Hong Kong

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this issue. We are deeply concerned about the extrajudicial detention of over 1 million Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in so-called political re-education camps. We have made our case very clear to the Chinese authorities in this regard—that invasive surveillance targeting techniques and suppression of freedom of religion and belief are unacceptable. I am sorry to have to refer to my previous answers in terms of sanctions. We are constantly considering designations under our Magnitsky-style regime, but it would not be helpful to speculate on the names of the people that are being considered at the moment.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con) [V]]

I thank the Minister for his response and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) for the urgent question. On Monday, the United States State Department announced that it was to impose further sanctions on four more Chinese officials over their alleged role in recent crackdowns on democracy in Hong Kong, and that is further to its sanctions on officials with regard to the actions in Xinjiang and the unacceptable treatment of the Uyghur Muslims. My question is on sanctions, but it is slightly different to the questions being put by others. Can the Minister explain the difference in terms of why emergency Magnitsky-style sanctions were rightly imposed in Belarus and why they are not being imposed on Chinese officials with regard to their behaviour in Hong Kong or their behaviour in Xinjiang on the treatment of Muslims?

[Nigel Adams]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for all his work as the Prime Minister’s special envoy on freedom of religion and belief. We are aware of the designations by the US, and we will continue to consider designations under our regulations. I am more than happy to write to him to try to clear up the point he has made. Again, I apologise for repeating this, but it is important to emphasise that it really is not appropriate to speculate on who may be designated under the sanctions regime in future.

Persecution of Christians and Freedom of Religion or Belief

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new call list system and to ensure that social distancing can be respected. Members should sanitise their microphones, using the cleaning materials provided, before they use them, and should respect the one-way system around the room. Members should speak only from the horseshoe. Members may speak only if they are on the call lists. That applies even if debates are under-subscribed. Members may not join a debate if they are not on the call list. Members are not expected to remain for the winding-up speeches.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered progress on the Bishop of Truro’s independent review on persecution of Christians and freedom of religion or belief.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting me the opportunity to have this Westminster Hall debate. As colleagues from across the House know, I led on the implementation of this report and on championing freedom of religion or belief as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief. I led on this work across Government from September 2019 to September 2020. I stepped down from that role because of a policy difference with the Government. It was on a matter of principle regarding the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill and my personal commitment to respecting the rule of law.

At the outset of this debate, I would like to thank my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for giving me a chance to serve as his special envoy covering issues of freedom of religion or belief, which are dear to my heart. I know that they are also dear to the Prime Minister’s heart, and he made FORB a top priority for the Government.

I came to this country in 1984 at the age of six and as the son of an imam. My family and I were able to practise our faith openly and freely and were welcomed with open arms in Gillingham. A moral duty on me, whether in Parliament, as envoy or in everyday life, is to stand up for the rights of individuals from minority faiths around the world, so that they are able to practise their faith or belief openly and freely, as I did in Gillingham and as I do now in my home towns of Gillingham and Rainham.

I am most grateful to His Grace Archbishop Ian Ernest, the director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, for pointing me towards Jeremiah 29: 4-8, from the Bible, which he said means, “You should welcome all people, regardless of colour, creed or background, to your city, and when you join that city, you work hard for co-existence in that city, so that the area prospers.” Gillingham accepted me with open arms, and my parents taught me the values of respect, kindness and individual responsibility, which helped to give me an opportunity to serve my home town as its Member of Parliament and a chance now to serve its community.

As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary stated at the time of my appointment:

“A staggering 83% of the world’s population live in nations where religious freedom is threatened or banned. It is an area where the UK can and must make a difference.”

Those were the words of our Foreign Secretary. According to a Pew Research Center report, 84% of the world’s population claim to identify themselves with a religion. I agree with the BBC’s chief international correspondent:

“If you don’t understand religion—including the abuse of religion—it’s becoming ever harder to understand our world.”

I thank the Prime Minister for his personal commitment during my time in office and for his keen interest in my work. For example, when I sent an update note to the Prime Minister on the work that I was doing, I got a note back saying, “The Prime Minister very much appreciates what you have put in the update note. Can you clarify point x?” One does not need to know what point x is; that shows the Prime Minister’s personal interest in the note that had gone in and that he wanted to know more about the work that was being done.

In 2018, the Prime Minister also personally supported my campaign for the UK Government to grant asylum to Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five who was being persecuted in Pakistan for her faith, in an abuse of the blasphemy laws. I thank Members of Parliament from all parties for being absolutely amazing champions in promoting FORB in Parliament; I see them in Westminster Hall today.

I also thank my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary for his personal support for my work as the Prime Minister’s special envoy. I thank him right from the outset for going to the extent, as the Minister knows, of saying that, as a special envoy, I was entitled to attend ministerial meetings on a Tuesday to give updates on FORB. The personal support that I received from him in this role was absolutely superb, and I thank him through the Minister; I have already thanked him personally, but I thank him again now.

Likewise, it was a real pleasure to work with Ministers from across the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on this top priority for the Government, and I thank all the excellent officials who I worked with on the FORB team at the Foreign Office.

I also personally thank four other individuals. Someone coming in as a special envoy is given a team of civil servants to work with, which is great, but I wanted experts, so I said that I would like to appoint my own four experts to advise me on delivering the 22 different recommendations. There is a recommendation on the United Nations Security Council resolution, which I will turn to later. I am not an expert on the United Nations Security Council, so who should I have appointed? I was very fortunate to have Sir Mark Lyall Grant, the United Kingdom’s former ambassador to the United Nations, a brilliant national security adviser and a former director general at the Foreign Office; I see the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), nodding with approval. Sir Mark is a brilliant former diplomat, so I was very lucky to have him on my advisory board.

I was also lucky to have Sir Malcolm Evans, a professor from the University of Bristol and a member of the Foreign Secretary’s advisory board on human rights, as well as Dr Naz Ghanea from Oxford University, who is brilliant on human rights and intersectionality on FORB issues and women’s issues across the board. Finally, I was fortunate to have Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, a former bishop in Pakistan and also Bishop of Rochester, so he covers all the jurisdictions and issues that face individuals.

I turn now to the report from the Bishop of Truro. As colleagues from all parties know, the Bishop of Truro’s independent review was commissioned by the previous Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), on 26 December 2018, to consider the persecution of Christians around the world. As I see it, the review was a direct response to wide-ranging reports that the suffering of Christians globally and especially that of Christian minorities is of such a scale and intensity that it can no longer be ignored by the Government or other actors. I thank my right hon. Friend the former Foreign Secretary for commissioning that report.

The review was carried out by the Bishop of Truro, Philip Mounstephen, and his team: Sir Charles Hoare, David Fieldsend and Rachael Varney. On 9 July 2019, Bishop Philip published his report, which made 22 recommendations. This Government, like the previous Government of Prime Minister May, accepted those 22 different recommendations in full.

I thank Bishop Philip for his excellent work and detailed report. As the report, which I have here with me, spells out on page 4:

“Across the globe, in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Christians are being bullied, arrested, jailed, expelled and executed. Christianity is by most calculations the most persecuted religion of modern times.”

That is a statement from Bishop Philip, who was asked by our Government to carry out a report into the scale of persecution of Christians around the world.

