Persecution of Christians

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate and I know from past experience of speaking in Westminster Hall debates on human rights issues that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is passionate about the issue. He has made a number of speeches and interventions on the subject in previous debates and I congratulate him on persuading his party to table the motion today.

As we have heard, freedom of religion or belief is included under article 18 of the universal declaration on human rights, which states:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

As we have heard from those who have spoken so far, in too many countries those freedoms, particularly the right to dissent from the majority religion and to change religion, are not respected.

I commend the all-party group on international religious freedom. I attended its meeting with Baroness Warsi a few weeks ago and I am sure that we will hear from some of the group’s members this afternoon. In particular, I congratulate the group on its report “Article 18: An Orphaned Right”. Although all human rights are interdependent and interrelated, it highlights the fact that religious freedom often remains on the margins. As we heard from the Minister, the abuse of someone's right to freedom of religion often acts as a gateway to other human rights abuses, such as those of the right to freedom of assembly or expression.

We have to consider religious freedom as an intrinsic part of human rights and indicative of the level of civil and political freedom in a country. According to the Pew research foundation, almost 75% of the global population live in countries with Government restrictions or where harassment related to religion is common. We have discussed the fact that Christians are the religious group most subject to persecution. In 2011, a report stated that the harassment of Christians was most prevalent in 105 countries, followed by the harassment of Muslims in 101 countries. We need to flag up the fact that persecution is not restricted to Christians, but we are here today to discuss the persecution of Christians.

Before moving on to the more commonly cited countries in the debate about religious freedom, I want to comment on the Central African Republic, which has been mentioned. According to the US ambassador to the United Nations, the Central African Republic has been described as

“the worst crisis most people have never heard of”.

There have been harrowing reports of violence, beheadings and villages being razed to the ground. France has warned that the country is on the verge of genocide, as violence between Muslims and Christians escalates. A third of the population is in need of humanitarian assistance, and I hope that the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development will do all they can to try to prevent that situation from escalating even further and to bring relief to people on the ground.

The plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt is more commonly known. As documented in Amnesty International’s report, “How long are we going to live in this injustice?”, there was an unprecedented wave of sectarian attacks on 14 August, when the security forces dispersed people in camps, and churches and Church-affiliated buildings as well as businesses owned by Coptic Christians were destroyed. The excellent report by Amnesty—I recommend it to people who have not read it—reported that 43 Orthodox churches were completely destroyed, and 207 churches were attacked. Not only were the symbols of Christianity attacked but Christians themselves, and four people were killed that day. That is part of a rise in sectarian tension in Egypt, following decades of discrimination suffered by Coptic Christians and impunity for the perpetrators. Egyptian law also means that it is difficult for Christians to rebuild their churches.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

My hon. Friend has mentioned the Coptic Church, which is probably one of the oldest Churches in the world. Does she agree that when we talk about aid two of the issues that could be raised are human rights—there is a price to pay for aid—and religious freedom, regardless of whether someone is a Christian or belongs to any other denomination? The two have to work hand in hand to attain what we would call human rights.

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point that has been brought to my attention on a number of occasions. For example, we might look at aid to countries such as Uganda, which has introduced a Bill that has been discussed for the past few years. It is a private Member’s Bill, but it has support from senior figures, and it would introduce the death penalty for homosexuality. People have asked me whether we should give aid to a country that is considering such a measure. Should we give aid to other countries where, for example, abortion is denied to rape victims? It is a tricky situation, because if we deny aid to countries where people are persecuted, we run the risk of penalising the most vulnerable people we are trying to help. We need to send a strong message not about the conditions that we impose on aid but about our expectations of human rights in the countries to which we give aid. I shall come to that when I discuss the Prime Minister’s visit to China.

[Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

The hon. Lady has raised a difficult issue, but it did not stop the west imposing sanctions on Iran for other reasons. Should we not look more at whether conditions should be attached to aid where there are particularly horrendous or general abuses of individuals’ freedom of religion?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I would not want to separate it out and just talk about it in the context of freedom of religion. We should discuss it generally in the context of human rights abuses. We have taken steps in countries where we think that there is corruption—

[Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Kerry McCarthy]

May I just finish answering the question?

In several countries we would give aid directly to agencies working in the field, rather than putting it into the Government’s coffers, because of concerns about corruption and a lack of democracy. That might be a way forward when we have concerns about a country’s human rights record, particularly if there are recognised and well-established agencies, such as UN agencies, working in those countries that we can trust to deliver aid without discrimination and without supporting any measures that persecute people. As I have said, I think that we should look at a country’s record in the round. It comes down to whether we trust its Government to spend aid money in the way we expect them to.

[Robert Neill]

I do not think that we disagree with anything the hon. Lady has said, but why does she seem so reluctant to phrase her contribution in terms of religion and the particular persecution suffered by Christians? We are all in favour of human rights for everybody, but there is a particular and pressing concern about Christian communities around the world. Will she not be more specific in her response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) on ensuring that aid reflects discrimination against Christian and other religious bodies?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am sorry, but I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I do not think that we should start carving up human rights by saying that some abuses are worse than others. That would be entirely wrong, because there are countries in which people of other faiths are being persecuted and killed, and we see persecution when we look at violence against women and attacks on LGBT communities. I accept that the persecution of Christians is a growing problem and that it is horrific in many countries, but I just do not think that we should divide it up. I think that we should look at whether a country respects human rights.

This year saw the launch of the Commonwealth charter, which was trumpeted as the first time that all Commonwealth countries had signed up to a statement of shared values. I attended the Commonwealth parliamentary conference in Johannesburg this year. There was a lot of controversy, because it became apparent that not all the countries represented shared the same values, particularly when it came to LGBT rights.

