistan, in February, killing a least 22
and injuring 80 at Friday prayers; and a gun attack by killers on motorcycles on a bus
carrying Ismailis in Karachi in May, killing at least 26 and injuring 13. Eliminating the
Daesh, its metastases and its wicked ideology taught in Saudi-funded madrassahs
throughout the world must be the main goal of all who believe in freedom of religion.
The Archbishop of Canterbury: We have already heard many examples of the horrific
situations around the world where people are persecuted for their religion or for their absence
of religion. I witnessed such persecution in its rawest form many times during my visits in
2013 and 2014 to the 37 other provinces of the Anglican communion. Almost half of these
provinces are living under persecution; they fear for their lives every day.
I will make two points in the short time available in this debate The first is that the
relationship between law and religion is invariably a delicate one. The passionately lived
religious life or passionately lived humanist life of many people around the world and in this
country cannot be compartmentalised within our legal and political systems. It is not good
enough to say that religion is free within the law. As was eloquently pointed out by the noble
and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, religion defines us—it is the fundamental element of who
and what we are. Thus, religious freedom and the freedom not to have a religion stands
beneath the law, supporting it and creating the circumstances in which you can have effective
law, as has been the case in this country since the sealing of Magna Carta 800 years ago,
negotiated by my predecessor Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton. In its first clause,
it says that,
“the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties
unimpaired”—
Religion gave birth to the rule of law, particularly through Judaism. The question is
therefore: how do we translate this undiminished right and unimpaired liberty into the
contemporary situation, where, too often, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Alton,
culture, law and religion seem to have incommensurable values? The foundational freedom
of religious freedom in the state prevents the state claiming the ultimate loyalty in every
area, a loyalty to which it has no right—never has done and never will do—if we believe
in the ultimate dignity of the human being.
My second point is that religious freedom is threatened on a global scale, as we have
heard, but also in a very complex way. Attacks on religious freedom are often linked to
economic circumstances, to sociology, to history and to many other factors. Practically,
if we are to defend religious liberty, we have to draw in these other factors. For example,
if we want to defend religious freedom around the world—do not sell guns to people
who oppress religious freedom; do not launder their money; restrict trade with them;
confine the way in which we deal with them; and, above, all, speak frankly and openly,
naming them for what they are.
Where a state claims the ultimate right to oppress religious freedom, it stops the last
and the strongest barrier against tyranny. From the beginning of time—from the
beginning of the Christian era, when the apostles said that they would obey God rather than
the Sanhedrin, through the Reformation to the martyrs of communism, to Bonhoeffer and to
Archbishop Tutu—up to our own day around the world, we have needed religious freedom as
a global defence of freedom.
Baroness Berridge (Con): ... Freedom of religion or belief, as set out in Article 18, is
another deeply constitutional statement. As the UN special rapporteur illustrated in his
comment to me, “There is lots of religion in Vietnam but not a lot of it is free”. The
declaration is founded on individuals enjoying human rights when the state knows how to
behave, knows its own limits and understands its role as protector of its citizens’ human
rights from violation by third parties. In old communist states such as Vietnam, religion is
controlled by the state, but another common backdrop to many Article 18 violations is an
inappropriate connection between a religious institution or a faith or a stream of one faith,
and the state. Often, that institution or faith has such preference that pluralism is suffocated,
and, in the extreme, a religion becomes identified with nationality. Is Myanmar’s identity
becoming synonymous with being Buddhist? The Rohinga Muslims are denied citizenship
and an outcry by Buddhist extremists led the Government to capitulate and confiscate their
only identity document.
I am intrigued that Her Majesty’s Government can exhibit the FCO priority of freedom of
religion and belief in our newly opened visa office in Rangoon. I expect my noble friend will
have to write to me on this, but how is the United Kingdom able to offer UK visas, regardless
of religion, when Rohinga Muslims have no documentation? Is it only wealthy Buddhist
tourists or business men—not Muslims or Christians—who can come to the UK? The
Rohingans were disenfranchised in this year’s election. It is also proposed that half a million
refugees from the Central African Republic, 90% of whom are Muslim, be denied their
voting rights. What representations have Her Majesty’s Government made to the CAR’s
interim Government? Will this not increase the risk of refugees who are languishing in Chad
being recruited to IS, which is already recruiting from neighbouring Sudan?
The trajectory on this issue has spiralled. However, I highlight Vietnam, Myanmar and CAR
because they are in, I believe, the doable category. In 2006 Vietnam was removed, with
American pressure, from the list of countries of particular concern, but has now fallen back.
The UN special rapporteur visited in 2014 and found serious Article 18 violations and,
“credible information that some individuals whom I wanted to meet with had been either
under heavy surveillance, warned, intimidated, harassed or prevented from travelling by
the police”.
The Human Rights Watch report, Persecuting “Evil Way” Religion, details state persecution
of central highland Christians, many of whom have fled to Cambodia. Cambodia refuses to
allow them to claim asylum and returns them, rather like China does to those who escape
North Korea. Will the Minister please make representations to Cambodia to allow the UN to
process refugees there, if it is unwilling to comply with its international obligations?
It might also be worth mentioning how discerning the UK customer can be and how sensitive
brands like Marks & Spencer can be when they source from many manufacturers in Vietnam
and Cambodia.
The digital revolution could create further Article 18 violations. According to a report in the
Economist, by 2020 80% of adults will have a smartphone that is able to receive different
religious messages that state or religious leaders will scarcely be able to control. Will many
more people start switching faith, challenging existing political and religious power
structures?
We should also keep a close eye on what is happening under the new Government of India.
We do not want to add into this space a rise of Hindu militancy which is semi-connected to
identity, and to see the persecution of a large number of Muslims and Christians.
Who knows what the future holds? Many Governments, parliamentarians, religious leaders
and royalty have, however, grasped the Article 18 issue, and the Pope’s celebrity status at the
UN General Assembly in September is incredibly timely. The missing players—consumers
and businesses—need to enter the stage, and it looks as if Brazil, at the Olympics, will be
introducing the Global Business & Interfaith Understanding Awards, which they hope to
become part of the Games. However, if by 2020 violations have flat-lined, that will indeed be
an achievement.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB): ...
Article 18 of the 1948 UN declaration is unambiguous in its guarantee of freedom of religion
and belief. Yet we live in a world where those rights are all too frequently ignored. We have
been recently remembering the horror of Srebrenica, where, 20 years ago, 8,000 Muslim men
and boys were rounded up by Serb forces and ruthlessly murdered simply because they were
Muslims. Last year Sikhs commemorated the 30th anniversary of the brutal murder of
thousands of Sikhs in India, simply for being Sikhs. The Middle East has become a cauldron
of religious intolerance and unbelievable barbarity. The number of Christians has dwindled
alarmingly. We hear daily of thousands fleeing religious persecution in leaky, overcrowded
boats, with little food or water.
