Persecution of Christians Overseas

Emma Little Pengelly Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

I begin by adding my congratulations to the Bishop of Truro on the publication of his excellent report and by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) and the hon. Members for Croydon South (Chris Philp), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing today’s debate. I also put on the record my appreciation for the work of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief in promoting the right of people of faith or none to have the freedom to pursue their beliefs. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in sending our best wishes to Catherine Thane, who until recently was the operations director for the APPG and who was married to George on Saturday.

I thank all those people for being such a powerful voice for persecuted Christians around the world because, sadly, that voice is necessary now more than ever. No matter where one looks in the world right now, anti-Christian discrimination and persecution is on the rise.

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I will not give way, because of the time.

[Brendan O’Hara]

Okay. I will give way.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the most important aspects of this report is that right across the United Kingdom, including within churches, there is still significant ignorance and a lack of knowledge about the sheer scale of the persecution of Christians right across the world? One of the things that we can do as Christians and as Members of Parliament is raise that awareness through the likes of this report and these debates.

[Brendan O’Hara]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. As Christians in this country, we have become very comfortable in our freedom to believe as we do, and we should always have at the forefront of our minds that our brothers and sisters around the world are not in such a privileged position. His Holiness Pope Francis said recently:

“It might be hard for us to believe, but there are more martyrs today than in the first centuries. They are persecuted because they speak the truth and proclaim Jesus Christ to this society.”

Increasingly, however, society’s response to those speaking that truth is to imprison, torture, kidnap or murder them. As we have heard, the Open Doors charity publishes an annual watchlist of countries where it believes persecution to be extreme, very high or high. One country was on that list five years ago: North Korea. Today, no fewer than 11 countries are considered to be in the extreme category, and we have all watched in horror the systematic attempt to eradicate all traces of Christianity from the ancient middle east homeland that we all love.

Of course, many charities and NGOs are working hard and doing some great work, and I pay tribute to the work done by Aid to the Church in Need, which funds over 5,000 projects in 140 countries each year, helping to support persecuted Christians live out their faith and provide practical and spiritual support to millions of people. In January, I was privileged to join Aid to the Church in Need on a visit to Lebanon and the Syrian border to see that practical and spiritual support and action for myself. We met Christian families who had fled Syria, Iraq and other places in the middle east to seek refuge in Lebanon and who would be destitute were it not for the day-to-day support and pastoral care provided by ACN.

On the feast of the Epiphany in January, in the town of Zahlé on the Syrian border, we went to a food centre called Saint John the Merciful Table, where ACN, along with the Melkite Greek Catholic archdiocese, provides 1,000 people with a hot meal every single day. It was a small but wonderful example of how Christian organisations are helping those fleeing persecution.

However, given the number of people in need, the situation cannot be left to charities and NGOs, which is why I commend the Bishop of Truro’s report. I sincerely hope that the Government take heed of what it says and act upon its recommendations. In particular, I urge the Government to heed his words about the UK being a global leader when it comes to championing the freedom of religion or belief across the world. I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Member for Croydon South that the UK Government must be prepared to impose meaningful sanctions against perpetrators who abuse the religious belief of others.

Finally, as the chair of the all-party group on the Yazidi people, as we approach the fifth anniversary of the genocide, I highlight the bishop’s recommendation that the Foreign Office should take a lead role in pursuing the prosecution of the perpetrators of sex crimes against Yazidi and Christian women, and not only as terrorists.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast South (Emma Little Pengelly) said that it is the job of Members of this House to raise awareness, and she is right. But it is also our job to speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves.

[Emma Little Pengelly]

May I pay tribute—I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees with me—to the absolutely sterling work done by organisations such as Open Doors? Although I have attended church throughout my entire life, before I came to this place I was completely unaware of the sheer scale of the persecution of Christians. This issue is incredibly important to us all. We talk to each other, and most people in the Chamber have read the report and know the scale of the situation, but there is still a huge amount of work to be done out there. It is our duty not only to speak in this House, but to go out and speak to our constituents on our social media accounts and through the media to ensure that everybody is aware of the plight facing many millions of people right across the world—people of the Christian faith in particular, as that is the subject of today’s proceedings, but also people of other faiths. We should also make people aware of the incredible work that the APPG does in trying to raise awareness across all faiths.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for her very kind intervention.

There are some 80-plus churches in my constituency. I write to them and let them know what is going on, and this debate will go out to every one of those 80 churches of all faiths across my constituency next week when the girls in the office get the work done.

As the APPG noted in our published statement, all religious or belief communities throughout the world face violations of article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights, and protecting one group requires protecting all groups. I visited Pakistan last year, and it was poignant and emotional to see the position of Christians there with respect to education and qualifications, job opportunities, the right to worship and the right to convert. In fact, we are well aware of the issues across the whole middle east.

In Syria, 1.5 million Christians have left their country. There are only a quarter of a million Christians left in Iraq and fewer than 100,000 in Iran. In Colombia, Christian peasant farmers have been persecuted, tortured and murdered by Government forces and paramilitary groups. There are similar situations in Libya and in Nigeria, which the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) mentioned, where Boko Haram has carried out murders to a large degree. The Easter massacre in Sri Lanka is all too real in our lives. In eastern Ukraine, where Russia has influence, Baptist pastors have gone missing and churches have been destroyed. And then there is North Korea, where people cannot even mention the word “Christian” without being put in prison right away. There are also unbelievable abuses in China, as has already been mentioned today.

