Hong Kong

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his considered question. He is absolutely right to raise the issue of academic interference. UK universities are international at their core, and we warmly welcome overseas students, including from China, and the valuable contribution that they make, but we will not tolerate any attempt to interfere with academic freedom, or freedom of speech. As I have said before in the House, if any universities experience any attempts to undermine free debate, we encourage them to get in touch with the Government.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned data infrastructure. The long-term security and enduring resilience of our telecoms network are incredibly important, and we are taking difficult decisions to protect those interests. The position in January on high-risk vendors was based on the need to balance security with the need for us to level up and be a world leader in our digital infrastructure. I hope that answers the hon. Gentleman’s point, but I am more than happy to have a direct meeting with him when he returns to London, as I have said to the Lib Dem and Labour spokespeople, the hon. Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) and for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock).

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

First, the Minister says that our Government continue to hold China to account. Has the Chinese ambassador been summoned to meet the Foreign Secretary following the most recent developments? If so, with what results, and, if not, will the ambassador be summoned? Secondly, it is clear that human rights safeguards have effectively collapsed now in Hong Kong. One of those, of course—a key human right—is freedom of religion. We have seen what has happened with the attacks on freedom of religion in China. Have the Government considered how that can be protected in Hong Kong? What calls have they made to ensure that the right to worship remains there?

[Nigel Adams]

I can confirm that the Chinese ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office this morning. Freedom of religion or belief is a key issue for this Government. My hon. Friend has spoken on this matter on many occasions, and I have had the pleasure to be in such debates. We are very concerned by what has been going on in mainland China—particularly in Xinjiang—but we are concerned by all restrictions placed on freedom of religion or belief in China.

Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I will be brief. It is always a pleasure to honour my friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I support what he has said and I deeply respect the contributions that have been made by other eminent Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham), the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). I want to take a slightly different line, because I do not want to repeat what they have already said with such gravitas.

I want to focus for a moment on the abuse that has been suffered by women and girls in Pakistan, a country to which the UK pays an estimated £383,000 per day in aid. Many are very young girls from minority groups who are abducted, forcibly married and sexually abused—girls like Huma Younus, who was 14 at the time of her abduction, Maira Shahbaz, who was 14 at the time of hers, and Saneha Kinza Iqbal, who was 15. The list goes on. Research suggests that approximately 1,000 such girls, often from religious minorities, are abducted and sexually abused in Pakistan every year. Unfortunately, not many will see justice.

Should we really be paying a reported £383,000 per day in British taxpayers’ money by way of aid—that adds up to £2.8 billion over 20 years—to a country where the rights of so many women are trampled on, where the rights of minorities are ignored, and where there is no freedom of speech or belief, as enabled by Pakistan’s unacceptable blasphemy laws? Can we allow that to continue without calling it out at the highest level as part of the FCDO strategy and on the ground?

I want to talk a little bit more about Maira Shahbaz. The details come from Aid to the Church in Need, which I commend for its reliable information. I have had the privilege of working with that organisation for 10 years. Aged 14, Maira was abducted during the covid lockdown. She was taken from her home in Madina Town, Pakistan, in April this year. She was bundled into a car at gunpoint by three men—a 14-year-old girl. Her life was suddenly turned upside down. She was filmed and photographed being raped and then forced to convert to Islam and marry one of her abductors. In a statement to the police, she said:

“They threatened to murder my whole family. They have also shown me my naked video and pictures which they have taken on their mobile while raping me.”

She was placed in a shelter for women and girls, but what is really shocking is that when her case was heard in court, the Lahore High Court judge determined that she should be returned to her abductor. She actually had to return to his home. Fortunately, however, she managed to escape. Her lawyer states:

“Maira’s life is in constant danger because she is condemned as an apostate by her abductor and his supporters. Unless Maira and her family can leave Pakistan they will always be at risk of being killed.”

Aid to the Church in Need has launched a petition on her behalf. Her case is ongoing, but she is now forever in danger in her home country. There is the threat of honour killing. Extremists in Pakistan have said that they will kill her at the first chance. Her lawyer has said that men are looking for her, knocking on doors and asking for her whereabouts.

That is all happening while the UK Government continue to pay millions of taxpayers’ money to Pakistan. We need to ask some really important questions. What is being done to protect these vulnerable minority women and girls? How is some of the money being used to support them? What are our aid workers doing on the ground to address this issue? It is not a small issue—thousands of young women are affected. What challenges are our Government making to a judicial system that returns the abused to her abuser? Are the Government putting in place strategic plans to address the issue? To which projects does UK aid contribute to support these vulnerable women and girls? What effective challenges have been made by the UK Government against the utterly unjust blasphemy laws, so often cited to justify such atrocities? Why should such enormous amounts of money continue to be paid to a country that so blatantly fails to address such breaches in fundamental human rights?