Where have we gone wrong? In commerce or industry, if a clearly desirable idea or
initiative fails again and again, it goes back to the drawing board. Today we need to ask
ourselves: why is there widespread abuse of the right to freedom of belief? This important
right, like all others embedded in the UN declaration, needs the total commitment of
countries with political clout to make it a reality. Unfortunately, even permanent members
of the Security Council frequently put trade and political alliances with countries with
appalling human rights records above a commitment to human rights. There are many
examples, but time permits me to mention only a couple relating to our own country.
During the visit of a Chinese trade delegation in June last year, a government Minister said
that we should not allow human rights abuses to “get in the way” of trade. His statement,
undermining the UN declaration, went virtually unchallenged. At about the same time, we
had a Statement in your Lordships’ House that the Government were pressing for a UN-led
inquiry into human rights abuse in Sri Lanka. Fine, but when I asked whether the
Government would also support a similar inquiry into the mass killing of Sikhs in India—yes,
I know it is a much bigger trading partner—I received a brusque reply that that was a matter
for the Indian Government.
I have asked on five occasions the question why the UK Government regard the
systematic killing of Sikhs in India as being of no concern to the United Kingdom, only
to get the same dismissive non-response. I ask it again today, and hope that noble Lords and
Britain’s 500,000 Sikhs will get the courtesy of a proper, considered reply. The great human
rights activist, Andrei Sakharov, said that we must be even-handed in looking at human rights
abuse. If our country—one of the most enlightened in the world—puts trade above human
rights, it is easy to understand why other countries turn a blind eye to rights such as freedom
of belief. It is a right so central in Sikhism that our ninth guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, gave his
life defending the right of Hindus—a different religion from his own—against forced
conversion by the then Mughal rulers.
We can list human rights abuse for ever and a day without making a jot of difference if
we and other great powers continue to put trade and power bloc politics above human
rights. We start each day in this House with Prayers to remind us to act in accord with
Christ’s teachings. He, like Guru Nanak, reminded us never to put material gain before
concern for our fellow beings. We need to act on such far-sighted advice.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester (Valedictory Speech): ... The challenge to religious
freedoms derives in part from treating faith as a consumer preference rather than the
most profound definition of what it is to be human.
... the principle that religious freedom is an inalienable right means that we interpret an
attack on one faith as an attack on all peoples of faith. Treasuring the dignity of every
human being includes treasuring the rights of others to their beliefs, especially when we
disagree. That is why the Muslim leadership turned out in strength the other day at Leicester
Cathedral to respect the victims of the Sousse massacre two weeks ago.
Thirdly, freedom is not a passive state. It results from the dynamic process of actively
learning how others live and what they believe, and of sustained and co-operative
support for each other in shared enterprises. Here, too, local practice can inform
international strategy. We need to learn the best habits of face-to-face conversations with
those we disagree with, especially over the big challenges of the day—climate change,
poverty, conversions, gender equality and so on.
Lord Carey of Clifton (CB): ...
The fact that we have to face honestly is that so much of the trouble is in countries
dominated by Islam; let us get to the heart of this. Yet, in the past, Islam has flourished as
a beacon of civilisation and tolerance. Indeed, one of the finest texts in the Koran states:
“There is no compulsion in religion”.
The verse is often used in interfaith contexts to show the broadmindedness of Islam. But we
have to recognise that the plain meaning of that text is questioned by many Muslim
scholars today. In my view—dare I say it as a non-Muslim?—this verse contains all that is
necessary for Muslims to start the journey towards free, tolerant and pluralist societies.
However, the rhetoric is fine but the reality is very different. It grieves me to say that
there are not many Muslim-majority countries in which the freedom set out in Article
18 exists. Of course, there are Muslim countries where other faiths are tolerated but,
even in those more tolerant nations, Christians cannot share their faith openly and
advertise it; and Muslims cannot, with any ease, choose another faith, should they so
desire.
Intolerance seems to be spreading. ...During my time as Archbishop of Canterbury, I
challenged Muslim leaders worldwide to embrace the principle of reciprocity; it remains a
dream and an ideal. Here in the United Kingdom there is no barrier to belief and no
restriction on believers, as long as we all behave within the breadth of British law. The ideal
of reciprocity demands that people of all nations should work together to ensure that freedom
to change and grow is granted to all of us, men and women alike.
Baroness Howells of St Davids (Lab): My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton,
who often places a demand on this House to examine what, for believers, is God’s big idea.
This debate asks us to examine an idea that was introduced by the creator, as Christians
believe. The author Myles Munroe suggests that the idea is beyond the philosophical reserves
of human history. The big idea appears to have germinated all religions to which humans
adhere. Today we examine the big idea and ask: have we achieved it—a culture of equality,
peace, unity and respect for human dignity? No, we have not.
Faith has always played a major role in the lives of individuals and institutions. It is the
basis on which we build our lives and our perspective of the world. Faith is the belief that,
even in the darkest of times, there is still hope to hold on to. But as our world has become
more intolerant and more hateful, the candlelight that guides believers from all
denominations is being forcibly snuffed out at an alarming rate.
The de-prioritisation by the international community of upholding the right to freedom
of religion set out in Article 18 has had a detrimental effect on all human rights of the
persecuted. Not only are they forced to worship in secret but, if caught, they can be
murdered, tortured, imprisoned, beaten and even expelled from public life, including from the
right to vote. According to a report by Open Doors, 100 million Christians face
persecution worldwide. That is 100 million people from just one faith, having all their
rights stripped away. If we show solidarity and do more to protect the rights of
marginalised religious groups across the globe, I am sure we shall see an increase in
respect for human rights as a whole. Can man ever be truly free if he is not allowed to have
his own thoughts? If a believer can stare down the barrel of a gun and state, “My belief shall
not be shaken”, we must be brave enough to stand up and say to those oppressive
governments, “It is time to protect your civilians, who committed no crime but to have faith”.
However, we must lead by example as faith has long been the bones behind the laws of our
country. But now the laws of our country are breaking those bones. How can we champion
human rights and freedom if we do not implement Article 18 to its full extent? There has
been a worrying trend emerging in British politics, a trend that is moving to oppress the
freedoms of religious minorities. We say we are a Christian nation, yet there is nothing
Christian in the actions of the Government in recent weeks. Article 18 can be invoked when a
Government or organisation enacts a policy that unfairly impacts on minority religious
groups. The two-child tax credit limit will have a distinct impact on the rights of many
Catholics who, as a choice of their conscience, do not use contraception. Giving them a
choice between poverty or breaking their religious code is a distinct attack on freedom of
belief and conscience.