One needs to look at the work and the data of excellent NGOs such as Open Doors, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Aid to the Church in Need—to name just a few—that I had the real pleasure of meeting and interacting with, because best policy is made when we speak to, listen to and engage with people on the ground, and our NGOs do that.

I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers). She organised the Open Doors event that was attended by over 110 parliamentarians from across the House—Members of the Commons and Members of the Lords. That is why I say to the Government that in this Parliament the issue of religious freedom is a top priority among parliamentarians, and so is the delivery of this report, which I will shortly outline.

It would not be fair of me if I did not refer to what Bishop Philip said on page 7 of his report. He wrote:

“To argue for special pleading for one group over another would be antithetical to the Christian tradition. It would also, ironically, expose that group to greater risk. We must seek FoRB for all, without fear or favour.”

The report and its recommendations, which I was taking forward for the Government, were designed to protect and stand up for freedom of religion or belief for all.

For me, freedom of religion or belief is a fundamental right for everyone. It is crucial for a peaceful, prosperous, virtuous society as well as being a national security priority. When I came in, I split the delivery of the different recommendations into short-term, medium-term and long-term deliverability, after I had consulted Bishop Philip. I had the report and I asked myself the question, “What is behind this report and these recommendations?” I met Bishop Philip to ask, “How can we take these forward? Why did you come up with that recommendation? What did you have in mind when you designed that recommendation?” His advice and counsel, from the outset and throughout, has been outstanding.

There were challenges during the year. We had a general election, which meant we were away from Parliament for a bit, and there was covid-19. From March, covid-19 meant that resources and officials working on this area were deployed elsewhere, to a certain extent, and rightly so. They were dealing with covid-19 and making sure that our citizens were brought back from different parts of the world. I thank the Foreign Secretary and Foreign Minister for doing a great job and getting 1.2 million of our citizens back to the UK.

On 13 September 2020, after one year in office, 17 of the Truro recommendations were either fully implemented or progressed. How did I come up with those 17 recommendations? It is important to have accountability. In July this year, we had a new head of freedom of religious belief, Juliet, a brilliant official tasked with overseeing all of the FORB work. I asked her to review every aspect of the work that I led on, because there needed to be accountability for my work.

I asked Juliet to look at the different recommendations across the board because by July, when I gave evidence to the yearly review with Bishop Truro, there were 11 recommendations that may have been classed as moving forward into the category of implemented or fully implemented, but I wanted someone to independently look at that. On 7 September, Juliet, as the head of FORB, and said that 17 recommendations could be classed as fully implemented or progressed.

I will touch on some of those recommendations now. Recommendation 1 says:

“Ensure FoRB…alongside other human rights and values, is central to FCO operation,”

and talks about a “Diplomatic Code.” When I read the report, my first question was. “What do we mean by a diplomatic code? Bishop Philip, what do you mean by a diplomatic code?” He said, “It is an internal working programme for the Foreign Office.” It provides overarching objectives for the Foreign Office.

I then met the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office and said, “This is the recommendation. This is what is designed to be delivered. Can we look at how we take this forward?” He said, “Rehman, one of the objectives we have at the Foreign Office at the moment is promoting freedom of religion or belief for all.” In the Foreign Secretary’s evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee last week, he gave a three-winged approach on freedoms—FORB freedom, media freedom and Magnitsky sanctions. On the framework, I asked officials to come back by December with a recommendation of how it could be taken forward.

The next recommendation will take a bit of time, Mr Hollobone, but it is important that I cover it for Members. It says:

“Articulate an aspiration to be the global leader in championing FoRB”.

That is crucial. It is a top priority for our Government, but what have we actually done to make it a top priority? How have we interacted with others around the world?

When I advised the Government, it was a delight to join the International Religious Freedom Alliance as a founding member in 2020. The IRFA is an organisation of like-minded states that respect freedom of religion or belief, as in article 18 of the declaration of human rights. It was launched in Washington by Secretary of State Pompeo with over 20 members from states around the world. I had the pleasure of representing the United Kingdom at that meeting.

I pay tribute to Sam Brownback, United States ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. He had a vision of creating an international alliance that could take swift, quick and appropriate action with like-minded partners, and he made it a reality by getting the alliance set up. It has done work on covid-19 and the challenge that we face. We sit here in Parliament representing constituencies. Our constituents have faced challenges and difficulties, but some citizens around the world have suffered more than others under covid-19 for being a member of a religious minority. So what has the alliance been doing?

The alliance helped religious prisoners of conscience in Yemen and worked to get prisoners of conscience in the Baha’i community released. In Eritrea, religious prisoners of conscience were released. On speaking to Ambassador Brownback at the weekend, I learnt that 1,679 religious prisoners of conscience in Uzbekistan have been released with the direct involvement of the alliance and the work of Ambassador Sam Brownback, and it would be unfair of me not to mention the work of the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed. I thank them all.

Before I stepped down I was fortunate to be the vice-chairman of the international alliance, having helped to create it, and the members had asked if I would serve as co-vice-chair with Ambassador Jos Douma from the Netherlands, who did a terrific job on the campaign to get the Baha’is released in Yemen. Another issue that we faced was how to get like-minded countries to make a statement on the persecution of individuals around the world, and there was a covid-19 statement from 18 countries.

I must highlight what minorities around the world have faced during covid-19. First, some Governments have used the pandemic to further repress religious minorities. Secondly, religious minorities are often discriminated against when it comes to the provision of food, aid and healthcare. Thirdly, some religious minorities are being blamed for the spread of covid-19 and are targeted as a result. Fourthly, online propaganda campaigns are targeting religious minorities. Fifthly, technology is being used to further repress, discriminate or surveil religious minorities. That is why the United Kingdom alone cannot make a difference. We have to work with like-minded partners through multilateral fora, which is what the alliance did. I want to give a huge thanks to Professor Mariz Tadros from CREID, the Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development, who recently covered that point at the G20.

CREID has been doing vital work on covid-19 and the scapegoating of religious minorities in countries such as India, Pakistan and Iraq. In Pakistan, CREID provided poor sanitation workers, predominantly from Christian backgrounds, with awareness training around personal protective equipment. As well as providing the equipment, CREID conducted advocacy activities with the Government around the right to dignity, respect and protection.

I see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) sitting to my right. His report on minorities in Pakistan and his visit with Lord Alton was absolutely superb. I thank him from the bottom of my heart for what he does day in, day out, and for what he has done throughout his career in Parliament. I also thank his colleagues on the APPG. I have a small example. When I was the envoy and I needed to know what was going on, I used to have Twitter alerts from the APPG to find out what was going on. The guys on the APPG were absolutely brilliant. Also, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for her report on minorities in Pakistan.

On the canonisation of St John Henry Newman, a great British saint who made a global impact, we were at the Holy See. We had an APPG delegation there at the time. We also had His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales leading the United Kingdom delegation. We had two Secretaries of State representing the United Kingdom Government and we had the Prime Minister’s special envoy. I thank our brilliant ambassador to the Holy See, Sally Axworthy, for the way in which the celebrations were conducted. If colleagues have not had a chance to read His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’s October 2019 article in The Tablet on interfaith at the time of the canonisation of St John Henry Newman, I strongly suggest that they do, and I thank him for his work on interfaith dialogue. I will come to the Minister in due course.