Persecution of Christians and Freedom of Religion or Belief

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

First, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) for his tremendous work. The energy and commitment that he has brought to the role of Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief will be a hard act to follow, whoever is appointed to succeed him. We all owe him a deep debt of gratitude.

We have heard much from my hon. Friend about the progress that has been made in applying the recommendations of the Bishop of Truro’s report. I want to focus on one of those recommendations—recommendation 7, which makes reference to the crime above all crimes: genocide. In Article II of the 1948 convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, to which we are a signatory, genocide is defined as,

“acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Recommendation 7 has two important components. The first is on early warning monitoring and the second concerns the determination of genocide.

Sadly, over many decades now, through many atrocities in different parts of the globe, both in this country and as part of the wider international community, we have all too often failed to take note of genocide and to address it until it is too late. From the suffering of the Armenians in Turkey a hundred years ago, through the holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda, the suffering of the Rohingya Muslims in Burma, the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq, and the Uyghurs in China today, too often—indeed, invariably—religious minorities are part of the equation when crimes against humanity and genocide occur.

As the report says, genocidal actions against Christians are high on the agenda of concern. The report contains a quote from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

“The persecution of Christians throughout much of the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, [and] elsewhere is one of the crimes against humanity of our time.”

Yet, as I say, we fail to hold perpetrators to account or recognise genocide. The UK does not have comprehensive early warning monitoring mechanisms and does not engage in genocide determination. Without that, we fail to trigger our duty under the convention. As a signatory to that convention, we are required to act to prevent genocide and to protect those affected, but only if there is a judicial determination of genocide. It was a sad failure in 2016, when I was privileged to bring a motion to the House on this issue, that we failed to persuade the Government to act, even though that determination was passed by a majority—indeed, unanimously.

How do we break this circular argument that only the courts can determine genocide, and without that we cannot refer this internationally? In recent years, one way in which Lord Alton in the Lords and I in the Commons have endeavoured to do that is through our private Members’ Bills, the Genocide Determination Bills, which provide for the High Court to make a preliminary finding on cases of genocide where, for example, an affected group refers a matter to it. That would facilitate a referral of such a finding to the International Criminal Court.

The Trade Bill is being discussed in the Lords—this is the single point that I want to make today—and amendment 76A, which takes proposals from the Genocide Determination Bill, requires that if a referral for a declaration of genocide is made to the High Court by a representative of a religious or ethnic group, for example, the Court must consider it and make a determination. Any trade agreement would then have to be voided if a signatory to it is a partner that has perpetrated genocide. I urge the Government to support the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I not only congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) on securing this debate, but commend him for his long-standing commitment to freedom of religion or belief. I also thank him for his incredibly hard work over the last year as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief. He gave us a fantastic run-through of his work over the last year—an exhausting year, by the sounds of it—and it was well worth the over-run on his time, Mr Hollobone, to be able to hear about all the work that he has done. There sure are big boots to fill in that regard. My hon. Friend’s commitment to this agenda has contributed hugely to the Government’s work in this area. It has been instrumental in the implementation of more than half the Bishop of Truro’s recommendations.

I also extend my gratitude to colleagues for their impassioned speeches today. I will try to respond to all the points raised, although I suspect, given the time, that that is wishful thinking. But I do have, to coin a phrase, an open-door policy at the FCDO and I will be more than happy to meet individual colleagues to go through some of the issues that I am not able to respond on today. We have a great team there, working on this agenda, and we will be more than happy to work with everyone collaboratively where we are all on the same page.

I can start by reaffirming the Government’s unwavering commitment to freedom of religion or belief. The commitment was further underlined by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s appointment last year of my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham, who succeeded my ministerial colleague Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who continues to champion this cause in his capacity as FCDO Minister responsible for human rights, in the House of Lords.

The Prime Minister is resolute in his commitment to freedom of religion or belief, and I can confirm that a new special envoy will be appointed in due course. I thought that the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) was making a fantastic pitch for the job until he pivoted and gave a great reference for the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I ask colleagues to “bear with”, as my kids say. An appointment will be made by the Prime Minister shortly; he is absolutely committed to there being that role. Diplomacy and development go hand in hand. Religious intolerance and persecution are often at the heart of foreign and development policy challenges. Where freedom of religion or belief is under attack, other human rights are often threatened too. The newly merged FCDO is using all its diplomatic tools to ensure that no one suffers because of their conscience.