Further limitations on religious freedom have come from the heart of Westminster in a
package that is supposed to suppress terrorism and protect our western values. I hope this
House agrees with me that you cannot protect democracy and freedom by taking away
democracy and freedom, yet that appears to be the aim of the Prevent strategy and the passing
of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD): ...
We have heard and will hear from other noble Lords of repression and lack of freedoms in
the current unstable world situation. As a Jew, I feel strongly about the Holocaust, which
touched my own family, who lost a grandmother and an aunt in Poland in the 1940s. So, I
was very moved to hear reports of a rescue operation last week to seek, in a modest way,
to take action against the barbaric treatment of Christian sects in the IS heartland of
Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation. This appears to be an operation by the
Barnabas Fund, an international relief agency for the persecuted church with the
financial co-operation of certain Jewish organisations and philanthropists, to transfer
Christian families to safe havens. I understand that this in an ongoing project to
evacuate Christians from those lands where they have dwelt for 2,000 years. What these
Christian communities are experiencing is not new to the Jewish communities
throughout the Middle East and North Africa, whose persecution led to an exodus of
some 850,000 Jews from Arab lands.
The clash of faiths causes these confrontations. It may seem a paradox but the country
in the Middle East that is most welcoming to Christians, as the noble and right reverend
Lord, Lord Carey, mentioned in passing, is Israel. Christianity is one of the recognized
religions in Israel and is practised by more than 161,000 Israeli citizens—about 2.1% of the
population. In Israel, there are approximately 300 Christians who have chosen to convert
from Islam. Very sadly, such apostasy is not allowed in much of the rest of the Middle
East. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, gave a graphic description of many of the injustices that
take place and which I cover with the word “apostasy”. I will not repeat them as he did it so
well.
Adversity, however, does reveal heroes. A few days ago, one of the heroes of the Holocaust
died at the age of 106. I refer of course to Sir Nicolas Winton, who organised eight trains to
take 669 children to London from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. The British people made
room for these refugees and I can only hope that in Britain and the rest of Europe we
will rise to the challenge in the present times. We are so fortunate in the United
Kingdom but the tolerance we have requires vigilance to ensure that it stays that way.
When we see the intolerance of people’s religion and beliefs in many parts of the world,
which has been referred to by other noble Lords, we must praise the courage and
resilience of those affected; many would have given way to despair....
Baroness O'Loan (CB):
Freedom of religion or belief is not only a fundamental human right in itself: as Pope John
Paul II said, it is a,
“litmus test for the respect of all other human rights”.
Wherever Article 18 is compromised, other violations almost inevitably follow.
... millions in the world are deprived of this most basic freedom and face torture,
imprisonment, harassment and even death because of their beliefs.
But we can make a difference. Despite the current controversy about the outworking of the
European Convention on Human Rights, the UK has a proud history of protecting human
rights across the world. We have worked closely with the churches—often the last remaining
network of communication in conflicted societies. In recent years the UK has led the world in
historic initiatives to tackle some of the most challenging issues, including modern slavery
and sexual violence in warfare. With the same level of commitment, cross-party support and
co-operation with our partners in the international community, there is an opportunity to
make the principles of Article 18 a reality for so many more people. The UN has stated that,
“no manifestation of religion or belief may amount to propaganda for war or advocacy
of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination,
hostility or violence”.
It is extremely encouraging that the Government have made a manifesto commitment to
stand up for freedom of religion and I look forward to hearing more detail from the
Minister about how this will be put into practice. In particular, will promoting freedom
of religion or belief be included as a specific priority in the FCO business plan? Will
extra resources be provided to assist our diplomatic missions, particularly those covering
the most difficult parts of the world, in achieving this?
Some of the most appalling abuses are taking place in Iraq and Syria, where ISIL continues to
slaughter and enslave adherents of minority religions. I will touch briefly upon Iraq’s Kurdish
region, where almost 2 million people have found sanctuary so far. It is a testament to the
Kurdish Regional Government that although their population has already grown by a
staggering 28% as a result of the refugee influx, they continue to keep their doors open
and provide security for people fleeing Mosul or the Nineveh Plains. Many of these
refugees are Christians or Yazidis who have seen their family members killed, their
businesses seized and their places of worship destroyed. Alongside the local authorities,
Christian communities are providing shelter, food, et cetera, to the refugees. The
Catholic Church in Irbil alone is accommodating more than 125,000 people, including
many Yazidi families. Will the Minister outline what support we are providing to help the
Kurdish Regional Government and churches in the region?
Reference has already been made to the thousands of Rohingya Muslims who are making
treacherous and often fatal journeys across the Andaman Sea, trying to escape escalating
persecution at the hands of Burma’s authorities. Hate speech and xenophobic attacks are
allowed to continue unchallenged. The Rohingya have been denied citizenship, cajoled into
camps and prevented from accessing humanitarian assistance. The Burmese Government
have also passed a package of laws targeting religious minorities which may prevent people
converting, marrying or even starting a family. These laws have been condemned by Burma’s
first Catholic cardinal, Charles Bo. In a response to me in this Chamber recently, the Minister
agreed with that condemnation. Will she update us on the UK’s response to the Burmese
package of laws? I would also be grateful for an outline of any recent discussions with other
states about the rescue and accommodation of Rohingya refugees.
In Iran, under the principle of the absolute rule of the clergy—velayat-e faqih—during this
Ramadan at least 900 people were arrested and many were flogged for not fasting.
There is no freedom not to be religious. Many of the sentences against the youth were carried
out in public. I would be most grateful if the Minister could confirm the representations that
have been made in respect of this. I am encouraged by the Government’s commitment and
welcome the opportunity to discuss how the UK will play its part.
Lord Sheikh (Con): My Lords, I speak today as a Muslim. I also speak as somebody who
cherishes the role that all faiths and communities play. I undertake a lot of work with other
religious groups. I am a patron of several Muslim and non-Muslim organisations that promote
religious harmony. Our respective religions teach us valuable lessons in morality, help us
interpret the world around us and give us guidance when we are in need. For many people,
their religion is very precious to them. I agree wholeheartedly with the Motion: a greater
priority should be given by the United Kingdom and the international community to
upholding freedom of religion and belief.
It is right that everybody in the world should be entitled to this freedom. However, it is being
violated by some misguided people. This debate is very topical because of events taking
place across the Middle East and north Africa. My glorious religion of Islam is being
hijacked by a tiny minority who have misrepresented it and wholly, totally wrongly portrayed
the true message of Islam. I emphasise that Islam is indeed a religion of peace.