For the UK to be a leader on FORB prompts the question of whether the United Kingdom will host the international ministerial conference on freedom of religion or belief. I went to the United States and said, “Hey, the United Kingdom would like to host that conference.” Other countries wanted to do it, but the United States said that the United Kingdom could do it. We decided on 2021 for the full conference, but then the decision came back and officials said, “It will be in 2021, but I understand that given covid-19, COP26 is being moved to 2022. Would you do it?” I did not think we should have a virtual semi-conference; there should be a full conference. I spoke to counterparts in the United States to ask whether another country could step in in 2021, and the United Kingdom in 2022. The Foreign Secretary accepted my advice. It would be great if the Minister could say exactly when in 2022 the United Kingdom will host that conference.

Recommendation 2 was for the United Kingdom to:

“Advocate that member states introduce a Special Envoy position for FoRB”.

The first country that I visited as the envoy, on transit to the Holy See, was Bahrain, a Muslim-majority country that has a good track record on interfaith, mutual co-existence. It has had a Hindu temple for 200 years and churches for over 100 years. The vicar from my constituency, Reverend Chris Butt, had been the vicar at St Christopher’s Cathedral in Bahrain just prior to my visit. I asked His Majesty King Hamad whether Bahrain would appoint a special envoy for freedom of religion or belief. I was pleased that one of the last meetings that I had in my official capacity was with the Foreign Minister of Bahrain in early September and he said, “His Majesty has considered your request, and Bahrain will appoint a special envoy for freedom of religion or belief in due course.”

Recommendation 3 is to

“Name the phenomenon of Christian discrimination”.

The decision on that recommendation was not made by the envoy. Research was allocated to Archbishop Angaelos of the Coptic Christian Church. Through the John Bunyan fund for freedom of religion and belief, 15 projects were given money to conduct research on FORB. He put forward a submission, and he has a strong track record on freedom of religion or belief. The research was carried out by his team, and I hear that there were mixed representations. Some want a name for the phenomenon of Christian persecution, and some do not, but the recommendation was from Archbishop Angaelos, not me as the envoy. The key thing from him was saying that there should be a recognition of the phenomenon of Christian persecution. I accept that the most persecuted faith in the world is the Christian faith, and we should advocate our policy with that in mind.

Recommendation 4 is

“to gather reliable information and data on FoRB to better inform the development of international policy.”

I am pleased to say that recommendation 4 is another that has been adopted and is now part of business as usual at the Foreign Office. Research continues, but let me say this: various projects funded by the John Bunyan fund, which I will discuss in greater detail, will also feed into the delivery of recommendation 4. Furthermore, I was delighted to meet representatives of the Religious Freedom Institute in Washington earlier this year. With the help of the funding from the FCDO Magna Carta fund, it has developed a highly sophisticated online tool to gather simple, meaningful, accessible, reliable and timely smart data on religious freedom landscapes across the globe. That is how we got the data from the work with the RFI, and the strategy that was applied. The smart tool collects data in 17 countries and aims to focus on collecting detail in a very localised way.

CREID has also produced some excellent work in this area, including a working paper titled “Humanitarian and Religious Inequalities: Addressing a Blind Spot”, which discusses religious inequalities being blind in humanitarian frameworks and how humanitarian actors can incorporate sensitivity to religious difference and persecution into their programmes.

Recommendation 5 would:

“Bolster research into the critical intersection of FoRB and minority rights”

and gender issues. Again, I pay tribute to CREID and I thank the Government for allocating in 2018 via DFID £12 million for research into security, economic activity and religious hate content online. The CREID paper “Invisible Targets of Hatred: Socioeconomically Excluded Women from Religious Minority Backgrounds” addresses the intersection of religious, gender, social, economic, ethnic and geographic marginalities affecting women who belong to religious minorities in six contexts. CREID has also been working on countering hate speech online, which can often have severe violent consequences in real time. If colleagues have not seen it, the research is available in documents such as the ones I have here. It is crucial that that research is taken into account when Foreign Office officials, and those who were in DFID, make policy.

Recommendation 6 would establish permanently the role of the special envoy. Peter Jones was appointed a director-level champion on FORB and he did a terrific job and I thank him for his support. Based on my experience, my advice to the Government, as we look to appoint a new envoy, is to consider how we make the post most effective. The Minister is terrific; he is a great Minister. However, the work on FORB and the Truro review is led by an envoy, and an envoy does not have the authority to shape or make policy; an envoy does not have the authority to come before Parliament to answer questions on why certain decisions have been taken on certain countries; an envoy may pick up an issue on the alliance and try to put it through the system, but he does not have the authority for political or policy steering. Therefore, my advice to the Government and to whoever comes in next is to give the role the maximum authority possible by ensuring that that person has that authority and is answerable to Parliament. When I was the envoy, I used to read all the debates introduced by Members, and it was a pleasure to read them. If whoever comes in as the Government’s key lead on FORB, they should have the authority to be accountable to Parliament for the decisions that they make about different countries.

Recommendation 7 would:

“Ensure that there are mechanisms in place to facilitate an immediate response to atrocity crimes, including genocide”

and would set up an early-warning system. I was advised by the FORB team that the United Kingdom already has a strategy to deal with early-warning signs and genocide but I refer colleagues to the speech made by my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) in the previous Westminster Hall debate led by the hon. Member for Strangford. It was a powerful speech and highlighted the need to get the early-warning system right. In the seventh paragraph of his speech in the debate on the large-scale persecution of religious or racial minorities on 12 March, the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) highlighted the issues that lead to intolerance and hatred going to their ultimate extent.

The work on the subject is being undertaken by the FORB team and a note was to reach the envoy in December. However, the alliance is crucial as part of that thematic work that I advised the Government to join. The occurrence of mass atrocities targeting members of religious and ethnic minority groups has highlighted the need for greater co-ordination among countries and a more robust response whether atrocities are perpetrated by state actors, such as Myanmar against the Rohingyas, or by non-state actors, such as in Iraq by Daesh. The alliance can serve as the mechanics to mobilise a response based on the principles of action in the joint declaration of principles. That is the vision but before we do that, we can still work together to share good practice.

Recommendation 9 is to be prepared to impose sanctions. I thank our sanctions team. Before we had the designations in July, Bishop Philip and I met the sanctions team at the Foreign Office so that he could explain recommendation 7. There was a FORB perspective on the designations and in the first designations were two Myanmar generals. I read the debate on 12 October on China’s policy on the Uyghur people and seen the United States’ position on the sanctioning of individuals for the way the Uyghurs have been treated in Xinjiang province. As a parliamentarian, do I think the line has been crossed for the United Kingdom to designate individuals in line with what the United States has done to members of the Chinese Communist party? The answer is yes. In this Parliament, Government needs to take into account the views of parliamentarians. As the envoy, I saw debate after debate: a freedom of religion debate on 12 March, 10 October and 6 February, and the debate on 12 October 2020 on China’s policy on its Uyghur population. That debate says it all.