As the House is aware, the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), commissioned an independent review into the scale of Christian persecution globally. It produced a set of challenging recommendations on what more the Government could do to support people of all faiths and none everywhere around the world. So far, as we have heard, we have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, 17 of the recommendations. I will run through just some of them.

Recommendation 11 focuses on the religious literacy of our officials. I am pleased that work is under way to ensure that British diplomats and officials have access to enhanced religious literacy training to help them understand the role that religion plays in many people’s lives and in the decisions that they make. That training will help us to develop more religiously literate policies and to engage more effectively.

Recommendation 9 is about the establishment of a John Bunyan fund. In August last year, we launched the fund successfully. In the first year alone, we funded 15 research projects looking at the challenges faced by different communities, including Christians, Yazidis and humanists, as well as at cross-cutting issues such as migration and the double vulnerability experienced by women from minority faith backgrounds.

Recommendation 20 encourages us to use our position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to seek a resolution calling on Governments in the middle east and north Africa to ensure protection of Christians and other faith minorities. The Foreign Secretary remains absolutely committed to delivering that recommendation, recognising freedom of religion or belief as a force for good. Lord Ahmad has been working tirelessly on this and met our mission in New York a fortnight ago to review the opportunities presented by our presidency of the Security Council in 2021. We are working harder than ever to support those who are persecuted on account of their religion or belief and to implement the recommendations of the Bishop of Truro.

Today’s debate highlights why our efforts are so urgently needed. We have stepped up our work internationally as one of the founding members of the new international religious freedom or belief alliance—we have stood together alongside 31 other states to protect freedom of religion or belief. Again, I have to extend my gratitude to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham for his leadership on that. We have heard about some of the excellent work that the alliance has delivered.

We will continue to use our influential voice to raise FORB at the United Nations, including urging the international community to work together—we have heard today how important that is—to face the challenges presented by covid-19. It is particularly important at this time to ensure that the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society are actively included in response and recovery efforts.

Turing to some of the references made by right hon. and hon. Members, we heard an excellent opening speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham, as I said. He asked whether we would host the inter-ministerial global conference on FORB in 2022. We will announce a date for that conference in the coming months.

My hon. Friend also talked about sanctions. One or two other Members mentioned our sanctions regime and asked why we are not already implementing it against certain individuals who are oppressing the Uyghur population. We introduced the sanctions regime in July. It gives us a powerful tool to hold to account those involved in serious human rights violations. We are constantly considering further designations under the regime but, as hon. Members will appreciate, it would be wrong to speculate exactly who may be designated, because to do so at this stage reduces the impact of any sanctions.

The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) referred to the excellent work of Open Doors, as did the spokesperson for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who has worked with that organisation himself. He and other hon. Members also referred to what is going on in Nigeria. We are aware of the reports of recent human rights violations involving the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, and recent incidents have prompted serious and widespread protests. Our high commissioner in Abuja has raised that with the Nigerian Government. We condemn all incidents of inter-communal violence in Nigeria, which continue to have a devastating effect on communities of all faiths.

The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow also referred to Pakistan, and I very much look forward to receiving her letter. As I said earlier, I am happy to meet her with my team to go through that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) is a constant champion on this issue, and we thank her for all her work on it. She rightly mentioned the genocide definition. Genocide has a specific definition in international law, and any judgment about whether genocide has occurred is a matter for a judicial decision, but I thank her for rightly referring to it again.

[Fiona Bruce]

Will the Minister give way?

[Nigel Adams]

I will, but I will probably end up not covering everybody’s points.

[Fiona Bruce]

Will the Minister reassure us that he will consider the amendment to the Trade Bill, to which more than one Member referred?

[Nigel Adams]

Yes. With regard to the Trade Bill, we have a strong history of safeguarding human rights and promoting our values globally. Strong economic relationships with our partners allow us to have open discussions on a range of important issues, including human rights. We continue to encourage all states to uphold their international human rights obligations.

The hon. Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) spoke passionately about her personal experiences of meeting constituents who have been discriminated against. I thank her for welcoming the pace at which the recommendations are being implemented. I can assure her that the full set of recommendations will be implemented by July 2022. We are very concerned about reports that some communities are being denied access to aid. My colleague the Minister for human rights raised that issue during the UK’s closing statement at the 44th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford and my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan) for their passionate contributions. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford on the birth of his grandson. My hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Alexander Stafford), who is no longer in his place, rightly raised the issue of Pakistan and China. The hon. Member for Glasgow East made a well-thought-out and passionate speech, which was almost a great pitch for the special envoy’s role.

