Middle East and North Africa

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and I thank the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for giving us all the opportunity to speak on this subject. I was privileged to go with him to the Backbench Business Committee to ask for the debate, and it will come as no surprise to Members to hear which subject I will touch on. I have spoken on it many times before but it continues to be an issue, and this is a grand opportunity to underline that. I feel extremely passionate about representing those in my constituency, other constituencies and elsewhere in the world who face hardships—in this case, Christians who are persecuted for their beliefs. Today’s debate gives me an opportunity to highlight that issue again.

A century ago, about 20% of the population of north Africa and the middle east were Christian, according to figures from Open Doors, but now Christians make up only 4% of the population due to persecution. That concerns me greatly. The past two months have been littered with stories of Christians persecuted for their faith all across the middle east, such as the case of Meriam Ibrahim, the mother who was imprisoned in Sudan. When hearing that story, I wondered how many other Meriam Ibrahims there are in Sudan whom we do not hear about, because whereas she had access to the American embassy, others did not. There was also the teacher arrested in Egypt for her faith—Pastor Saeed, who remains in prison—and thousands of Christians who have been displaced due to ISIS’s violent takeover. Christians in the middle east are wondering whether there is any room left for them to stay.

Syria continues to rise in the World Watch List. The civil war has seen an increase in violence in general, but the rise of Islamist extremism is putting even greater pressure on Christians. On top of that, most of Syria’s Christians are concentrated in strategic areas of the country that are vital to both the Government and the Opposition’s war efforts, such as in and around Aleppo, Damascus and Homs, making them even more vulnerable, because that is where the war seems to be at this time. Last year, there were countless reports of Christians being abducted, physically harmed and killed, with many churches damaged or destroyed.

Many Christians have become malnourished owing to shortages and the rising price of food and other essentials. Access to water, electricity and communications is very limited. It is perhaps the traumatised children of Christian families who are suffering most acutely; some have lost one or both parents and many also face great dangers, as rebel forces have even targeted Christian schools. There is a perception among terrorist groups that if people are Christian, they are pro-western; they are Syrians first, and that always must be remembered.

Syria used to be one of the easiest places in the Arab world to be a Christian. Until early 2011, its churches were large—accounting for about 10% of the population—and Christians were respected by the Muslim majority. They were allowed to worship and practise their faith without much official interference, but now, with an estimated 600,000 Christians having fled the country or lost their lives as a result of the civil war, there are fears that Christianity will soon cease to exist.

That is made more poignant by the fact that the Church has existed in Syria since biblical times, and we must also remember that the middle east is very much where the Bible stories that we all know come from. In the book of Acts, it was on the road to Damascus, capital of today’s Syria, that Saul was stopped short in his mission to destroy the early Church. It was in Damascus that Saul regained his sight after being struck blind and it was there that he was filled with the Holy Spirit, baptised and began his ministry as an apostle. That is the story in Syria.

In Iraq, following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, there was a huge surge in anti-Christian threats, kidnappings and murders, and the violence has continued ever since. In June 2014, ISIS attacked Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city. We had a debate in Westminster Hall on that a short time ago and I highlighted the threat to Christians in Mosul and the plain of Nineveh. The goal of ISIS is to create a caliphate—an ultra-Islamic state in Iraq and Syria. Although the attackers were relatively few in number, the Iraqi army fled, leaving the militant jihadists to take control of the city. The result was a mass exodus of thousands of citizens; up to half a million according to some estimates. Those leaving included virtually all of Mosul’s remaining Christian population. As refugees, they are living in extreme hardship and extreme fear of injury or death, because they are Christians.

In 2013, a church in Baghdad was fired at by masked men who seriously wounded two security guards. Christian-owned businesses in the area had been the target of bombings the previous day. As well as violent attacks, Christians also suffer significant discrimination, marginalisation and injustice. Hundreds of thousands of believers have fled their homes, reducing the Christian population to a quarter of its 1990 size. Iraq’s Christian community is hardly a western innovation or a colonial relic. It dates from the 1st century, when two of Jesus’s disciples—St Thomas and St Thaddeus, better known as St Jude—preached the gospel in what was then Assyria. There has been a Christian presence in Iraq ever since. As with Syria, Christians are not newcomers to the country. They have as much right to be there practising their beliefs as everyone else. In each of those two countries, there has been a clear Christian presence from an early stage.