FORB is a hugely important issue. Indeed, the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation published its analysis on the same day as the launch of the report. I would strongly encourage any future UK Government of any colour to take this issue very seriously. The Minister knows that I am fond of him and he always responds well to our questions, so I look forward to his response. I have a couple of questions for him today. Has he initiated any action under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 against FORB violators such as the generals in Burma? Have we ever needed reminding how much the Rohingya in Burma have been butchered, violated, murdered, raped, abused and burnt alive, or that their babies have been killed almost at birth? Those generals need to be made accountable. I look to the Minister to see what we can do in that regard. What discussions has he had with the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence to ensure that they can also be part of the changes that are needed? I commend the charities—Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Open Doors, Release International, the Barnabas Fund and Aid to the Church in Need—for all they have done.

I commend the Bishop of Truro for his efforts with this review. Will the Minister ask a Select Committee to assess the review to determine lessons learned and provide support and guidance for future reviewers? Recommendation 22 of the review states that in three years there should be a review to assess the Government’s progress in implementing the recommendations of the report. Will the Government also consider asking the Foreign Affairs Committee to carry that out?

International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day

Emma Little Pengelly Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Emma Little Pengelly (Belfast South) (DUP)]

Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important debate, Mr Rosindell. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing the debate and, as many others have recognised, for being a great champion for these issues, not only in this House but elsewhere. I know that he will continue that work. He has been tireless in raising the persecution and oppression of religious minorities and others all over the world. Long may that continue. We have heard interesting contributions today, some historical and some on where we need to reach. That has been welcome and, certainly from my perspective, educational.

I will make some general remarks rather than go into details. I said in my maiden speech that I was incredibly proud to be part of this Union: not just proud but hugely privileged because in our democracy we have the right to private belief, public opinion and the protected ability to argue, discuss and persuade others in relation to our belief, our faith and our views. It is the right to all beliefs and, as rightly pointed out, to none at all that makes the United Kingdom and our democracy great. From my earliest memory those were the principles that were emphasised and articulated.

In Northern Ireland the term “civil and religious liberty” is often used, and it was used very much when I was a child. One of my earliest memories is when I was seven or eight years of age and looking up at the banners and bannerettes at the loyal order parades. This may seem a strange analogy or reference to some, but many of those bannerettes and banners showed scenes of religious persecution and the battles fought for religious liberty. They emphasised for my generation that those liberties, won through pain, death and battle, must always be celebrated and protected.

Some may perceive such celebrations and parades in Northern Ireland and Scotland in terms of the dominance of one religion over another, but in fact they are a celebration of religious and civil liberty. As a child I sat on my mother’s knee, looking at the parades and banners, and asked her what the pictures on the banners meant. My enthusiasm for going to church, like most children’s, could only have been described as variable; but when she explained to me that the pictures represented stories of the battles and challenges that we went through in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and, at the time that they happened, Ireland in trying to get religious liberty, it gave those things a different emphasis, and put them in a different perspective for me—even as a child of seven or eight. She made it clear that it was not a matter of the dominance of a religion; it must go all ways, and those hard-fought liberties must be extended to all.

We have heard in the many contributions so far that the journey of the past 400 years has not necessarily been smooth; there have been challenges, which we have overcome. However, we should be proud of the fact that we are where we are today, and that the rights in question are the core and cornerstone of our democracy. I believe we are in the best position to push forward, to be at the forefront of ensuring that the principle of freedom of religious belief and opinion is spread throughout the world, and to tackle oppression and persecution. The importance of educating each new generation lies not just in educating them about the history of what we have been through, lest we return to intolerance and persecution; it is also a question of defending liberties within the United Kingdom, and doing our part, working with other countries across the globe, to extend fundamental liberties to others.

I pay tribute to the report by the all-party group on international freedom of religion or belief, and to the incredibly hard work that has gone into it, and I want to highlight some of the issues that have been mentioned. Although I have long had an interest in the subject, I was still surprised to read the statistic that

“80% of the world’s population live in countries with ‘high’ or ‘very high’ levels of restrictions and/or hostilities towards certain beliefs”.

That should shock and dismay us, and it shows how far we have to go. It was interesting that, in highlighting the oppression and persecution that must be tackled, the report included people’s ability to leave their religion. Although I am hugely proud of the democracy and freedoms in the United Kingdom, we should be aware that there are still challenges. One appalling example is so-called honour killings. Very often, young women may not even want to leave their religion, but perhaps want to leave a particular shade, aspect or interpretation of their religious belief, or to display and express their belief in a different way. In the United Kingdom, there are young women who are killed for that decision, right now. At the heart of article 18 is the right to change or leave one’s religion. We have come far, and our experiences of the past 400 years should motivate us to be at the forefront of tackling oppression and persecution around the world, but we must also be incredibly careful that intolerance and persecution do not creep into the United Kingdom. It must be tackled, and a clear message must be sent. Young people, no matter what their religion, should be able to grow up in the United Kingdom and make the decisions that are the cornerstone of British democracy.

I repeat my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford for securing the debate. I entered the House only in June, but I assure him and the all-party group that I want to do all I can to support the work they do through my own experience. That is at the core of things for me; yes, I am a strong Unionist and that is at the core of my political ideology and beliefs. However, what underlies that for me, and has done from a young age, is the basic concept of freedom—of civil and religious liberty. I will do all I can in my role to bring that about not just in the United Kingdom but for our sisters and brothers all over the world, regardless of their views or religion, or their decision to have no religion.