The United Kingdom has a moral obligation to do the right thing and stand up for our global values: democracy, rule of law and liberty. That means taking that decisive, appropriate action. I know the Government have done that in Belarus with sanctions on certain individuals, but my question to the Government now is: why wait? We took the decision and, on my understanding, designations were supposed to be every few months. We took an exceptional decision on Belarus, and rightly so. Why are we not taking that decision on the Uyghur situation in China? My understanding of the Magnitsky sanctions is that, as global Britain, we are working with our like-minded partners Canada and the United States. The United States has designated individuals from the Chinese Communist party on the sanctions list, with visa restrictions, export restrictions, a ban on exporting to the US and business advice to US companies, cautioning businesses about the reputational, economic and legal risk. As such, I say to the Minister that the United Kingdom should quickly and swiftly do the right thing. Our great parliamentarian William Wilberforce is quoted on page 6 of Bishop Truro’s report:

“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say you did not know”.

On that recommendation, future designations always need to consider FORB and I ask the Government to make that decision on exceptional grounds, quickly and swiftly.

Recommendation 10 is for

“The Foreign Secretary to write to FCO funded ‘arm’s length’ bodies”.

I am pleased to say the Foreign Secretary wrote to the Westminster Foundation, Wilton Park and the British Council: done, done and done. I also highlight something crucial to colleagues: the Foreign Office-produced reports on conferences on protecting vulnerable religious minorities in conflict; promotion of freedom of religion or belief; tackling violence committed in the name of religion; and fostering social cohesion in Nigeria. Nigeria will come up in the debate, and colleagues may highlight that. When I was the envoy, I said to officials “Let’s have a Wilton Park conference on Nigeria” and we had that. The documents are superb and highlight the United Kingdom and the Foreign Office’s commitment and good practice and I ask colleagues that we move forward in that.

The next recommendation is number 11, to ensure

“both general and contextual training in religious literacy”.

When I first came into office, that was one of my first goals. Unless our diplomats have the right training across the board, how do they pick up the issues of intolerance, hatred and non-violent extremism that lead to violent extremism? We need to make sure our diplomats have that. We have some of the best diplomats in the world; I have worked with them. However, they need to be given the right tools.

When I came in, there was some support through the LSE programme. Now, there is a Cambridge module on religious literacy. However, tying in with recommendation 13 to

“deliver tailored responses to FoRB violations at Post level”,

I have a recommendation for the Government. When I came in there were four priority countries, but I say there should be 13 review countries. How do you identify a review country? I asked Sir Mark Lyall Grant, our former ambassador—I am running close on time, but I shall be very brief in my summing up. Review countries are based on where the most significant infringement on FORB is taking place and where the United Kingdom can make the most impact on it. I wrote to 24 different missions with a view to getting 13 put into that category. We could, then, ensure that the diplomats going to those 13 countries had that tailored support.

Recommendation 14:

“Ensure FCO human rights reporting”.

I am pleased to say that the annual human rights report covers freedom of religion or belief in that regard.

Recommendation 17 is for

“The FCO to convene a working group for government departments and civil society”

to engage. I am pleased to say that the FORB forum, chaired by Bishop Truro, has recently been established by a diverse group of human rights NGOs, civil society organisations and faith groups. The UK FORB forum is a mechanism for civil society actors to engage with HM Government on the issue and ensure that egregious violations in both individual cases and systematic abuses are looked at. I thank Bishop Philip and the civil society organisations for coming forward.

Among the final recommendations I want to cover, one concerns the annual event in support of the UN international day on victims of religious violence. The United Kingdom supported Poland at the UN on that, and carried out a Red Wednesday event, with Aid to the Church in Need. Buildings across Government Departments were lit in red. I spoke about that at Westminster Cathedral.

Recommendation 20 is for the United Kingdom to secure a Security Council resolution on FORB. When I first came into office I advised and spoke to No. 10 and the Foreign Secretary, and I spoke to and got a note back from our mission in New York on a strategy to take forward that recommendation. I gave the Foreign Secretary an update note on that in July. I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary for accepting my advice on the strategy to take that recommendation forward. Before I left, that matter was on my desk. The United Kingdom has the Security Council presidency in February next year and I would like confirmation that the United Kingdom will move that motion then.

I am grateful to colleagues for their amazing support and their championing of FORB, and I look forward to working with them on this again as a parliamentarian.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I am obliged to call the Front-Bench spokespeople no later than 10.31, which gives us 24 minutes of Back-Bench time, so I am going to impose a four-minute limit so that we can get the contributions of the six Members in. The Scottish National party spokesman has generously volunteered to limit his contribution to six minutes, but the guideline limits for Her Majesty’s Opposition and the Minister are 10 minutes each, with two or three minutes at the end for Mr Chishti to sum up the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank the Minister for that response, and I also thank colleagues. People of all faiths or beliefs and none have the concept of forgiveness, and I ask for forgiveness for going on for longer than I should have at the outset.

I can only do my job as envoy because of the fantastic work of parliamentarians pushing it at every level, and constituents. The first question I asked at the Foreign Office was where FORB is on the scale of correspondence. I was told that it was the second-highest issue that people write to the Foreign Office about after the middle east peace process. It is fantastic that, when we speak to officials, we can say, “This is what Parliament says, and this is what constituents say.” We have a duty to deliver and do everything we can on FORB.

From our days of playing cricket for the House of Commons cricket team, I know about the Minister’s captaining—his brilliant strategy, frankness, openness and listening—and I thank him for all he does. I just want to ask a couple of things. The FORB forum, led by Bishop Philip, is brilliant at getting NGOs together. In addition to writing the letter for the new special envoy, the work it has done on China, Nigeria and Iraq recently is absolutely crucial. It would be great if the Minister was able to meet with it and discuss that at its monthly meetings.

I should mention recommendation 12:

“Establish a clear framework for reporting”

at post. That was more or less signed off in my time. I ask the Minister for the FORB toolkit to be shared around the world.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No.10(6)).

Belarus: Presidential Elections

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I very much welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement. His commitment to human rights is nothing new. When we both came to the House, we sat on the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and I remember him being a champion on these matters across the board.

My right hon. Friend knows of my interest in religious freedom, on which I have worked with him. Freedom of religion or belief is a basic, fundamental right, and it is crucial for a peaceful, prosperous and virtuous society. It is also a national security imperative. One of my last actions as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion and belief was as a member of the International Religious Freedom Alliance, of which I was honoured to be vice-chair. In that last meeting, the case was raised of Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, who was not being allowed to enter Belarus, his own country. I ask the Foreign Secretary to do everything he can to ensure that individuals such as Archbishop Kondrusiewicz can enter their countries and practise their faith openly and freely. Finally, I personally thank the Foreign Secretary for the support that he gave me in my task when I was the Prime Minister’s special envoy.

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his stalwart work—from his membership of the Joint Committee on Human Rights to his special envoy role—as a champion for human rights and freedom of religious belief. He will know that I view media freedom, Magnitsky sanctions and freedom of religious belief as inextricably entwined. Of course we will look at the case that he described and make sure that those voices for freedom in Belarus are not snuffed out.