In Iran, since Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s warning in 2010 of the ever-expanding influence and numbers of house churches, the treatment of Christians has rapidly worsened. The regime tries to destroy those who reach out to converts by monitoring services, carrying out arrests, banning the Farsi language services and closing some churches. Attacks against Christian communities have increased and the prohibition of house church activities is enforced much more strictly there than anywhere else, yet the regime’s harsh treatment of Christians only further fuels the flames of church growth. Certainly that seems to be the case in Iran. That said, each of those three countries ranks in the top 10 countries on the World Watch List, and undoubtedly the daily hardships that Christians face are simply unacceptable. The persecution of religious minorities has intensified in Iran since 2005. Almost all Christian activity is illegal, especially when it occurs in Persian languages. That applies to evangelism, Bible training, publishing Scripture and Christian books and preaching in Farsi.

On Wednesday we had an opportunity to hear from some people from Iran. The right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire spoke about that in his introduction to the debate, and I appreciate that. There are 61 people in prison in Iran today for their Christian beliefs, and it is not known which prison some of them are in. That is a very serious issue for the Iranians. We also had an opportunity today to attend an event organised by the British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom. There are real human rights and equality issues to address there. Freedom of expression and freedom of religion are denied in Iran. Christians are seen as a particular threat to the regime, as their numbers are growing and it is said that children of political and spiritual leaders are leaving Islam for Christianity. There is great interest in the message of the gospel.

As the early Christian author Tertullian noted,

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

That might be the case in Iran, but it is a reality that our Christian brothers and sisters should not have to face. I again urge the UK Government and the Minister to do as much as they possibly can to bring an end to the violent and sometimes fatal ordeals that those men and women face daily.

Last but certainly not least, I want to speak about Egypt. There, Muslims who convert to Christianity have long faced persecution from family members who punish them for abandoning the Islamic faith. However, in recent years, Egypt’s historical Christian communities have increasingly been targeted as well. The toppling of the Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 after a popular uprising raised hopes that the condition of Christians in Egypt might improve. In the short term, that did not happen. Indeed, it was the trigger for a furious backlash against them by angry Islamists. In mid-August 2013, at least 16 Christians were killed and some 60 church buildings destroyed. In the Islamist stronghold of Minya, Christian properties were marked for destruction with a black X.

That was the situation then, but we did see a change. The right hon. Gentleman and I, with others from the Commons and Lords, had the opportunity to attend an event, and we saw quite clearly a sea change in Egypt’s attitude towards freedom of expression, freedom of religion and equality. That is something it has tried to include in the constitution. It is good news to see that happening, at least initially, in Egypt.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

What the hon. Gentleman has just said about Egypt is interesting. He must be aware, though, that a large number of journalists in Egypt are now in prison—they have been sentenced to very long stretches indeed—many others are under threat and there is a silencing of political and public debate because of the threat to journalists from the Egyptian Government.

[Jim Shannon]

I accept that and I will give two examples of Christians who have just been put in prison because of their beliefs, so although we have seen some indication of change, a lot of things still need to change. We always work on the basis of the change that we see. Kerolos Attallah was arrested in June for “liking” a Facebook page for Christians from a Muslim background—Knights of the Cross. In court, he was convicted of blasphemy and contempt of religion and was sentenced to six years in prison. I want to put this on the record. Demiana Emad, a 23-year-old social studies teacher, was sentenced to six months for insulting Islam. She

“presented a comparison between religions in ancient, middle and modern ages as mentioned in the curriculum”.

It was very clearly not blasphemy in either case, but the Egyptian Government recently condemned those two people to prison.