I will return to the issue of religious freedom. The Maldives has signed up to the Commonwealth charter and so is deemed to share the Commonwealth values of respect for human rights, but its constitution states that a person is not allowed to be anything other than Muslim, as we have heard, and no Christian gatherings or buildings are allowed. Citizens have to be Muslim, and that is enforced by pressure from families, society and the state.

Bangladesh is another Commonwealth country. The Bangladesh Minority Council has lobbied and met me to highlight the treatment of Christians, Buddhists and, in particular, Hindus, who now comprise just 7% of the population. In Pakistan, as we have heard, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and Ahmadis are at serious risk of violence and intimidation. Members will know the case of the Christian girl arrested last year for allegedly burning pages of the Koran, which brought to public attention the impact of the blasphemy laws in that country. We have also heard about another Commonwealth country, Nigeria, where horrific acts of violence against Christians are being carried out. We have to question what we can do within the Commonwealth. If we say that the Commonwealth is a club of shared values, what can we do when members of that club do not seem to be putting those principles into practice? It is really important to take that question forward.

The hon. Member for Strangford rightly highlighted the plight of Christians in Syria. Of course, that is not the only country from which Christians are being forced to flee. Open Doors has warned that Christians are on the verge of extinction in Iraq, where their population has fallen from 1.2 million in the early 1990s to just 333,000 today. In Iran, Christians have had to flee their homes or the country, Muslims who have renounced Islam face the death penalty and Christians are being sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking communion wine. The special rapporteur on human rights in Iran reported that more than 300 Christians have been arrested since 2010, including Saeed Abedini, who was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for this work with the house churches. Other faiths, not least the Baha’i, also face persecution in Iran.

On Burma, we know about the religious tensions in Rakhine state, where the Rohingya Muslims’ faith is a factor, as well as their ethnicity, but Christians in Burma have suffered persecution too. The Chin Christians have been targeted for their ethnicity and their faith. A report by the Chin Human Rights Organisation documented cases of forced labour, more than 40 separate incidents of torture, and 24 official complaints from Chin Christians of human rights violations, including rape and extra-judicial killing, where no action was taken against the perpetrators.

As we heard earlier, Open Doors ranked Saudi Arabia second on its world watch list, with only North Korea ahead of it. Conversion to a religion other than Islam is punishable by death, and Christian worshippers risk imprisonment, lashing, deportation and torture. It is important to note that last month saw the elections, mostly uncontested, to the Human Rights Council, of which Saudi Arabia and the Maldives, as well as China, are now members. I echo the comments I made about the Commonwealth club. If these countries are to be members of the Human Rights Council, they need to be demonstrating in their own countries that they are putting respect for human rights into practice.

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

I remember being on a visit to China with the hon. Lady a few years back, when I was intrigued to find out that there are over 60 million Christians there. To help take forward greater tolerance for human rights and freedom of religious worship, does she think it is important to have greater inter-faith dialogue engaging the Chinese authorities with Christian groups and other groups to help people to appreciate just how big the Christian community is in that country?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I, too, was astounded to hear that figure, because one would not have appreciated that the Christian community was so strong in China. He is entirely right that dialogue is one of the ways forward. It is very important in many other cases where part of the persecution arises from the fact that people do not feel able to speak out and proselytise and publicise their religion and feel it is something they have to keep under wraps.

Of course, the Prime Minister is in China at the moment. Before his trip, I tabled some parliamentary named-day questions, which unfortunately were not answered when they should have been, asking him what efforts he was going to make to raise human rights during his visit. I know that it is primarily a trade delegation, but he has gone to a country where Muslims, Buddhists and Christians, as well as Falun Gong practitioners, suffer torture, harassment and arbitrary detention, and the Tibetans and the Uighurs are prevented from exercising their freedom of religion too. It is important to use such a high-profile visit to raise those issues.

I was impressed by Baroness Warsi when she came along to the recent meeting of the all-party group on international freedom of religion or belief. She seems to be very committed to pursuing this issue. My concern is that she has been given the human rights brief and it is almost as though it has been put in a box so that she will be travelling around the world talking about human rights, which frees up not only the other Foreign Office Ministers but all the other Ministers who are going on trade delegations abroad—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but in all fairness, when the Minister got to 16 minutes I said to him that lots of people were waiting to speak.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am on my last page.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Good. One minute, thank you.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I am concerned that it is almost as though one person has been delegated the job of talking about human rights and that means that everybody else is free to just go and talk about trade and does not feel that they ought to use the leverage that a trade mission gives them to raise human rights issues too. It is very important that the Prime Minister does that. I asked him about it when he recently went to Saudi Arabia and did not seem to raise human rights there either.

In conclusion, as you will no doubt be pleased to hear, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is important that Parliament works with faith groups in this country that have connections with groups abroad. Open Doors and, in particular, Christian Solidarity Worldwide have been very active in the past few years in encouraging Members to bring forward parliamentary debates. There is also a central role for the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development, as we have discussed. The role of Government should be to push for greater compliance with the universal declaration on the human genome and human rights and the international covenant on civil and political rights, to support the work of the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, and to press countries with outstanding requests to agree to inspection visits, and indeed other special procedures mandate-holders covering other human rights. Given its membership of the human rights council, the UK has the opportunity to work with our international partners to strengthen protections for basic fundamental freedoms. Support for the freedom of belief must be part of that. No Government can be selective in the human rights they endorse, just as the Foreign Office and the Prime Minister cannot be selective in which countries they challenge on their human rights record.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—