Covid-19: Repatriation of UK Nationals

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. On New Zealand, I am pleased to say that over 600 UK nationals have returned. One of the problems is that most of the commercial flights back to the UK have been suspended, so flight availability is extremely difficult. We are now chartering flights to help to bring back the most vulnerable British nationals stranded in New Zealand. There are five initial Government charter flights, which started on 24 April. They will bring home over 1,500 people. On cost, I do accept his point about how some airlines have dealt with their customers and not given cash refunds. I do not agree with that. I think it is incredibly bad form for the airlines not to provide timely refunds to their customers. The cost of the repatriation flights is at a reasonable level, with a maximum of £800 if a flight is over 10 hours.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con) [V]]

Through the Minister, may I thank the FCO team for all its fantastic work in bringing back my constituents from Fiji, New Zealand, India and Pakistan? I also know that 10 chartered flights have taken place from South Africa. However, I have an 80-year-old constituent just outside Johannesburg, who was supposed to have come back to Rainham on 4 April. She has been told by her tour operator that she is unlikely to come back before July. Will the Minister look urgently at this case? I have already raised it with the Minister for Africa, who has been exceptionally helpful, but may I urge the Minister for Asia to please do everything that can be done to help this 80-year-old constituent of mine?

[Nigel Adams]

The FCO will of course look into the case my hon. Friend raises. I thank him for his praise for the work that has been done to return his constituents from around the globe. As he will know, we have got over 2,000 British travellers back from South Africa on our special charter flights, but we will certainly look into that individual’s case and see what support we can give through our network.

Oral Answers to Questions

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

As the hon. Lady says, we accept in full the Truro recommendations. I am meeting the Prime Minister’s envoy again to discuss progress—I think we are about halfway through. The point I gently make is that the situation is quite complicated. Religious belief is central to the identity of many in Nigeria, but the underlying drivers of conflict go beyond to ethnic rivalries, criminal banditry, competition over land and water, and the settled community and the nomadic Fulani community. There is a lot of complexity to work through, but I will continue to do that with the Prime Minister’s envoy. I am more than happy to work with the all-party group on Nigeria, of which I was once secretary, as well as the hon. Lady and other interested parties.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for that answer. On the question posed earlier about the United Kingdom being a leader and champion on freedom of religion or belief, will the Minister clarify that the UK, not just bilaterally but through other forums such as the International Religious Freedom Alliance and the International Contact Group in Geneva last week, has raised the issue of Nigeria? As the Prime Minister’s envoy, I can say that the UK is taking forward with ministerial colleagues the issue of Nigeria at every level. Recommendations 12 and 13 of the Truro review, as well as recommendation 2, cover the work we do on Nigeria with non-governmental organisations, both in the UK and with our counterparts around the world.

[James Duddridge]

My hon. Friend demonstrates his excellence in this area and makes the very valid point that it is about not just bilateral activity, but multilateral activity and the leadership role we have, particularly now as the chair of the Commonwealth and in handing over the baton in Kigali to the Rwandans. We will continue to raise these issues, which we do not see in isolation. These are thematic issues that we raise consistently, both bilaterally and multilaterally.

Freedom of Religion or Belief

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We spoke about this beforehand; he and I participate in many debates in this House, and often come forward with the same ideas, thoughts and deliberations. Yes, what is happening in Nigeria is perhaps a wee bit uncertain. The conflict involving the Fulani herdsmen, they would say, is to do with land and climate change. However, with respect to the hon. Gentleman, there are indications that there are more attacks on Christians than on anyone else. That does not lessen what is happening, but it indicates to me that there are many attacks on Christians across the whole of Nigeria.

To mention just a few of those attacks, there were five major attacks against Nigerian Christians in Kaduna state between January and November 2019, resulting in an estimated 500 deaths. There were at least another five attacks in Bassa and Riyom local government areas, as well as many attacks in Taraba state. Boko Haram remains in power around the Chad border region, including parts of Borno state. Some 1,000 Christians have been slaughtered in north-eastern Nigeria since January 2019, in addition to the over 6,000 deaths since 2015. I will talk about some of those attacks to illustrate how horrific they are.

Veronica, 35, from Dogon Noma recounted some of the awful attacks inflicted on her family. Her home was attacked by Fulani militia, and only she and three others survived; 13 of her friends and family were killed. Naomi, 54, from Karamai lost limbs in a brutal attack on her home, in which her elderly and fragile father was shot in his bed. In Ta’aziya’s village, almost 50 people were killed and only two homes were not burnt down. Pastors and leaders have said:

“Boko Haram might launch an attack at any time…this morning at 4am, they arrived with bombs. They focus their attacks on Christians.”

Whatever the other reasons may be, that is clearly what they are about.

“They kill farmers. They destroy our homes and churches. They kidnap and rape women. Some women are forced to marry Muslims. Boko Haram also attack Government properties and the police. No one can go beyond five kilometres from town.”

I want to ask five questions of the Minister, if I can. First, in the light of the Nigerian Government’s admission that Christians are being targeted in northern Nigeria, will the British Government move a UN resolution to send in peacekeeping forces to protect vulnerable communities and citizens in Nigeria? Secondly, will the UK renew its offer to assist in the search and rescue of Leah Sharibu, an ISIS captive for two years now, and others abducted and enslaved in Nigeria? Alongside Baroness Cox from the other place, my colleague the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and others, I had the pleasure of meeting Leah Sharibu’s mother Rebecca and her friend Gloria in this House, so I know how important this is for her.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for having pushed for this debate, and for all the fantastic work he has done on religious freedom in his time in Parliament. When I as the special envoy met Rebecca Sharibu, Leah’s mother, we as the Government made it very clear to our Nigerian counterparts that everything that can be done to ensure Leah’s safe release should be done. We will continue to make that clear, as I did when we met with other members of the International Religious Freedom Alliance to say that, working with our Nigerian counterparts and across the globe, the United Kingdom will do everything it can to ensure Leah is released.

[Jim Shannon]

I am deeply indebted to the hon. Gentleman for his work. This is not a self-congratulation society, but I greatly appreciate what he does and the role that he plays, and the energy, interest and commitment that he shows. We are pleased that he is in place and we hope that there will be a fruitful conclusion to his endeavours and those of the Government.

My next question is: will the UK Government focus more or most of its international development aid on Nigeria to assist the victims and protect the vulnerable from Nigeria’s insecurity crisis? Will they use a large percentage of their aid budget to Nigeria to provide more direct assistance to internally displaced persons who live in poor conditions and to enhance security provision for vulnerable communities and people, including the Christian communities in the north-east and middle belt where they have been particularly targeted, by the Nigerian Government’s own admission?

Finally, given the Prime Minister’s call for increased post-Brexit trade and investments in Nigeria, in which the Prime Minister’s trade envoy, the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell), will be interested, what security advice and warnings are the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Trade offering to British investors? Those are all important issues.

In my role as chair of the all-party group on international freedom of religion or belief, I campaign on behalf of all who are persecuted, not just Christians, because I am a Christian and I believe that my God loves everyone. That is why I, and all hon. Members present, believe that it is our duty to speak out not only for those of Christian faith, but for people of any faith and of course, just as important, those who do not profess a faith at all. That is why I now turn to the persecution that other groups, including the non-religious, are facing around the world.