The churches in Egypt continue to hope for better times ahead. The new constitution was approved in a referendum in January 2014. Christians and other minorities are granted greater political representation. Freedom of belief is declared “absolute”—that is what we were told—while the freedom to practise religion and establish places of worship is granted to Christians and Jews as well as Muslims. Those are welcome changes, but many people have suffered and lost their lives to get there, so I hope we can work together to bring similar peaceful and fairer treatment for all Christians across the whole of the middle east.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)]

It is, as always, a privilege to be under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan. I thank the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for securing this important debate. I realise that he originally intended to cover a far greater area, which is hugely necessary. I support that. The debate needs to be far wider, because there are issues in the rest of the area that need a serious hearing. That would be useful.

I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), who has been diligent in his approach to this issue for a long time, even before I came to this place. I also pay tribute to his persistence in trying to act as an honest broker to achieve things. Unfortunately, for a long period, we have not been very successful in doing so.

Let me make it clear that I wholly and unreservedly condemn Hamas attacks and rocket launches. There is absolutely no justification for that, and it should not be a way of trying to move forward. However, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire said that there was no disproportionate action by the Israeli Government and the Israel Defence Forces. I beg to differ. I think that significantly disproportionate action has been taken by the IDF and the Israeli Government, and that there is a significant difference in what is going on, particularly in terms of the hardware available to the IDF: their military air, ground and sea power, and the technology of the Iron Dome missile protection shield.

All that is fine. It is protection, and in defence terms, that is needed. However, defence becomes aggression when people are targeted and restricted to living in a limited area, and then told, “We’ll tap you on the roof to tell you that if you don’t leave, there will be a missile to follow, and you’ll be obliterated.” It becomes difficult for a huge populace squashed into a small land mass. The area is under lockdown. People here have called it a prison, and I do not disagree with that description. The people there have no access by sea or air, and no real access by land. We have discussed how we can get people to move out. Sometimes, even when it happens, four children playing on a beach get killed, so where do those people go?

[Jim Shannon]

I appreciate the point the hon. Gentleman is making. I think he is aware, like others in this House, that Hamas has used civilians as cover for its activities. I am sure he condemns that as well.

[Mr Mahmood]

I have no problem condemning it, but I will come to that point later.

A lot of statistics have been bandied about today, particularly by the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who is not in his place at the moment. I will give a few statistics as well. According to current figures from the United Nations, 77% of Palestinian fatalities so far have been civilians, which raises concerns about respect for international humanitarian law. Some 23 medical facilities and 81 schools have been damaged by shelling; 214 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 164 civilians, of whom 44 were children and 29 women; 1,585 Palestinians have been injured, of whom 435 are children and 282 are women; 1,660 homes have been destroyed or severely damaged, directly displacing 9,900 persons.

We have been talking about people’s ability to move out of that confined space in a difficult area. Whether Hamas uses people as human shields has been mentioned. The problem is that there is no real civil or policing structure left in the area to get hold of what Hamas does. That is the result of continuous bombing of police stations and civil buildings even before Hamas came into power, when the Palestine Liberation Organisation was in control. In a way, that policy allowed Hamas to come to power, by continually weakening the authority that wanted to talk and move forward. Day in, day out, their existence was continually eroded. Then Hamas, for all its ills, was elected. That is what happens when people cannot respond to their situation: they turn to what they feel can get them out of it. What happens in those circumstances is an issue.

The people in that area have no choice. We insist that the UN place people in there to protect the people and do something about it. We should speak to the Arab League and say, “You put some people in there, so we can at least have some sort of stability for the people in the area,” because ultimately, it is they who suffer as a consequence. We try to go back to the peace process. For too long, I have heard about the idea of the peace process. We have not had a proper negotiation at any stage about the peace process. That will not and cannot happen, purely because the settlements continue and the Israeli Government have erected the wall, and because of their treatment of the right of the Palestinian population there to life and a decent standard of civil liberties. Until that is addressed, we will never get to a position where things can be dealt with positively and we can have recourse to a settlement between the two peoples.

We all say that a two-state solution is right—that the Israelis and the Palestinians should both have the right to exist—but how do we bring that into being? We are just talking nonsense, by and large. That is not practical in view of what is going on, until somebody has the gall to stand up to Israel and say, “Look, if you want to sort this out, we have to have new measures and new ways of looking at this. Overreaction to what is going on in Gaza is not a way forward and will not help us.”