Before handing back to my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham, I want to assure the House that the Government will continue to be a long-standing champion of human rights and freedoms. We have a duty to promote and defend our values of equality, inclusion and respect at home and abroad. We will continue to stand up for the rights of minority communities around the world and defend the right to freedom of religion or belief for everyone everywhere.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton]

As I said in my previous answer, the Foreign Secretary had a strategic dialogue with his Brazilian counterpart, and both countries have affirmed that they will work to ensure that the COP delivers substantial negotiated outcomes in the fight against climate change. We believe that climate change is one of the most important global issues, and will be working not just with Brazil but with other countries to tackle this important issue.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

What recent representations he has made to the Iranian authorities on the intimidation of BBC Persian journalists in that country.

[The Minister for the Middle East and North Africa (James Cleverly)]

The attacks against BBC Persian employees and their families, and threats to an entirely legitimate media organisation, are unacceptable. We raise this harassment regularly with the Iranian Government, as well as at the Human Rights Council. We will continue to defend BBC Persian’s editorial independence. We most recently raised our concerns about media freedom in Iran in an E3 Foreign Ministers’ letter to Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif on 22 September.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the Minister for that reply and for sharing the concerns about this serious issue. Will he give us some information on what responses the Foreign Office has received from the Iranian authorities to such representations? The BBC journalists themselves get very little feedback on this issue.

[James Cleverly]

Sadly, the Iranian authorities have yet to provide any kind of justification for their actions that stand up to scrutiny. Their behaviour is indefensible, and we are confident that our Iranian contacts, including Foreign Minister Zarif, fully understand our concerns and our condemnation of such harassment.

China: Labour Programme in Tibet

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on having secured this debate. I fully support his powerful speech, and thank him for all the work he has done to raise the issue of human rights in China.

I believe that the Government are now actually listening; they are listening more than they did three or four years ago, when the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, which I chair, published its report “The Darkest Moment: The Crackdown on Human Rights in China, 2013-16”, which can still be found on our website—www.conservativehumanrights.com. We made 22 recommendations in it, some of which have been echoed here today. It is a tragedy that four years on, yet we are still asking the same questions.

That report included a whole section on Tibet. We reported on the limited civil and political rights of people in Tibet—that was a quote, and the reason is partly because the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), to whom I also pay tribute for his work on this issue, talked about how there is progression of abuse. As the report said,

“the main causes of the Tibetan people’s grievances are China’s policies of political repression, cultural assimilation, economic marginalisation, social discrimination and environmental destruction in Tibet.”

We also detailed reports and testimonies about the treatment of political prisoners, including beatings by police and other security services during interrogation sessions, mock executions, electric shock treatment, the accused being locked in cells that were pitch black or so small they could not move, torture using iron chairs, and other egregious breaches of human rights, restricting freedom. What we did not report on then, but which we hear about today, is the forced abduction of hundreds—potentially thousands—of Tibetan people and their effective imprisonment elsewhere.

I ask the Minister to look at this report, which we are actively updating now, and at its recommendations. In the time I have left, I also want to suggest four ways in which the UK could effectively respond to these deeply concerning human rights issues in Tibet. The first is global human rights sanctions: I support calls for the Government to consider using the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 to target officials responsible for the use of forced or compulsory labour in Tibet. Names have been given to us; forced or compulsory labour is specified in those regulations as a violation, and under the regulations those sanctioned could face travel bans or asset freezes. We recall that when announcing those measures, the Foreign Secretary commented that the sanctions would be

“the latest next step forward in the long struggle against impunity for the worst human rights violations.”—[Official Report, 6 July 2020; Vol. 678, c. 663-4.]

Will the Government now show that they intend to fulfil the express purpose of those sanctions, and hold to account the perpetrators of the human rights abuses we have heard about today?

Sanctioning officials responsible for human rights abuses in Tibet would send out a clear signal that the UK will stand up for human rights globally, wherever such abuses occur. I hope it would also open the way for similar judgments to be issued on cases regarding abuses against other minorities in China. We have heard about the Falun Gong, the Christians and others today. They were referred to in this report, several years ago.

I am deeply concerned to hear about the similarities between the report we have heard about today and the situation we see in Xinjiang with the Uyghurs. The international community must step up, and the UK must take a global lead and take action to stop Tibetans facing the same fate as the Uyghurs. It might already be too late. Will we follow the lead of the US in sanctioning officials?

Secondly, with regard to modern day slavery in supply chains, will the Government work to ensure due diligence and risk assessments are completed by UK businesses and public bodies with supply chains in Tibet, Xinjiang and other regions in China affected by forced labour? To do so would be in line with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which requires large organisations to report on efforts to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in its supply chains or any part of the business.