Atheists, agnostics and other non-religious people often face extreme violations of FORB. Indeed, in Saudi Arabia, that great ally of the United Kingdom—questions were asked about that relationship in the Chamber today—atheism is considered a criminal offence, punishable by death. In the eyes of the Saudi Government, therefore, many British people, including some in this House, are the worst criminals and not deserving of life.

According to “The Freedom of Thought Report” published by the International Humanist and Ethical Union,

“even on the most conservative estimates, there are untold millions of de facto humanists, atheists and otherwise religiously unaffiliated people living in countries where they face discrimination or outright persecution, both in society and at the hands of the state. In the most extreme cases, the non-religious are told that…to promote humanist values…is a kind of criminal attack on culture.”

Again, that is simply unacceptable.

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[Jim Shannon]

The Government should. Next week I will present a request to the Backbench Business Committee for a debate specifically on India. The hon. Gentleman, and other hon. Members who have signed that request, will have an opportunity to debate the issue, in Westminster Hall I suspect. I mention that, as I have tried to mention a lot of other things. I agree with him and I thank him for the intervention.

Sectarian violence has caused dozens of deaths, the destruction of religious buildings and physical altercations in the Indian Parliament—even the Parliament has not been above the verbal and physical abuse of people. That conflict and instability illustrates the point that hon. Members have made repeatedly in such debates, which is that FORB violations can cause and exacerbate conflict between communities and must be addressed before they explode into violence.

In 2018, the APPG for FORB wrote that, “Violence and discrimination, combined with arbitrary exclusion from legal institutions, could cause significant grievances among non-Hindus in India, which may lead to domestic conflict and violence.” Unfortunately, that has proven to be the case. It is for that reason that Government Departments such as the Department for International Development must invest greater resources in promoting freedom of religion or belief to prevent conflict, rather than responding to crises only once violence has already erupted, when it is too late.

Similarly, it is vital that the Government recognise how the potential for societal instability and conflict caused by human rights violations can harm economic prosperity and limit hopes for long-term, prosperous trading relationships with countries such as India, as the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) referred to. We have a relationship that we wish to build on, but they have to address the issue of human rights. Will the Minister assure hon. Members that FORB violations will be discussed in the Government’s trade negotiations with relevant countries? Will he assure us that provisions to protect human rights will be included in any such deals?

It is particularly important to address FORB violations quickly whenever they emerge because conflicts can spread and violence between Hindus and Muslims in India can have knock-on effects in Pakistan, where non-Muslim minorities such as Hindus and Christians face severe persecution.

If I am spared, I will be visiting Pakistan with Lord Alton from the other place over the Easter period. Just yesterday I had the privilege of meeting a delegation from Pakistan who described how blasphemy laws are being misused there to persecute religious minorities, and how young women and girls from those communities are being taken from their homes. According to the National Commission for Justice and Peace, the Pakistani authorities prosecuted a total of 1,170 blasphemy cases between 1987 and 2012, with scores of new cases being brought every year.

[Rehman Chishti]

On the abuse of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, as envoy I appointed Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester and also a bishop in Pakistan, to the advisory panel. His specific task was to look at how administrative changes can be made to address the abuse of the blasphemy laws. Blasphemy laws are often used against Muslims themselves over land disputes and other economic issues, as well as against minorities. I have specifically asked him to look at administrative changes, so that the abuse of those laws can be stopped. No one should be subject to these laws for practising their freedom of religion or belief.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I subscribe to those views as well. He is correct; the blasphemy laws are used maliciously against people. One case that everyone would be aware of is that of Asia Bibi. We were in Pakistan in September 2018 and had an opportunity to meet two of the three judges who were to make the decision on Asia Bibi. We were clear what we were doing when we went there. We were not going to tell the Pakistani Government that they should change everything; we were going to say, “This does not work, because people are maliciously using the law against others for their own reasons.” Our meetings with the judges who were deliberating on Asia Bibi were very helpful and supportive of the case. We were sworn to secrecy and were not able to say that until the case was heard in court, and Asia Bibi was released. I know that there was an appeal after that. Now she is free and living in Canada.

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[Jim Shannon]

I certainly do. They are intertwined and wrapped around each other, and sometimes the situation is used in that way.

No precise figures are available, but Pakistani non-governmental organisations such as the Movement for Solidarity and Peace have estimated that each year around 1,000 Hindu and Christian girls in Pakistan are kidnapped, forced to convert to Islam and forcibly married or sold into prostitution.

I discussed that and other issues during my trip to Pakistan in October 2018. I travelled in a delegation with two other British parliamentarians, the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) and Lord Alton from the other place. We spent five days in total in the wonderful country of Pakistan, having very productive meetings with Government officials, as well as several human rights NGOs. We also met representatives of various minority rights organisation and had the opportunity to visit some Christian communities, including in slum residences in Islamabad.

One thing that left a lasting impression on me and on the whole delegation was visiting those slums and the houses that people live in, and the people who were volunteers. One lady in particular was teaching children, from about five to 16, the rudimentary elements of education. If Christians have the opportunity to educate themselves, they have the opportunity to apply for the jobs. We need that issue to move forward and we will take that up as we go on.

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank the hon. Gentleman and the delegation for their report, “Religions Minorities of Pakistan: report of a parliamentary visit”. As the Prime Minister’s special envoy, I met the Pakistani high commissioner and asked him to meet the parliamentarians to go through the findings in the report, so that they can work together to address the key issues facing people of all faiths and none, of being able to practise their faith in line with article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights. He is happy to do that.

[Jim Shannon]

I am also very happy to do that. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We will make sure that report is available to colleagues if they have not seen it.

I hope to travel again to Pakistan in April to discuss our report with colleagues there, so we can see how we can work together to protect minorities in Pakistan. It would be very much appreciated if the Minister could support that trip and set an example by implementing the recommendations for the British Government that are set out in the report that the hon. Gentleman just referred to.

Before I finish on Pakistan, one group I particularly want to mention is the Ahmadiyya Muslim community. There is a group from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland who invite me to their event in Omagh every year. I was there a short time ago and I was there a few years ago as well. I am very pleased to be invited, and I am very pleased to support them. They have freedom of religion or belief in Ireland, both north and south, but they are a persecuted Muslim group. It is the only religious community to be explicitly targeted by Pakistan’s laws on grounds of faith. Perpetrators are given free rein to attack innocent Ahmadis in the knowledge that they will never face prosecution for their actions. Hundreds of Ahmadis have been murdered and the targeted killing of Ahmadis continues with impunity. Ahmadis cannot call themselves Muslims and are denied the right to vote as Muslims. Ahmadis are openly declared as “deserving to be killed”—I will not try to wrap my Ulster Scots accent around the original words—in the Pakistani media and by religious clerics, with the state unable to stand up for Ahmadis and against the extremists.

Another community whose plight I want to highlight and who face comparable persecution are the Baha’i community of Iran. I speak about them all the time, as many in this House do. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the Government of Iran have persecuted Iranian Baha’is, who comprise the country’s largest non-Muslim religious minority, with more than 300,000 members, as a systematic policy of the state. Since Dr Hassan Rouhani assumed the presidency in August 2018, more than 283 Baha’is have been arrested, thousands have been blocked from access to higher education, and there have been at least 645 acts of economic oppression. In addition, more than 26,000 pieces of anti-Baha’i propaganda have been disseminated in the Iranian media.

