Persecution of Christians and Freedom of Religion or Belief

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) on securing the debate. My wife just texted me. We have a new grandchild, who was born at 11.50 pm last night. We are up to five now. Perhaps the Shannons will be able on their own to vote their grandfather into Parliament once again—I hope that I will be elected by more votes than that, but that is by the way. I am pleased to speak in the debate. I declare an interest as chair of both the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief and the all-party parliamentary group for the Pakistani minorities.

I put on the record my thanks to the hon. Gentleman for his tireless work. His door has always been open for a meeting, and his responses have always been excellent. I thank him for that. I will do as he did and start off with a Scripture text, from Romans 8:35, which asks, “Who shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? Shall tribulation, distress or persecution? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

Covid-19 has exacerbated the plight of Christians and other religious minorities across the world, because they get blamed for the virus and for spreading it. I will speak up for the Jewish community, who have faced dramatic increases in antisemitic hate speech as a result of covid-19. The office of special envoy for freedom of religion or belief is so important. The Prime Minister has not appointed anybody to that post yet; I hope he will soon.

I put to the Minister the need for all the recommendations of the Bishop of Truro’s review to be implemented fully. Recommendation 11 is to do with making sure that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office staff who work in countries have the necessary training and can make the most of their resources to address these violations. I encourage FCDO to incorporate civil society evidence submissions into their human rights and democracy report-writing process.

It is important to have that focus from the Department—I know it is there, and I am happy that the Minister will confirm this, because I want it on the record—on the Baha’is, Shias, Hindus, Armenians, Rohingyas, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Ahmadis, Muslims and Coptic Christians in all countries, but particularly in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Egypt. The focus is very much on the middle east, which I have had the opportunity to visit on occasion.

I also ask the UK Government to implement recommendation 8, which is to be

“prepared to impose sanctions against perpetrators of FoRB abuses.”

The right of freedom of belief is enshrined in article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights.

In the case of China, we have often talked about the Uyghur Muslims, but there are also the Tibetan Buddhists, with over half a million labourers detained in camps in the first seven months of 2020 alone. The Chinese Government have also cracked down on other religious groups: they have destroyed churches and harassed, imprisoned and intimidated Christians. Even small church groups have been under terrible threat, and, worse still, the independent China Tribunal found that there was forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience: that is Christians, Uyghur Muslims, Falun Gong and others. We really do have to grab China—in a nice way—by the lapels and tell it to get into line.

What can we ask the Minister to do in relation to that? I support amendment 68 to the Trade Bill, to which the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) referred. I confirm to the Minister that we are asking for pressure to be put on China. What is happening about that? We have to address the face of evil that China is, so that we can change things. While we may look forward to the future, I pray and beseech that we make the right decision, and that our grandchildren will look at us and say, “You spoke up when you should have done.”