A study conducted by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that many household brands, such as Apple, BMW, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen, could be implicated in the use of forced Uyghur labour in the Xinjiang region. There are similar concerns about the fashion industry, with potentially almost a fifth of the world’s cotton supplies originating from Xinjiang. I urge the Government to work with businesses to ensure that supply chains originating from Tibet are not similarly tainted with forced labour. To enforce this, the Government should use their new powers to issue civil penalties for non-compliance with the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which would require large organisations to report on steps they are taking to remove forced labour from supply chains and to demonstrate reasonable practices in their supply chains.

Thirdly, there is the issue of reciprocal access to Tibet. We called for that in our 2016 report and we have heard calls for it today. The Government must now surely ask for reciprocal and unrestricted access so that we can ensure an independent international investigation into reports of forced labour and other human rights abuses in Tibet. The Chinese Government have systematically obstructed travel to the Tibet Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas by foreign diplomats, officials and journalists. Reciprocal access would ensure that abuses in Tibet do not escape the world’s attention.

Before I close, I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham. I support his Bill. He made a most powerful speech, and I thank him for the information that he brought to the Chamber today. Will the Minister look at a further report, which I did not bring today, that our Human Rights Commission has done on the Confucius Institutes, which my hon. Friend also mentioned? It goes into detail about the grave concerns about what is happening through their existence within our UK universities.

Finally, can the Minister update us on the UN’s position regarding the installation of a special rapporteur to investigate forced labour in China? Will he commit to raising this issue at the UN and call on the Secretary General of the UN to install a special rapporteur to investigate forced labour in Tibet? That will provide unbiased and thorough scrutiny of allegations of human rights abuses in Tibet. We need to ensure that the Government do not just listen and speak, but act.

Hong Kong National Security Legislation

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments. In the statement, I referred several times to the Human Rights Council and the work over the past 24 hours in relation to Hong Kong and Xinjiang. He needs to be realistic about the likelihood of China ever accepting a rapporteur, or an international investigation being allowed into that area to seek the facts and monitor the situation on the ground as he describes, but that should not deter us for a moment from keeping up the international pressure, and I welcome his statement in that regard.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his strong leadership and his clear focus on human rights. After expressing concern about this for some years as chair of the Conservative party human rights commission, that is welcome and refreshing. Is he aware that this week more than 50 UN special rapporteurs have called for a special rapporteur or envoy on Hong Kong? Will he respond to the many calls made in this Chamber for the UK to take a lead on that in the Human Rights Council?

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her work in promoting freedom of religious belief all around the world. We have worked in the United Nations and raised the issue in the UN Security Council, as well as in the Human Rights Council. We will do everything we can, and I am open to the idea of a UN special envoy. I think that we need to be realistic about what that alone can achieve, but as part of a wider approach that uses every available lever of pressure on the Chinese Government to think again; it is an important consideration.

China’s Policy on its Uighur Population

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

Thank you very much, Mr Sharma. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this debate. I join him, following his excellent speech, in expressing my deepest concern about the victims of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance in Xinjiang.

I speak as a Member of Parliament and the chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission. Four years ago, we conducted an inquiry, “The Darkest Moment”, which examined the human rights situation in China up to 2016. We mentioned the ethnic discrimination against Uighurs. Sadly and very concerningly, their situation appears to have dramatically deteriorated since then. That is why we are here today.

Last week the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission instigated a new inquiry on human rights in China, which will involve hearings in Parliament and a call for written submissions. It will focus on several aspects, including the Uighurs’ situation and the situation in Xinjiang. We have our first hearing with Uighur witnesses and experts next Monday at 5 o’clock in room Q of Portcullis House. I invite all concerned colleagues to join us there.

A variety of reasons are offered for the detention of Uighurs in the camps, which we have heard about: having the messaging service WhatsApp on one’s phone, having relatives living abroad, accessing religious materials online, having visited certain sensitive countries, communal religious activities, behaviour indicating “wrong thinking” or “religious extremism”, and sometimes no reason is given at all. The latest estimate I have is, staggeringly, that up to 3 million people may have been incarcerated in these camps. That heightens the already critical level of fear that pervades the region. Disappearances can happen at any time, to any person, without warning.

I want to focus on the position of children in the region. I thank Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which does such excellent work highlighting these issues, for drawing this to my attention. The children of individuals detained in the camps are reportedly sent to what are called state-run orphanages; otherwise they may be called training centres or welfare facilities. One way or another, those children are also being arbitrarily detained.