In an even more alarming development, in the early months of 2020 the Iranian Government have moved to digitise national identity cards. The new identity system restricts applicants to select only one of four religions, according to the 1979 constitution—Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Those belonging to other faiths are denied the ID cards. Why should that be? They are therefore deprived of the most basic civil services, such as applying for a loan or buying property, or just having a job or an education.

I have spoken a lot about different groups and now want to highlight the plight of the women of those groups, who are often particularly vulnerable due to the double persecution that they sometimes face, for their gender and their beliefs—for example, the poor young Christian and Hindu girls in Pakistan who I mentioned. The stories of the Yazidi women, some of whom we have met, are horrendous. They suffered unspeakable atrocities at the hands of Daesh because they were of both the wrong gender and the wrong faith. It is of the utmost importance that we highlight the plight of those women, whose stories often go unreported, including the thousands of Muslim and Christian women who have been kidnapped by Boko Haram over the years.

In honour of International Women’s Day on Sunday 8 March, I tabled an early-day motion on International Women’s Day and freedom of religion or belief. The purpose of the EDM is threefold: first, to recognise the intersection between women’s rights and the right to FORB, and to encourage the UK Government to develop targeted programming and aim for women who face double vulnerabilities as members of minority faith communities; secondly, to include religion as a factor of vulnerability in any assessment made in planning and programming; and thirdly, to ensure that sensitivity training related to the international right to freedom of religion or belief is integrated into gender-related and anti-discrimination programmes. I would welcome any information that the Minister can share about how the Government intend to address the specific vulnerabilities that women from minority faith or belief groups face, and I encourage hon. Members to add their name to the EDM if they have not already done so.

I thank hon. Members in advance for their contributions to this important debate, and I very much look forward to the Minister’s response. I am confident that we will get a very good response. I thank hon. Members for making the time to come to the debate.

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[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Thank you, Ms Buck. It is a pleasure to be here today. I have spoken about freedom of religion or belief before. Of course, any decent society believes that freedom of religion is a basic human right. The problem is that I have been to many places where it is not a basic human right.

From the Bishop of Truro’s report, I know that 80% of persecution for religious reasons is against Christians. I am neutral, however, because in Bosnia I saw Roman Catholics attacking Orthodox Christians and Muslims, Muslims attacking Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics, and Orthodox Christians attacking both other sides. What they carried out was often a crime against humanity—it was definitely ethnic cleansing—and it was sometimes genocide. The fact of the matter is that those terms are relative. For the poor devils suffering, it does not matter what it is called: they are dying.

In my experience, I have seen far too many people dying for religion. It is not really about religion, but people often use it as an excuse. Unfortunately, when I was the UN commander in Bosnia, I came across many instances of various sides doing foul deeds to the others. However, there is a good reason—I will come to it later—to refer to what happened on 22 April 1993, when I was in a village called Ahmići. As the British UN commander, I was checking the village for bodies with my soldiers. We came to a house halfway down and could not find any bodies, because people had been killed and thrown into the houses. The houses had been torched and their roofs had fallen down, so we could not get through to the bodies.

In one house that we came to, a soldier said, “Over here, sir.” I was on the road through the village. First, I went to the front door. There was a man’s burned body and a boy’s burned body. They had obviously been shot and then someone had thrown petrol or something over them. We knew they had been shot because we were standing on shell cases. Round the back, however, was worse. When I went into the cellar, I could not really see at first what was in front of me—I just could not believe it. Then my eyes focused and I recognised a head bent back, I suspect in agony. There were other burned bodies. Then the smell came, because this had happened six days earlier. I could not believe it. My men and I rushed out. Some wept; others puked. We could not believe what we were seeing.

The reason I am telling this story is that I received an email this morning from a guy called Thomas Osorio, who was the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time—27 years ago—and who I worked with on the ground. In the email, he tells me that the people whom I had found that day—they have been held in a morgue for 27 years because of a failure to identify them—have now been identified. I will repeat their names: Sabika Naser Ahmic, 30 years old; Husnije Zehnadina Ahmic, 28, who was presumably the mum; Arnaut Zedina Elvis Ahmic, eight; Naser Suhreta Ahmic, six; Naser Sejo Ahmic, three months. Theirs are the bodies I found in that cellar 27 years ago. They were Muslims and had been killed by Croats who were Roman Catholic and who used the excuse of people being Muslim to kill them. It was an excuse.

I have to say that I was in such shock afterwards that I did not really know what to do. After consultation with my second-in-command on the radio, I decided to run a press conference and broadcast it to the world by saying, “This is what I found. In my view, this is a crime against humanity.” Later I discovered that it was actually genocide. By definition, genocide is the deliberate act of clearing out a whole group of people. In this case, it was the Muslims in the village of Ahmići. Other houses were untouched. Guess what? In those houses lived Roman Catholics.

I did not really know what had happened, but my intelligence cell suggested that they had done a cordon-and-sweep operation. In other words, they had made a box around the village using soldiers with machine guns. From the bottom, in a straight line, they had systematically gone through each house. When they had driven people out of the houses, they either killed them there and then by throwing them into the houses, or they let them run into the machine guns.

I do not know how we could have stopped it. One of the questions I might ask the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is how the hell can we stop this sort of thing happening. Our blathering on in Parliament is all very well, but what will the Foreign Office do about it? How will the Minister stop that? He is a very good friend of mine and is looking at me intently, but that question is impossible to answer. How do we do it?

[Rehman Chishti]

I thank and pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all that he has done over the years to bring people together and to stand up for rule of law. Regarding what the United Kingdom will do on the prevention of genocide, I refer him to one of the Bishop of Truro’s 22 recommendations, which I am taking forward. Recommendation 7 calls for the FCO to

“Ensure that there are mechanisms in place to facilitate an immediate response to atrocity crimes, including genocide, through activities such as setting up early warning mechanisms…diplomacy to help resolve disputes, and…support to help with upstream prevention work…and be willing to make public statements condemning such atrocities.”

The Government have accepted recommendation 7 of Bishop of Truro’s report. That is one of our long-term projects, because it is absolutely crucial that we get prevention right. As a Government, we are committed to doing so, and work on that has begun.

[Bob Stewart]

I am jolly pleased to hear it, but I want to see that happen on the ground. Trying to stop it is very, very difficult.

I know the reality of what happened in that village— I was not there but I had an eyewitness. A few days later, I was having dinner with a BBC journalist called Martin Bell, when a woman walked into my house and said, “You have got rooms in this house. I want you to put up some children in it.” I said, “You must be joking. I am the British UN commander. How the heck am I going to look after kids in my house?” She said, “Can I remind you of your mission, colonel? Your mission is to save lives. I’ve got some children here whose lives need saving. I hope you will understand that you have no choice.”