What is happening in these countries is strongly against the principles of Islam. What Daesh
is doing and saying in Syria, Iraq and other places is totally wrong and un-Islamic. I remind
them that it is written in the Holy Koran that there should be no compulsion in religion and
that no one should be forced to become a Muslim. The Holy Koran celebrates different
beliefs as a means of connecting with people. It is written in the Holy Koran:
“O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and
tribes that you may know one another”.
My religion teaches us to know and be friendly to people of other faiths. Islam is one of the
Abrahamic religions and, according to Islam, the People of the Book are the Jews and
Christians. The books of Allah are the Holy Koran, the Torah, the Gospel of Jesus and the
Psalms of David. There has been a case in London where a Somali Muslim mosque was
damaged and the Jewish community allowed them to pray in the synagogue. We appreciate
this very much.
Two of the most successful emperors of India were Akbar the Great, who was a Muslim, and
Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who was a Sikh. They both allowed all religious groups to live in
harmony in their empires. I hold great personal admiration for Maharaja Ranjit Singh. I have
written a book about him that will be published shortly. There are more similarities than
differences between people, and we should highlight the similarities in order to establish
closer links between communities. It should also be noted that allowing freedom of religion
often brings stability and prosperity to a country. As a businessman, I have found it to be
beneficial for economic and social development, as well as for the religious communities
themselves.
We must use this debate to commend and celebrate what is happening in the United
Kingdom. Although the Church of England is the official church, people of all religions are
allowed to practise their respective faiths. We are a tolerant and respectful people. This
country should be viewed as a model for others to follow. We cannot overstate the
importance attached to upholding Article 18, yet so many abuses and violations of it continue
to take place. We must lead the world in ensuring that people feel free to practise their
religion, both in private and in public. May God help us to achieve this.
Lord Sacks (CB): ...
Three things have happened to change the religious landscape of the world. First, the
secular nationalist regimes that appeared in many parts of the world in the 20th century
have given rise to powerful religious counter-revolutions. Secondly, these counterrevolutions are led by religion in its most extreme, adversarial and anti-Western form.
Thirdly, the revolution in information technology has allowed these groups to form,
organise and communicate to actual and potential followers throughout the world with
astonishing speed. The internet is to radical political religions what printing was to
Martin Luther. It allows them to circumvent and outflank all existing structures of
power. The result has been the politicisation of religion and the religionising of politics,
which, throughout history, has been a deadly combination. In the long run, it will
threaten us all, because in a global age no country or culture is an island.
We must do, minimally, three things. First, given that religious freedom is enshrined as
Article 18 in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there should
be, under the auspices of the United Nations, a global gathering of religious leaders and
thinkers to formulate an agreed set of principles that are sustainable theologically
within their respective faiths and on which member nations can be called to account.
Otherwise, Article 18 will continue to be a utopian ideal.
Secondly, we must do the theological work. That is fundamental. After the wars of
religion of the 16th and 17th centuries, a group of thinkers, among them John Milton,
Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Benedict Spinoza, sat down, reread the Bible and
formulated some of the most important ideas ever formulated about state and society: the
social contract, the moral limits of power, the liberty of conscience, the doctrine of toleration
and the very concept of human rights. These were religious ideals based on the Bible, which
is what John F Kennedy meant when he said in his inaugural address that,
“the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around
the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but
from the hand of God”.
We have not yet done the theological work for a global society in the information age,
and not all religions in the world are yet fully part of that conversation. But if we
neglect the theology, all else will fail.
Thirdly, we must stand together—the people of all faiths and of none—for we are all at
risk. Christians are being persecuted throughout the Middle East and elsewhere. Jews
are facing a new and resurgent anti-Semitism. Muslims who stand on the wrong side of
the Sunni-Shia divide are being killed in great numbers. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists,
Baha’i and others face persecution in some parts of the world. There must be some set
of principles that we can appeal to, and be held accountable to, if our common
humanity is to survive our religious differences. Religious freedom is about our common
humanity, and we must fight for it if we are not to lose it. This, I believe, is the issue of
our time.
Lord Harrison (Lab): My Lords, I speak in today’s debate as a loyal member of God’s
Opposition. ...We atheists must show solidarity with our religious colleagues over religious
persecution, especially at a time when atheists and secularists are increasingly joining
the growing list of people persecuted worldwide for the beliefs they uphold, whether
religious or otherwise. The horror of machete-wielding Islamists slaying humanist bloggers
in Bangladesh recently was admirably highlighted by the brave Bonya Ahmed in her recent
address to the British Humanist Association at the annual Voltaire lecture.
In the United Kingdom, many will be heartened by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop
of Canterbury’s recent observation that religious freedom demands space to be challenged
and defended, without responding destructively. This echoed Rowan Williams’s reservation
in 2013 that sometimes UK and US Christians exaggerate mild discomfort over social
issues such as pro-gay legislation while failing to emphasise systematic brutality and
often murderous hostility practised by religious fanatics abroad.
I asked the Minister why humanists and atheists in Britain are still thoughtlessly excluded
from contributing to Radio 4’s “Thought for the Day”. Why does the DCMS stolidly exclude
the Defence Humanists, formerly the UK Armed Forces Humanist Association, from the
annual Cenotaph commemoration? Do dead non-believers, fallen in war defending our
cherished values, not deserve a silent vigil in the public square? And why are we conducting
this debate in the House of Lords, which still reserves a privileged place for the state
religion?
I encourage colleagues not to take the opportunity of the occasional ad hominem criticism of
distinguished atheists such as Richard Dawkins. I ask the Minister to reply to the point made
by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the FCO and whether we are promoting business and
trade, which I thoroughly encourage. However, we should use some of our resources to
ensure that we promote Article 18 in all its aspects. Can she also update us on what is
happening with the blasphemy laws in Malta, and in Iceland, although it is not part of the
European Union?
Finally, will Her Majesty’s Government ensure that the hopes and aspirations of nonbelievers like me are not suppressed by careless oversight when we take our rightful place in
the public square?....
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab): My Lords, since the noble Lord, Lord Alton, initiated
a more general debate a year ago, the situation has surely become worse in terms of
compliance with the universal declaration. I am appalled by the hypocrisy of so many
countries ready to sign up to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
and yet ready to deny their citizens those same rights. Of course, one worrying
development since the 1948 universal declaration is the development of non-state actors such
as Boko Haram, ISIS or failed states such as the Central African Republic where the
Government do not exist or are incapable of preventing violations. But the 1948 principles
are universal and attempts to circumvent them by devices such as blasphemy laws should fail.
There are no exemptions. We should support all persecuted minorities. I note that of the
49 countries of a Muslim culture, 17 tolerate no other religion. What should we do—what
can we do—about these violations?
