Daesh: Genocide of Minorities

Debate between Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford and Stephen Timms

Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Timms]

I think the hon. Gentleman is right, but it is clear that Shi’a Muslims have been singled out. For example, in a prison just north of Mosul, nearly 600 were picked out from the rest of the inmates because they were Turkmen Shi’a Muslims, and were machine-gunned one by one. I hope that we can make a clear statement today that this is genocide, both to express solidarity with Yazidis, Christians and Shi’a Muslims who are the victims of this horrifying brutality, and to make clear our determination to ensure that those responsible face prosecution and a just punishment for what they have done.

I want to make some observations on how we can deal with the commitment to religious freedom that we all espouse. I recognise and pay tribute to the work of past and present Ministers on this, but we should be doing more. Others are doing more, and we should as well. I commend to the Minister an idea that was in the last Labour party election manifesto: the Government should appoint a global envoy for religious freedom, who would report directly to the Prime Minister, and establish within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office a multi-faith advisory council on religious freedom. That would be an important way for us to acknowledge and publicly commit to the importance of British influence being wielded on this front, through the work of Ministers and the Foreign Office around the world.

The Canadian Government deserve credit for establishing an Office of Religious Freedom. It has had a positive impact, but I am sorry to hear that it is now being wound down. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom was established a long time ago, in 1998, and it is an attractive model, with commissioners appointed by the President and by the leadership of both political parties in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Last December, the commission called for the US Government to designate the Christian, Yazidi, Turkmen and Shabak communities in Iraq and Syria as victims of genocide by ISIL.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a very good case. I entirely support the motion, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on securing the debate. It is clear that ISIS is using rape as a strategic weapon of war. It is being used not only as a form of ethnic cleansing but as an unthinkable form of forced conversion. One victim recounted being shown an officially headed ISIS letter stating that any captured woman would become a Muslim if 10 ISIS fighters raped her. Will the right hon. Gentleman support my call to the Government today to assemble a specific preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative team to support local health and criminal justice teams in gathering evidence, so that these appalling crimes do not go unpunished?

[Stephen Timms]

I gladly support the hon. Lady’s call.

The legislation in the US that created the Commission on International Religious Freedom also mandated the State Department to prepare an annual report on international religious freedom. The last one was published just a year ago, and I imagine that we are about to see the next one in two or three weeks’ time. This means that the US Congress and Government have a serious and consistent deployment of effort to wield influence in favour of religious freedom around the world. We do that in a much more ad-hoc way; we should do it in the much more consistent way that the US example demonstrates.

I hope that the House will be united this afternoon in supporting the call by the hon. Member for Congleton for the Government to recognise what is happening to Yazidis, Christians and Shi’a Muslims in Iraq and Syria as genocide. I hope that we will be able to build on this, and that the Government will make a consistent commitment to religious freedom around the world.