I went weak at the knees at that because she then turned to my two bodyguards—who, I have to say, were big soppy soldiers—and said, “Boys, you’ll look after a little girl aged six who needs a home, won’t you?” Of course, they said, “Yes, ma’am.” Many people in this room know that woman—particularly the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), for whom she has rather an attachment—because she is my wife, Claire. She was the International Committee of the Red Cross delegate for central Bosnia. She embarrassed me into taking a child—a six-year-old girl called Melissa Mekis—whom she said she would bring the next day. I did not believe that she would, but she bloody well did! She walked out of the prison camp where the girl was, holding her by the hand, and was stopped by the camp commandant, who said, “What do you think you’re doing?” She replied, “Get the hell out of my way. I am a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Do you make war on children? Is that your way of dealing with things?” The commandant moved aside.

Claire walked into my house with the kid, who was filthy as she had been in the camp for about 10 days. The two soppy soldiers took her away, boiled up a billycan of water, took her clothes off, bathed her, went to Save the Children nearby, got her some clothes, put a little bed between their camp cots and looked after her. When Claire came two days later, to reunite Melissa Mekis with her family, the girl did not want to leave those boys.

Melissa told us what happened. Early one morning—I know that the time was 0500 because we heard this happening—soldiers came to her house in a box truck. Her parents told her to dress quickly and come downstairs. The soldiers grabbed Melissa, her mother, her father and her brother, and threw them all outside, where they killed the parents and shot the boy. Someone could not kill Melissa, so she ended up in a prison camp. When I was back in Bosnia last year, a boy came up to me—well, he is not a boy anymore, but middle-aged—and he said, “I was Melissa’s brother. Can I thank you and your soldiers? Your soldiers found me severely wounded nearby, picked me up, took me to a medical centre and saved my life.”

I do not really know where my speech is going because I have lost my script, but I will say one thing. I have given evidence about those events in four war crimes trials, after which four people were found guilty and did very long sentences. I care very much about freedom of religion. Who in this room does not? Of course we do. But what the heck can we do about it? The Prime Minister’s representative, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) is here, and we can all put lovely words on paper—I had lots of lovely words on paper when I was in Bosnia. I was aghast at what I saw. To this day, I still wonder what the heck we can do when people are determined to act in that way, because words will not stop it.

After the genocide in Ahmići, Claire and I buried more than 104 people in a mass grave—women, children and some babies. We did not know how to do that—I was never trained as an undertaker—but Claire came along and insisted that we took the bodies out of the bags. Did you know that people cannot be buried in plastic bags? I did not. All those bodies were taken out of the bags and buried. Those people were Muslim, but I also found Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians dead. I was technically neutral because I was attacked by all three sides, who shot the hell out of me. We have got to find a way to move quickly when we see signs of ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity—it is difficult. Crimes against humanity quite quickly become genocide.

Colleagues, what a ramble. What a load of twaddle; how unstructured. Please, let us believe. Although we in this place at least shout about it, what I would really like is more action from the United Nations and other international bodies to send troops in to stop such things as soon as they start. That is what our soldiers did in 1992 and 1993. We took more than 2,500 men and women out of Srebrenica in April 1993, and their lives were saved. If we had not, most of them would have been dead two years later. Colleagues, I am sorry that this has been a ramble. Thank you.

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[Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck. Let me start by congratulating the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who brings us these debates frequently, and more credit to him for doing so, because we need to air this issue regularly and ensure that fellow hon. Members are fully informed. It is a pleasure to follow the contribution of the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant).

I have appeared as the Opposition spokesperson on a number of occasions. The hon. Member for Glenrothes said something important; he talked about peace and about how every world religion believes in peace. Amazingly, I am the shadow Minister for peace. I am not sure how long that will continue to be a position, but we need one in Government, so I would have somebody to shadow.

The hon. Member for Strangford made an excellent contribution, as he always does. He told us about the all-party parliamentary groups that he chairs: the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief and the APPG for the Pakistani minorities, which I did not know existed until this afternoon. He talked about the churches that have been shut down in China and the 2019 attacks on Christians in India, and he asked the Minister for progress on the Bishop of Truro’s report; I will come on to that in a minute, and I am sure the Minister will want to respond to it in full.

We had a number of very appropriate interventions from the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) and my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), who made at least two interventions, as a fellow member of the shadow Foreign Office team. The Prime Minister’s envoy for religious belief, the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), made three, or perhaps four, excellent interventions.

[Rehman Chishti]

There was a question about progress on implementing the Truro review, which I lead on for the Prime Minister and the Government. When I came into post in September, those 22 different recommendations were divided into short-term, medium-term and long-term. Eleven of those recommendations, which I shared with Bishop Philip of Truro on Monday, have now been taken forward. Some of those are about ongoing data collection, but 11 of the 22 recommendations have now been, or are in the process of being, taken forward.

[Fabian Hamilton]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing us up to date on such an important issue. I will briefly mention the Bishop of Truro’s report later, but obviously we all want to hear from the Minister, too.

The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned the plight of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan, and I will say a few words about that in a moment. Of the many contributions I have heard from him, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), whom I am honoured to call a friend, gave one of the most powerful I have heard. He talked about his first-hand experience of religious fanaticism and violence in Bosnia, and told us horrific stories of death and destruction. This time he had the names of those people—I think he said he had just received them today.

Britain in the World

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If Brexit was in part a reaction by the British people to having decisions imposed on them, I think there is a wider lesson in foreign policy that we are there to serve our citizens, including communities such as those that are very powerful and contribute a huge amount in Wycombe. More generally, we can see that with consular cases, for example the recent case in Cyprus, the Ukrainian airliner case and others where we represent individual citizens who have suffered or lost lives. There needs to be a sensitivity to individual citizens, whether they are the victims or the communities more broadly, and a strong sense that the Foreign Office is not just on a different level but is acting and serving for them.

I would just like to take this opportunity to pay a huge tribute to the consular department in the Foreign Office, which day in, day out is serving the interests of British families, British victims and British nationals. It rarely gets the credit that is due to it, but it does a superb job. I have seen that in my six months as Foreign Secretary and I am very proud of the work they do.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s commitment on human rights and I thank him for the fantastic work he has done—I remember serving with him on the Joint Committee on Human Rights many years ago when we first came to Parliament. Will he confirm that freedom of religion or belief will always be a key priority for the United Kingdom? Eighty per cent. of individuals around the world identify themselves as of one faith or another, and our Government have a strong track record of standing up for freedom of religion or belief. They commissioned the Truro review, and 10 out of its 22 recommendations have been taken forward. Will he confirm that that will always be a key priority? I thank him and his Ministers for their support.

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend and pay tribute to him for his extraordinary work and dedication to implementing the Truro conclusions. I confirm that we absolutely want to protect not just individual freedom of expression, but the rights of religious groups as well as the right for people to exercise their faith and conscience. One of the issues that I discussed with Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne in Canada on Thursday was a new global award for media freedoms that we have announced to recognise those who defend journalists and keep the flame of freedom alive in the darkest corners of the world. That is not just because we want to protect them individually, but because transparency and getting the stories out and holding regimes, and often, non-Government actors to account can happen only if we get the facts. Journalists do an incredibly brave job in getting those facts into the public domain.

Once we have left the EU and regained control of our sanctions rules, the Government will implement the Magnitsky provisions of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. That will give us a powerful new tool to hold the perpetrators of the worst human rights abuses to account.