Wrenched from their families, homes and villages—which are often completely abandoned—the traumatic effect on the children cannot be overstated and, for many, will be lifelong. The conditions in the camps in which they are kept are completely unimaginable. A Uighur worker at one of these so-called orphanages told Radio Free Asia that the facility was seriously overcrowded, with children as young as six months

“locked up like farm animals in a shed”.

Ethnic minority schools in Xinjiang have reportedly been effectively closed. In some cases, the schools have been changed. According to China Aid, the fourth Uighur secondary school of Xinjiang is now a political training centre, and the Chinese authorities are only permitting schools with a Han Chinese background to operate, closing those that specifically cater to Uighur, Kazakh and Mongolian children.

The conditions in which some of the children are kept are unimaginable. Teenagers are reportedly now held in adult re-education camps. According to Radio Free Asia, in March 2018, a 17-year-old Uighur boy, Naman, died of unknown causes. He was detained at a political re-education camp in Kashgar. His family was forced to bury him under police supervision. Concerningly, he was arrested after travelling to Turkey as a tourist with friends. A child’s right to an education without discrimination is guaranteed by article 26 of the universal declaration of human rights and article 13 of the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, which China has ratified.

I have several asks of the Minister. Will the UK Government call on the Government of the People’s Republic of China to respect and protect the wellbeing and rights of children in Xinjiang by ceasing the practice of forcibly removing them from their homes and families, and by ensuring that minors are not detained in adult facilities? Will the UK Government press the Chinese Government to grant access to UN special procedures and other international human rights bodies and experts, particularly to examine what is happening to children in the region? More widely, will the UK Government call on China to abolish the use of these re-education centres, particularly for children, and all forms of extra-legal detention, enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention, to release detainees immediately and without condition, and to ensure that no citizen is detained incommunicado and that family members of detainees are informed of their whereabouts?

Finally, I ask the Government to press the international community. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), who is so concerned about such issues, has referred to this. We must press the international community to consider all means of investigation into human rights abuses in the region, including inquiries into whether abuses perpetrated by the Chinese Government constitute crimes against humanity and genocide, and to consider sanctions against policymakers responsible for the human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

Persecution of Christians

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for allowing time for this important debate on the persecution of Christians, and I thank colleagues for their deeply moving and informed speeches. It is a privilege to follow them.

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), I want to focus on the situation in Nigeria, which others have also touched upon. Yesterday, in a written answer, the Foreign Office Minister, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, said:

“We are appalled by and condemn the escalating levels of violence, including executions, instigated by Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa (ISWA) in Northern Nigeria. The targeting of Christians, including those from Plateau State, has tragically increased in recent months”.

This is echoed by Baroness Cox, who was in Nigeria recently, and her organisation, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, which does such great work there, in their report, “Your Land or Your Blood: the escalating persecution and displacement of Christians in northern and central Nigeria”. She writes:

“While the underlying causes of violence are complex, the asymmetry and escalation of attacks by well-armed Fulani militia upon predominately Christian communities is stark and must be acknowledged. It is too simplistic to label these atrocities as driven by desertification, climate change or competition for resources… The situation fulfils the criteria of genocide and should be recognised as such, with the responsibility of the international community to respond accordingly.”

I have some questions for the Government that I would like them to raise with the international community, but first I wish to read a few survivor testimonies from Baroness Cox’s report. Archbishop Ben Kwashi of Jos says:

“We are still not safe in our homes. I am raising an alarm – if the government will listen”.

A pastor from Maiduguri in Borno:

“Every day we carry new corpses to the cemetery. They kill farmers. They destroy our homes and churches. They kidnap and rape women.”

Margaret from Ngar village:

“My sister was raped and her wrists cut off before she was shot through the heart. They took my brother, his wife and all their six children, tied and slaughtered them like animals.”

Veronica from Dogon Noma:

“They attacked me with a machete twice, once to the neck and once to my hand. I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I saw my daughter on the ground – she was dead – with my chopped finger in her mouth”.

Boko Haram has long been clear about the targeting of Christians, considering them to be infidels—non-believers. As its leader, Abubakar Shekau, who pledged allegiance to Daesh, said after the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls:

“We know what is happening in this world. It is a jihad war against Christians and Christianity. It is a war against Western education, democracy, and constitution…a war against Christians and democracy and their constitution. Allah says we should finish them when we get them.”

