Persecution of Christians

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Things are so bad for Christians across the world that we should have a debate such as this at least annually. When the Archbishop of Canterbury came to the Jubilee Room, he said that speaking out on behalf of persecuted Christians really matters, because the persecutors of course want to get away with what they do without anyone seeing or noticing. That is why our debate is so important.

Religious liberty in this country is so important because it gives us the moral authority to raise with other countries the concerns that we are quite properly expressing today. I want to put on the record the Open Doors world watch list of countries in which persecution is most severe. It states that there is absolute persecution in North Korea; extreme persecution in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, the Maldives, Mali, Iran, Yemen, Eritrea and Syria; and severe persecution in Sudan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan, Libya, Laos, Turkmenistan, Qatar, Vietnam, Oman and Mauritania. Open Doors is particularly concerned about those 23 countries on its world watch list 2013.

It is not too much of a parallel to say that the position of Christians in the middle east in the second decade of the 21st century is analogous to that of the Jews in Germany in the 1930s. I am not the first person to say that—I think Lord Alton of Liverpool has said it in another place, and my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) recently said it in Westminster Hall—and it is not hyperbole to say so.

It is really important that Christians around the world and people of other faiths have the freedom to change faiths. May I press the Minister on what the United Kingdom has done at the United Nations Human Rights Council? It is felt that the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has blocked the issue of the freedom to convert, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) spoke powerfully by quoting President Morsi.

On occasion, our Government have not been as robust as other Governments in dealing with this issue. In a speech in the other place on 9 December 2011, Lord Patten said that concerns had been raised with him by Anglicans in Turkey that they were not allowed to worship in public. He was told by the Government that nothing much could be done. However, he pointed out, by way of comparison, that the German Government had managed to get the Turkish Government to take action on the position of German Roman Catholics in Turkey. I say gently to the Minister that more could be done on occasion. We should follow Germany’s more muscular approach in that instance.

When Ministers and members of the royal family travel overseas, it would be good if they made contact with Anglican priests around the world. At every level—governmental, political, cultural, business and individual—these issues must be raised. That is how we will change the culture, as has rightly been said.

Finally, although this debate is, of course, set in the overall context of human rights, there is a severe and pressing issue as far as Christians are concerned.