I shall avoid a Cook’s tour of all the defaulting countries, but I shall draw attention to some
key themes. First, we are fortunate to have so much material available from official, semiofficial and unofficial sources. We in this country are blessed to have so many nongovernmental organisations in the field, many of them based here, such as CSW, Open
Doors, Maranatha, Barnabas and Aid to the Church in Need. As a general point,
although our focus today is on Article 18, those countries that respect religious minorities are
also those with the best human rights records across the board.
Secondly, there are many temptations for Governments and diplomats in the field. The
professional deformation of diplomats is the wish to be loved and not to offend, so often,
human rights are marginalised or given a lower status in the hierarchy. Governments
may claim that they use a big stick but they do so only in private, although I accept that in
certain cases, such as China, private representations may be the most effective means to help
individuals. The other temptation is to be strong on the weak but weak on the strong.
For example, of the nine countries designated by the US Commission on International
Religious Freedom, three, including Saudi Arabia, are,
“for reasons of important national interest”,
given an indefinite waiver, which clearly undermines the impact of that.
Thirdly, we in the UK are fortunate because of our membership of so many
international organisations. The question surely is: what use do we make of that
membership? What value do we add in terms of violations of religious and human
rights? What initiatives, for example, have we made in the UN, where we are now a
member of the UN Human Rights Council? In the EU, do we believe that the External
Action Service is adequately staffed? Are there human rights experts in the Cabinet of the
high representative? Do we support conditionality in aid and development policies? The
Commonwealth, as we know, has made grand declarations such as the Harare
declaration and the Commonwealth Charter, yet 10 Commonwealth countries appear in
the Open Doors watch list, including Malaysia, where recently life has become much
harder for Christians.
Broadly, we in the UK give a relatively good example of human rights at home. However,
mention has already been made of the disastrous policy in respect of the Catholic adoption
agencies and the suffering of young people as a result. By passing to other agencies, this
could quite easily have been avoided.
The FCO’s human rights report has improved over the years. Consultation with NGOs has
become more formalised but we need to look carefully at models in other countries and see
whether we can improve our position, because we have not reached perfection. I do not have
time to look at all the examples, such as the example of the US Commission on International
Religious Freedom or what the State Department does in its annual report on international
religious freedom to encourage improvements and to give help to immigration officials.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB): My Lords, it is unsurprising that the bulk of
today’s debate should have focused on the many ghastly violations of Article 18 that, alas,
continue to disfigure so many parts of the world. However, with some small encouragement
from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, whose introduction to this debate was, as ever, compelling,
I intend instead to focus on a much narrower question that sometimes arises: when the
right to manifest—not to hold, but to manifest—one’s religion or belief must surrender
to the rights and interests of others. It is a question that has exercised the courts of this
country and elsewhere on a number of occasions.
Article 18 of the universal declaration appears on the face of it to confer two unqualified
rights: the right to freedom of religion or belief, and the right to manifest that religion or
belief. But that is not quite so. It is widely recognised not to be so in international law,
including, most relevantly for our purposes, in Article 9 of the European Convention, which,
of course, is the equivalent provision and is now incorporated under domestic law here.
Article 9.1 of the convention is in effectively identical terms to Article 18 of the universal
declaration, but Article 9.2 makes it plain that the manifestation of one’s religion or
belief is a qualified, not an absolute, right. It provides for limitations to the right,
“in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or
morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.
It is generally the protection of the rights and freedoms of others and, above all, the
increasing recognition of the rights of others, in particular gays and lesbians, not to be
discriminated against that has led to much of the litigation under this provision.
Take the Supreme Court case of Bull and Bull—touched on recently, if perhaps a little
tendentiously, by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis—which held that Christian hotelkeepers,
however strongly held their belief that homosexual practices are sinful, could not on that
ground alone refuse to let a double-bed room to a homosexual couple. The court pointed out
that Strasbourg requires very weighty reasons to justify discrimination on the grounds of
sexual orientation. Another case mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, was the
Northern Irish one, just two months back, which held that a bakery had unlawfully
discriminated against a gay supporter of same-sex marriage for whom they had initially
agreed, but later refused, to bake a cake iced with a logo including the slogan, “Support gay
marriage”.
There was also Strasbourg’s decision two years ago, in a group of United Kingdom cases
concerning religion in the workplace, to dismiss three of the four applications, including
those of Lillian Ladele, a civil registrar for Islington, who was disciplined for violating the
borough’s “dignity for all” policy by refusing to register partnerships because of her belief
that homosexuality is sinful; and Gary McFarlane, a sex therapist dismissed by Relate, a
counselling charity, for refusing, on the same grounds, to provide sex therapy for same-sex
couples. Similarly, under Article 9.2, in 2005, in the Williamson case, the appeal committee
in this House rejected the claimants’ asserted right as teachers and parents at a school
established specifically to provide Christian education based on biblical observance to use
corporal punishment despite contrary legislation. Indeed, the next year in the Denbigh High
School case we rejected a Muslim schoolgirl’s claim to have been wrongly excluded from the
school unless she wore the school uniform instead of the jilbab she insisted on wearing. Many
of your Lordships will recall too the recent Crown Court ruling that a woman must remove
her Muslim veil, charged as she was with victim intimidation, so that the jury could properly
observe her facial expression.
These are just some of the many cases which show that, absolute though one’s right to
freedom of religion and belief is, in deciding whether to exercise it there are other important
interests and considerations in play. Believe whatever you wish, but in your behaviour think
of others too. Surely that is a sound precept.
Lord Alderdice (LD): ...
I want not to go back over the many things that have been said by other noble Lords but to
refer to some of my own experience in these matters. Very understandably, noble Lords have
outlined the horrible evidences of religious intolerance and radical political belief which have
led to horrible violence and which continue, seemingly ever worsening, all around the world.
It is understandable that we focus on that because it raises our emotions of fear, anguish, hurt
and sometimes even hate, but of course what we are speaking about there is the right to life,
not just the right to a belief or a religious faith. In a way, we are both very privileged and a
little disadvantaged by working in this place, where there is an enormous amount of
tolerance. People are prepared to listen to each other and to accept great differences of belief
of different kinds.
In passing, I say that we are foolish if we think that there is religious belief and unbelief.
The truth is that people who do not have religious beliefs have beliefs of their own.
Perhaps there has tended to be the notion that we can resolve a lot of these matters if we
simply put religious beliefs into a private box and have a society where some other kind
of belief—whatever it is—runs the show or has a prevailing effect. However, the truth is
that religious faith, like any other kind of belief, impacts entirely on your way of being
in the world and on your community and its way of being in the world. Thinking that
somehow or other it is possible to say, “Well, that doesn’t really matter”, says
something about your kind of belief; it does not say anything about whether you are a
believer of some description. You cannot not believe: you have a set of views, and it is
very important for us to understand that....