Sadly, those quotes come from an October 2014 newsletter, “The Voice of the Martyrs”. In other words, it is not recent news. The religious element of these atrocities is so important, yet it has been downplayed and ignored, altogether often, for far too long by so many. Sadly, that includes representatives of our own Government in Nigeria. In early 2016, the Select Committee on International Development, on which I then served, visited Nigeria to review the Department for International Development’s programmes there. A roundtable meeting of community organisations was arranged by DFID staff there. During that trip, I repeatedly urged them to invite a senior representative of CAN, the Christian Association of Nigeria, to listen to his concerns about how Christians were being targeted and how disturbances and killings could not simply be put down to local disputes between travelling herdsmen and settlers, to the exclusion of religious elements. Yet in 2016 those DFID staff were not interested in listening to his concerns about religiously motivated attacks or dedicating resources to addressing them.

I hope that things have now changed on the ground there and ask whether the Minister will request that the DFID in-country staff there produce a report on what they are doing to address the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. How many lives could have been saved between then and now if they had listened to the representative of the Christian Association of Nigeria? Those lives might even have included the life of his colleague, Rev. Lawan Andimi, the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria’s Adamawa state chapter, who was kidnapped and killed by Boko Haram just a few days ago, on 20 January. Or perhaps they would have included the lives of the 10 Christians beheaded by ISWAP, which released a video showing 10 being beheaded and one man being shot on Boxing day 2019, with a voiceover saying:

“This message is to the Christians in the world…Those…you see…are Christians and we will shed their blood as revenge”.

Aid to the Church in Need’s “Persecuted and Forgotten?” report said that between July 2017 and July 2019 there was

“an upsurge in the number and severity of attacks against Christians in the Middle Belt region.”

These attacks, clergy report, are

“growing in ferocity and frequency”.

I join colleagues in paying tribute to organisations such as Aid to the Church in Need, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Open Doors.

There is too, sadly, grave concern in Nigeria that the Government of President Buhari are not simply failing to address these atrocities, but possibly doing worse. Baroness Cox says in the report:

“We share widespread concerns that many attacks take place with the states’ connivance”.

Following the Boxing day beheadings, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto told Aid to the Church in Need that the Nigerian Government, by placing what he called “hard-line Muslims” in key Government positions, are giving tacit approval to such groups. He says:

“They are using the levers of power to secure the supremacy of Islam…If the people in power don’t do enough to integrate Christians, then they give oxygen to Islamism. If they have countries where everybody is Muslim in power then you give vent to the idea that Islam should be supreme.”

He adds:

“Western nations are not doing enough…the Western nations could have reduced the influence…by 80 or 90 percent…Christians have every reason to feel insecure and…there is a general feeling of their marginalisation from the political process. If the principles of our religion were different, there would be a civil war by now”—

meaning that the only thing preventing Nigeria from being engulfed in civil war is the peaceful tenets of Christianity. I challenge the Minister to find out the Nigerian Government’s exact response to concerns raised by our own Prime Minister about the increasing levels of violence across Nigeria when he met President Buhari at the UK-Africa investment summit on 20 January and discussed UK support. We all know that it is possible for issues to be mentioned, even at the highest level, without concerns moving forwards in any substantive way. That simply cannot be allowed to happen regarding an issue of such gravity. Therefore, may I ask the Minister to raise a few specific points with her counterparts in the Nigerian Government? I have three questions.

First, despite the scale of violence in the farmer-herder conflict, few perpetrators—if any—have been brought to justice. What actions will the Nigerian Government take urgently to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of violence, and what can the British Government do to help?

Secondly, in the farmer-herder conflict there have been many accounts of security forces not being deployed, not acting to prevent impending attacks or, worse still, being complicit in violence. What are the Nigerian Government doing to ensure that security forces respond to violence, and that any members of the security forces who perpetrate human rights abuses or wilfully ignore attacks are investigated and prosecuted?

Thirdly, targeted attacks against churches and heightening religious tensions indicate that religious identity plays a role in the farmer-herder conflict. What are the Nigerian Government doing to address the religious aspects of this violence, and to promote reconciliation between religious communities in Nigeria at a local level?

Christian Solidarity International has written to our Prime Minister this week:

“The increasingly violent attacks and the failure of the Nigerian government to prevent them and punish the perpetrators are alarming.”

It has also issued a genocide warning for Nigeria.

I welcome the fact that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is now considering the situation in Nigeria. Its report from the end of 2019 said that there is a “reasonable basis” to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have taken place in Nigeria. However, the OTP has been considering this issue since as long ago as 2010, and one particular element of the atrocities continues to be neglected in its annual reports: atrocities perpetrated on the basis of religion or belief. The OTP must take the religion or belief element of such atrocities in Nigeria into urgent consideration. Will the Minister ensure that the Government do ask for that? Any other approach simply would not provide a comprehensive picture of the situation so would fail to address the issue properly or ensure justice for victims and survivors. I appreciate that the Minister will not be able to respond to all my questions today—and I do have more—but I would appreciate her doing so at a later date, when she has had time to consider them.

