Human Rights (Saudi Arabia)

Gregory Campbell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Westminster Hall

[Stewart McDonald]

It is almost as though the hon. Gentleman can see my speech. I am about to go on to that very point, which he made so well.

When the Government response to the case of Raif Badawi was raised in the House of Lords, Baroness Anelay asked her fellow peers

“to recognise that the actions of the Saudi Government in these respects have the support of the vast majority of the Saudi population.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 11 June 2015; Vol. 762, c. 890.]

Will the Minister tell us exactly how the Baroness would know that? Did she, as Francis Wheen suggested in The Independent, commission Lord Ashcroft to conduct a poll of Mr Badawi’s Saudi compatriots to ask what they thought of the lashings and beheadings carried out by their Government? If the Minister were a Saudi national and had witnessed a flogging such as that which Mr Badawi and so many others have been through, how likely would he be to speak out against his own Government? I suggest that the Baroness needs to rethink her words rather urgently.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He is referring somewhat tongue in cheek to Lord Ashcroft and polls that might have been conducted in Saudi Arabia. Does he agree that if any such poll were to be contemplated, the prospects for those carrying out the poll would be similar to those of the person he is describing in the debate?

[Stewart McDonald]

It would probably be the most undemocratic poll ever conducted. We can say a lot about polls in this country, but they are at least honest ones.

[Mr Campbell]

For the most part.

[Stewart McDonald]

For the most part, yes.

Last week, at Foreign Office questions, I asked the Minister about two specific points. I hate to say this, but I received an answer to neither, so I want to press the questions now. First, I asked whether the Minister would instruct the United Kingdom ambassador in Riyadh to request a visit to the prison in which Mr Badawi is being held so that we might get a report on his mental and physical state and on the conditions in which he is being held. Will the Minister undertake to give such an assurance?

Secondly, will the Minister state without equivocation—there is plenty of precedent for this, although funnily enough not in Saudi Arabia—that Mr Badawi should be set free? He is a prisoner of conscience and he should not be in prison. Surely the Government agree with that. If so, will the Minister please state that in his response?

Last week in the main Chamber, the Minister sought to give me some kind of reassurance: he said that the Saudi supreme court was reviewing the case. The Minister is a reasonable man, so I am sure he does not seriously expect me or the House to find any reassurance in the fact that the same justice system that put Mr Badawi where he is today is now marking its own homework to determine whether he should still be in prison. The Saudi justice system is not a normal justice system and the Saudi Government are not a normal Government—and we should stop treating them as such. The Minister might be willing to turn a blind eye, but he cannot expect us to ignore the crimes and brutal human rights abuses of which the Saudi regime is guilty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention, and will put on the record that it is not just hon. Ladies who are offended by that; hon. Gentlemen are equally offended, including me. The fact that women are second-class citizens in Saudi Arabia and suffer all the deprivations that they do annoys and angers me greatly. We are holding this debate on their behalf as well.

At the time of the raid on the Christian meeting that I mentioned, it was reported that it was the latest incident in a swingeing crackdown on minorities in Saudi Arabia by the country’s hard-line commission—wait for this one—for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. Have we ever heard the like—the use of such words to describe the deprivation and restriction of religious liberty? The 28 Christians who were arrested were said to have been worshipping at the home of an Indian national in the eastern city Khafji when the police entered the building and took them into custody. They have not been seen or heard from since, and human rights groups are concerned about their whereabouts.

I know this is short notice for the Minister, but I ask him for a response on the case of those 28 Christians. I doubt it will be possible for him to give one today, but perhaps at a point in the future he will give the House some idea of what is happening to those people, who seem to have disappeared into the ether of Saudi Arabia, as their whereabouts are unknown.

Nina Shea, director of the Washington-based Hudson Institute’s Centre for Religious Freedom, told foxnews.com:

“Saudi Arabia is continuing the religious cleansing that has always been its official policy…It is the only nation state in the world with the official policy of banning all churches. This is enforced even though there are over two million Christian foreign workers in that country. Those victimized are typically poor, from Asian and African countries with weak governments.”

If we want to sum the situation up, we can do so in five words—all in a day’s tyranny. That is the situation for Christian people, and in Saudi Arabia it is indeed all in a day’s tyranny.

Voice of the Persecuted has said that in March Saudi Arabia’s top Muslim cleric called for the destruction of all churches in the Arabian peninsula, after legislators next door in Kuwait moved to pass laws banning the construction of religious sites associated with Christianity. Arabic media have reported that, when speaking to a delegation in Kuwait, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah—my pronunciation of that was not bad going for an Ulster Scot—said the destruction of churches was absolutely necessary and is required by Islamic law. Where is the freedom and religious liberty for those practising Christianity?

Abdullah is considered to be the highest official of religious law in the Sunni Muslim kingdom. He also serves as the head of the supreme council of ulema, which is the council of Islamic scholars, and of the standing committee for scientific research and issuing of fatwas. According to Arabian Business, a news site, Osama al-Munawar, a Kuwaiti Member of Parliament, has announced a plan to submit a draft law calling for the removal of all churches in the country. Al-Munawar has since clarified that that law would apply only to new churches, and that old ones would be allowed to stay standing. If the churches are allowed to stay standing, give people the religious liberty to practise their religious beliefs.

These issues are very worrying when we consider how little it takes to break such strict laws. It seems clear that we must exert what influence we have with Saudi Arabia to ensure that those who want to practise Christianity can do so without fear. In his opening remarks, the hon. Member for Glasgow South referred to contracts we have with Saudi Arabia; I will come to that in a few minutes, but it is important to note that given our business and economic contacts with Saudi Arabia we should have discussions and make efforts on behalf of Christian minorities.

[Mr Gregory Campbell]

Does my hon. Friend agree that in every context of commerce, including work by private businesses supported by our national Government, every opportunity should be taken to raise with the Government of Saudi Arabia matters such as the persecution of Christians and other minorities, and the persecution of women?

[Jim Shannon]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. As the Minister and others who were Members in the previous Parliament will know, back in 2013 the Democratic Unionist party took the opportunity of one of our Opposition day debates to raise the issue of the religious persecution of Christians on the Floor of the House. As a result of that debate, we hoped that Ministers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office would use their influence wherever they could across the world when religious liberty, religious minorities and human rights were being abused by countries or by dictators. I wholeheartedly support what my hon. Friend said. We need our Government, and the Minister in particular, to take a more proactive stance.