..[because] there is a certain liberal intolerance towards people with various kinds of religious
belief. ... I have seen it among a number of colleagues in various places. The view is, “It
really would be much better if people just piped down about those kinds of things because
they can be put in a private box”. However, they cannot. It may be inconvenient and difficult
but the fact is that these are matters that drive people and are of profound importance to them.
We have to struggle with these questions. As we try to struggle with them, what kinds of
things can we take into account?
We must understand that, when it comes to tolerance in these matters, we face a very difficult
challenge. The challenge is to differentiate between matters that we usually consider all
together. The question of fundamentalism transcends all kinds of beliefs, religious and
otherwise. I would find it much easier to reach agreement with people of different
religious views, and people whose views are not religious, who had a liberal perspective
on these matters. I would find myself much more different from Christians, or others of
any description, who took a fundamentalist approach to these things—including those
who are fundamentalist atheists. This notion of the way in which we hold our beliefs is
extremely important. The noble Lord, Lord Sacks, picked up an extremely important part of
this, which is that secular authoritarianism has led, as a reaction, to religious
fundamentalism. We must acknowledge and understand that, and that has not been
easy to deal with. An example is Turkey, where it was easy to support a secular regime and
then be astonished at the reaction.
Secondly, we must differentiate between fundamentalism and radicalisation and the use
of violence and terror. These are not the same thing. The vast majority of fundamentalists
may well be intolerant of the religious beliefs of others—fundamentalism and
conservatism are very different things—but that does not necessarily mean that they
support violence. Indeed, many of those who support violence, including people in
Daesh, do not come to it from a religious perspective at all. When His Holiness the Pope
came to Ireland and said on bended knee to Catholic nationalist republicans, “Stop the
violence”, they took no notice of him. They did not pay attention because the actual driver
was something quite different. In a long conversation with a leading figure in al-Qaeda many
years ago, I was talking about religious tolerance and he said, “Wait a minute. My issue is not
about religion. It is about political identity and political problems”.
So, as we try to explore these questions, we must hold back our emotions—because they are
very strong—and think more deeply about these issues across the religious differences and
across the differences between those who have religious faith and those whose set of beliefs
is different. Therefore, to me, the most important question to the Minister is this: can the
Foreign Office, DCLG and other departments of government give more attention and
resource to thinking and research on these matters? That would deepen our
understanding, so that when we respond—in all the difficult circumstances inside and
outside our country—we may to do so with a depth of understanding that helps us to
add to and make a difference to wider thinking about these matters, rather than simply
reacting from our very understandable feelings.
Lord Bach (Lab): My Lords, the ability of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to secure debates in
this House has long been one of the wonders of the world. It may well have something to do
with the important and fascinating subjects he selects for his debates. The debate on Article
18 has almost become an annual event, and so it should be. However, I wonder whether,
without the noble Lord’s energy and commitment, it would have been. ..
The Human Rights and Democracy Report 2014,produced by the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, is a deeply depressing document but it forces us to face up to the
reality that in our world today there are shocking examples, both collective and
individual, of how religion is used—or perhaps, more properly, abused—to discriminate
and act against others.
One of the worst consequences of any general election is that Parliament loses outstanding
men and women who either retire or are unsuccessful in the election itself. These people, who
come from all parties, of course, are often experts in particular policy areas, and their
knowledge and experience is very much missed. One such, I would argue, is the former
shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander who enjoyed a deserved reputation as an
expert in the field that we are debating today. Some noble Lords will remember his article
in the Telegraph at Christmas 2014, when he said:
“Faith leaders beyond the Christian community have been forceful in their campaigns on
anti-Christian persecution, including former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who described it
as ‘one of the crimes against humanity of our time’ and stated he was ‘appalled at the lack
of protest it has evoked’. Just like anti-Semitism or Islamophobia, anti-Christian
persecution must be named for the evil that it is, and challenged systematically by people of
faith and of no faith. Government should be doing much more to try and harness the
concern, expertise and understanding of faith leaders from across the UK and beyond”.
He went on to say:
“A multi-faith advisory council on religious freedom should be established within the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office”
In the same article, Mr Alexander suggested that the role of the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi,
as Minister of Faith in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which was then removed to
the Department for Communities and Local Government, should be returned to the Foreign
and Commonwealth Office. He hoped that Her Majesty’s Government would follow the
lead of the United States and Canada in appointing an international ambassador for
tackling religious persecution—in other words, a global envoy for religious freedom
reporting directly to the Foreign Secretary of the day. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton,
mentioned, that was in my party’s manifesto in the election in May. Have the Government
any plans to appoint such an ambassador or envoy and, if not, what reason can there be for
not doing so? I also want to ask about the Minister of Faith role and the setting up of a multifaith advisory committee.
No one doubts Her Majesty’s Government’s good faith in this debate, least of all that of the
Minister, who represents her department so well, both in this House and outside it. No one is
suggesting that there are any easy answers to the problem of the increased violation of Article
18. However, I suggest to the House that the steps Mr Alexander put forward might well
be useful in showing the world that Britain is even more determined to fight religious
intolerance wherever and whenever we see it. For far too long Article 18 has been
justifiably called an orphaned right. It is well past time that this description no longer
applied and that Article 18, at long last, becomes more of a reality.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St
Johns) (Con):
My Lords, freedom of religion or belief and the right to hold no belief is a key human
right. It is under attack in almost every corner of the globe. We see Muslims sentenced
to death for blasphemy; Christians burned in brick ovens or forced to give birth in
chains; Yazidis trapped on mountains, their women abused as sex slaves; innocents
attacked in their churches, synagogues and mosques, the very places they should feel
most safe; and sledgehammers taken to religious and cultural artefacts in an attempt to
obliterate centuries of faith and civilisation. The ongoing assault on freedom of religion
or belief is absolutely unacceptable, and noble Lords have made that clear in their views
today.
The debate has made very clear the scope and scale of the challenge. I would like to touch on
some of the major challenges to freedom of religion or belief, explain why this Government
have indeed made it a priority and inform the House of the work that we are doing to protect
and promote freedom of religion or belief, and the right to hold no belief, around the world.
The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, referred to the blasphemy laws in Malta. We oppose
blasphemy laws wherever they still exist.
This Government understand the scope and scale of the challenge—we, too, are horrified.
The brutal terrorist group known as ISIL, or Daesh, is making the headlines every day with
images of Christians executed on beaches or civilians being thrown off buildings for refusing
to abandon their beliefs. I know that it is not just a matter of the cases that make the
headlines. It is the steady and systematic bias against people on the basis of their faith,
denying them a fair trial, proper investigation of complaints to the police and even adequate
education for their children, all of which is potentially more far-reaching. Where there is a
culture of impunity, which we condemn, people are taught to believe that followers of other
religions are fair game, and then mob violence can so easily follow—and does. Where
children are taught to hate those with different beliefs, this provides fertile soil for extremism
to take root.