What urgent action will the UK Government take in their role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to uphold their commitment to prevent further genocide in Nigeria? The commitment to prevent genocide derives from the UK being a signatory to the genocide convention of 1948—a commitment reaffirmed in a 2005 declaration of the responsibility to protect.

I turn to the Bishop of Truro’s report, which I warmly welcome. I am appreciative that it is being given attention at the Foreign Office. Specifically with regard to Nigeria, how will the Government ensure that recommendation 7 on genocide prevention and determination and recommendation 21b on bringing Daesh to justice are given full and proper consideration, with particular reference to the increasingly violent attacks against Christians in Nigeria? May I politely suggest that if the Foreign Office is serious about its intention to implement the review’s recommendations, as I believe is the case, its approach could be analysed by a subsequent independent review, with particular reference to Nigeria as something of a test case? Might the Minister be willing to ask her FCO counterpart whether they could rise to that challenge? How will the Government ensure that Boko Haram, Daesh and other perpetrators are brought to account for the atrocities they are involved in? With regard to the Bishop of Truro’s report, what steps will the UK take to ensure that it prevents and suppresses the crime of genocide in Nigeria?

If you will permit me, Mr Deputy Speaker—it is a privilege to be able to speak at more length than usual in debates such as this—I would now like to refer to aid. This was touched on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). To say that huge amounts of UK aid go to Nigeria is inadequate; perhaps more proper would be the term that has been used by our parliamentary colleague Lord Alton, whose written question this week ascertained figures that he called “eye-watering” sums of money. The figures appear to indicate that the total UK bilateral official development assistance to the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the 10 years up to 2018 was £2.4 billion. If the calculations are correct—I stand to be corrected—then for 2018, the latest year of statistics, that would equate to over £800,000 per day; and that was not the highest year, by far. Could the Minister confirm—perhaps, I accept again, at a later date—whether that is in fact correct? What proportion has been used specifically to address religious persecution and the persecution of Christians in Nigeria, about which we have heard so much today? What proportion of the £12 million that the Government have committed to champion freedom of religion or belief worldwide has been allocated to Nigeria, and for what purpose?

Yesterday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched the International Religious Freedom Alliance, stating:

“The Alliance is intended to bring together senior government representatives to discuss actions their nations can take together to promote respect for freedom of religion or belief and protect members of religious minority groups worldwide.”

At the launch, Secretary Pompeo stressed the ever-growing need for such a combined effort, listing some of the worst acts of violence based on religion or belief in recent years. We have heard about many of these today. He cited

“terrorists and violent extremists who target religious minorities, whether they are Yazidis in Iraq, Hindus in Pakistan, Christians in northeast Nigeria or Muslims in Burma”,

and

“the Chinese Communist Party’s hostility to all faiths.”

It is very good to see that the UK Government have immediately joined that alliance. How will they use their membership to raise concerns on these issues, particularly the persecution of Christians in Nigeria? Nigerian Christian leaders who met Baroness Cox in Manchester earlier this week are, she reports, desperate for us to do something, as recent unreported massacres bring a horrific toll of suffering. In Nigeria, as the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Dr Samson Ayokunle, said last month,

“Christians have become endangered species in their own country.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Wheeler]

I am grateful. My hon. Friend has been in this Parliament for so long that he knows all the intricacies; sometimes, however well-meaning our colleagues are, the practicalities of actually achieving what they would like to achieve might be slightly more constrained and long-winded than perhaps they might have thought would be the case. I am very glad that he has put that on the record.

[Fiona Bruce]

I am not seeking to stretch the Minister’s patience too far; she is being very indulgent. One of the challenges that we have had with these debates over the years is that we have raised issues that have related either to the FCO or to DFID—or to both—but we have only had a Minister from one of those Departments before us. I raised a number of questions in my speech that straddled both Departments, so I would be grateful if the Minister liaised with her counterpart in DFID and wrote to me answering some of them. I appreciate that some of those questions were really quite detailed, and there is no way I could have expected her to answer today, as I said in my speech.

[Mrs Wheeler]

Of course. Forgive me if I did not say it loud enough, but I will be happy to repeat it now: I will get somebody from DFID to write to my hon. Friend with the answers to her questions.

The Government believe passionately that everyone should enjoy the same freedom to choose and practise their religion, or to hold no religion at all. We will continue to strive for that to become a reality for everyone everywhere, and to strive for a world in which all nations respect and protect the rights of all their people, irrespective of their faith or belief. Those suffering persecution today, including the 260 million Christians, deserve nothing less.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of the persecution of Christians.