Freedom of religion or belief is not just an optional extra, or nice to have; it is the key
human right. It allows each citizen to follow their conscience in the way they see fit. As this
Government made clear in our manifesto:
“We will stand up for the freedom of people of all religions—and non-religious people—to
practise their beliefs in peace and safety”.
We are committed to defending the full right exactly as set out in Article 18 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights—that is,
“the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion”.
Quite apart from any legal or moral obligation, we promote religious freedom as essential
to our social, cultural and economic development. That is why this Government have
made freedom of religion and belief a priority, not just in the FCO but across
government. It is enshrined in international law, it makes social sense and it is morally right.
So what are we doing? We have been working on this issue through a comprehensive
multilateral, bilateral and projects-based approach. The UN Human Rights Council
Resolution 16/18 of March 2011 calls on all UN member states to take action against
intolerance on the basis of religion or belief, and to promote the free and equal
participation in society of all—both the religious and the non-religious. It has given us
that important starting point. I vividly remember a meeting in Morocco earlier this year, in
the immediate aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, during which ambassadors from all
points of the religious compass spoke to me of this resolution as something to hold onto in a
time of crisis. We will continue to use our influence and diplomatic networks as effectively as
possible. We are playing an active part in a new international contact group on FoRB,
convened by Canada. Last month, I met the US Ambassador-at-Large for International
Religious Freedom, David Saperstein, and we discussed areas where the international
community might work more closely together. We will continue to encourage the EU to
ensure that its guidelines on FoRB are put into practice in individual countries.
The noble Lord, Lord Bach, asked whether we would reconsider having a global ambassador.
We have our global ambassadors. They have their reach in every country on the globe and
know how important it is that they promote freedom of religion and belief. It is not
contradictory to say that we can trade with certain countries, provided that they do not
contravene international humanitarian law. Our trade with them does not undermine our right
to stand up for not only freedom of religion and belief but other human rights; we make that
clear.
We are just as active on bilateral channels. Every Minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office acts as an ambassador for this fundamental right. Each one of us, as a Minister, raises
and promotes these issues in the countries or organisations for which we have responsibility.
My noble friend Lady Berridge and others referred to Burma. We have raised our concern
about the situation of the Rohingya community in all our recent ministerial contacts with the
Burmese Government. Most recently, my honourable friend Mr Swire called the Burmese
ambassador to the FCO on 18 May to express our concern about the Rohingya situation and
the related migrant crisis in the Bay of Bengal. We urged Burma to act swiftly to deal with
the humanitarian implications, but also to address the underlying causes.
We also seek to protect religious freedom through our project work. We support projects to
tackle discriminatory legislation and attitudes, and we are working with human rights and
faith-based organisations across the world to promote dialogue, build capacity, foster links
and strengthen understanding. I had hoped to give a few examples but I will have to leave
that for another occasion or I will not be able to allow the noble Lord, Lord Alton, a moment
or two to respond; I know that we are pressing up against the deadline.
We are already addressing the question of how to make sure that freedom of religion and
belief is addressed throughout the world. We use our full range of diplomatic response.
However, I recognise—and I agree with noble Lords—that there remains so much more
to do. I want to see us step up our engagement with individual Governments. Countries
around the world need to know that Britain will stand up for this fundamental right.
We must not be shy about coming forward.
In reply to the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others, I can say that we
are deeply concerned at the imposition of the death penalty for blasphemy in the case of
Asia Bibi and we hope that the verdict will be overturned on appeal. The Prime
Minister has raised our concern about the blasphemy law with Nawaz Sharif, and the
UK supports the EU-led action to continue to raise this case with the Pakistan authorities.
Turning to the case of the Sudanese pastors, which was raised by the noble Lord, our
ambassador has raised it at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Khartoum and with
representatives of the ruling National Congress Party. As recently as 9 July, the UK
special representative to Sudan and South Sudan raised our concerns about these specific
cases with the Sudanese ambassador.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, also referred to charges against Christian students. We will
continue to call on the Government of Sudan to bring all their legislation in line with their
constitutional and international human rights commitments. Noble Lords can be assured that
these matters are part of the everyday work of our ambassadors around the world where
FoRB is under threat.
I also want us as a Government to focus even more strongly on making freedom of
religion or belief part of the answer to extremism. Where freedom of religion is
protected, extremist ideologies are much less likely to take root. I want us to continue
our focus on supporting the right of persecuted Christians, as well as those of all
religions and none, to be able to stay in the Middle East, the region of their birth. We are
already playing a leading role on this issue. At a UN Security Council debate on religious
minorities in March, Tobias Ellwood, Minister for the Middle East, called for bold leadership
from Governments and communities in the region to work for tolerance and reconciliation.
Over the coming months, we will continue to deepen our already strong engagement
with academics, think tanks, NGOs, faith representatives and parliamentarians on how
we may best develop our policies to support religious minorities in the Middle East. I
was delighted to meet members of the APPG on International Religious Freedom or Belief
recently, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with them as we further develop
our policies.
We work with regional allies, helping them to ensure that the right legal frameworks are in
place and supporting training initiatives to ensure that state and religious bodies understand
the rights held by people from minorities. We are also considering further programmes to
address the climate of impunity and legal discrimination, through training for security and
police forces and sharing of UK best practice on reporting and prosecution of crimes.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about how important it is that we are able to
provide support and training to the Iraqi Government to ensure people are protected,
particularly in the north, to which he referred.
In parallel, I strongly believe that equipping our diplomats with a greater understanding of the
key role faith plays in global politics helps us collectively to make better policy judgments
and to understand when and where we can work with the grain of religious beliefs to further
our human rights and other objectives. Therefore, we are increasing religious literacy
training among FCO staff and across the whole of Whitehall. We are running regular
training courses on religion and foreign policy, with a lively series of lunchtime
seminars, and our new diplomatic academy contains an online foundation level module
on religious literacy. FoRB is embedded in the work of all parts of the FCO both at home
and abroad.
Just last month, I was pleased to host the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar in conversation about religion and foreign
policy. It was a marvellous experience to see the place crowded with more than 200
diplomats and people from across all departments in Whitehall, with people around the world
listening to that very important conversation.
The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, urged the Government that there should be crossdepartmental thoughtfulness about investment in these matters. I agree with him, and
we are addressing that.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised particular questions about China. I will be brief and say
that we are saddened by reports that Tenzin Delek Rinpoche has died in detention in China.
We have raised his case with the Chinese authorities on a number of occasions, including
during the UK-China human rights dialogue in April this year. We support and encourage the
EU statement of 15 July which said that the EU expected the Chinese authorities to
investigate and make public the circumstances surrounding Tenzin’s death.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, also asked about the Chinese Christian lawyers who were
arrested this week as part of a major crackdown. He asked what will happen with the Chinese
state visit later this year and whether Article 18 will be on the agenda for discussions with
China’s President when he visits the UK. The full programme for the visit is not yet fully
fleshed out—and one would not expect it to be at this stage. However, we pay very close
attention to the human rights situation in China. We are deeply concerned by reports of the
number of human rights lawyers and activists who have been detained since 9 July and we
fully support the EU statement of 15 July, which states that the detentions raise serious
questions about China’s commitment to strengthening the rule of law, and called for the
release of those detained for seeking to protect rights provided by the Chinese constitution.
We have regular discussions with the Chinese authorities, including on human rights and
rule-of-law issues. They will hear what I have said in public today—my colleagues have also
said it in private—and I am sure they will be aware that these matters will be raised, not only
by politicians but by the public, when the Chinese state visit takes place. I am sure that
discussions about that visit will be wide ranging and naturally the Chinese Government will
have an input. But as a country we believe firmly in making clear our commitment to human
rights and we have an expectation that the Chinese Government will listen to that. They will
take their own view naturally, as they always do.
The noble Lord, Lord Singh, raised the question of the mistreatment of Sikhs in India. Our
High Commission in India regularly discusses minority issues, including Sikh prisoners, with
the Indian Government and state authorities. We will continue to monitor the situation and
maintain our dialogue with Indian officials.
Around the House there has been, over many years, a determination that we should keep a
regular dialogue on matters of human rights. The discussion on freedom of religion or belief
has perhaps received a better and more considered approach in this Chamber than almost any
other, around not only Westminster but the devolved communities. It is important that we are
able to maintain that discussion.
Perhaps there was just one Peer who raised the question of why we still have, in this House,
the presence of those who have a right, because of their place in the Church of England, to be
here. I strongly support their position because I find that their presence is always
challenging—refreshing, but most decidedly challenging. But it is important that we welcome
on the Cross Benches representatives of other faiths. I think that that enriches the debate here.
This morning, we were able to read an article by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop
of Canterbury, in the Times. He made me reflect on the fact that Governments need to find
ways to ensure that the transformational power of religious belief is able to play out in our
societies. We must have countries where everyone is free to follow their own belief, to
change their religion, or to choose to follow no religion at all. In those societies we find that
life is fairer and more prosperous. His Grace made the point:
“Curtailing religious freedom in the name of other freedoms runs the risk of discarding
one of the most important and creative forces in human beings”.
What he says, I could never improve upon.....
Motion agreed.
Archbishop Justin Welby. The Times: July 16th
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4499162.ece
"Religious freedom should mean the right to challenge beliefs as well as the right to
worship
The village, as we approached it, was the normal collection of straw-roofed huts and a school.
It was only as I got out of the car that the destruction was evident. A few days earlier raiders
had struck. I found one man sitting on a heap of ash, like Job. The raiders had killed his wife
and six children. He had hidden down a well for three days. On a nearby hill, a raider stood
silhouetted with a rifle in his arms and watched us the whole time we were there. The cause
of this brutal attack? The village was a Christian community.
Acts of religious violence and the curtailing of freedom of religion are not only directed at
Christians. In the Central African Republic Christians have attacked Muslims. Around the
world, Christian churches are burned in south India, Muslim and Christian villages attacked
in parts of Myanmar. As for the Levant and Mesopotamia, we are all too terribly aware of
extreme violence by Isis and its allies against every other group.
Earlier this year I visited Egypt to offer condolences after the murder of 21 Coptic Christians
in Libya, who died proclaiming “Jesus Christ is Lord”. Of the 37 Anglican provinces to
which I travelled during my first 18 months in office, almost half were living under
persecution. They fear for their lives every day.
Meanwhile, close to home, the firebombing of mosques in this country and the atrocious
attacks on Jewish communities across Europe show that too many people, of all faiths, find
their fundamental human right to freedom of religion and belief under attack.
It is therefore timely that Lord Alton of Liverpool is leading a debate on religious freedom
and belief in the House of Lords today. His motion notes violations of Article 18 of the 1948
Universal Declaration of Human Rights — the right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion — and urges the UK and the international community to give greater priority to
upholding this hard-won freedom.
As a Christian, I believe that religious freedom — the choice of how we follow God and,
indeed, whether we choose to follow God at all — is given in creation, and in the life and
ministry of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave those he encountered absolute freedom of choice as to
whether to follow him or not: the thieves on either side of Jesus, as he hung on the cross,
were given a choice whether to believe in him: one turned to him, the other cursed him.
That is freedom. It is a freedom that should apply to people whatever their faith, or to
those who are atheists.
Those of us who are followers of Jesus are called to obedience to Him. We bear witness to
Jesus Christ, of course, yet we must never compel or manipulate people into faith. This is
why the church’s sporadic record of compelling obedience to its teachings through violence
and coercion is a cause for humility and shame.
It is all too easy to think that faith is an optional extra or a consumer choice, that choosing
whether to believe in God is like deciding which type of car to buy. Humans are made in
the image of God, so our religious beliefs are a core part of what it is to be human. To
take away a person’s freedom of belief or non-belief is to violate the core of their
humanity.
At the same time, more work needs to be done to develop the language used by political
and religious leaders to talk about religious belief in their own contexts, and how well
we understand the beliefs of others.
Religion defines us. For me, there is quite literally nothing more important than knowing,
loving and serving Jesus Christ. This passionately lived religious life cannot be
compartmentalised within our legal and political systems. We need to find the means to
nurture the transformational power of religious belief while distinguishing it from the
mutations of religion that do so much harm.
The village that I visited was full of people passionate about their faith, as were their
enemies. The roots of the conflict were historic and complex. We must be clear about right
and wrong, but also nuanced about the causes of hatred. We cannot simply apply our own
unexamined prejudices, any more than we can bow to cruelty, oppression and intolerance.
Religious freedom demands space to be challenged and offended without responding
destructively. The welcome penalty of freedom is to accept being told things that put us
or our beliefs in a perspective we do not like. Sometimes that makes us see what God
wants us to see, as we find in the prophets of the Old Testament.
Curtailing religious freedom in the name of other freedoms runs the risk of discarding one of
the most important and creative forces in human beings. As societies which respect freedom
guard their own freedom and flourishing in every area, with robust and respectful
conversation, they become more like the societies in which we dream of living; vigorous,
diverse, generous, hopeful, exciting