Georgia: Islamophobia

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I know that our embassy in Tbilisi is engaged with all religious organisations on the ground, but I am not sure whether it has had specific discussions on the rising concern about nationalism and Christianity being associated as the only form of Georgian identity. My noble friend makes an important point, and I shall certainly ensure that it is now put on the agenda.

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

I wonder whether the Minister would allow a slight extension of the Question on the grounds that freedom is indivisible. Not only has Georgia been disfigured recently by actual violent hostility towards Muslims in some areas, but a gay rights demonstration was violently broken up with some connivance from the authorities. Would the Government continue gently to press the Georgian Government, with whom we have such good, close relations, by saying that the Europe that they aspire to join finds both Islamophobia and homophobia totally out of place and unacceptable?

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble and right reverend Lord makes an important point. Indeed, we raised concerns about the violence at the IDAHO rally in May of last year, for example. LGBT rights, along with the rights of religious minorities, are a cause for concern. They stem from the concern in parts of the Georgian Orthodox Church about a conflict of values—a conflict between Georgian values, which are laid out in a very orthodox way, and what they see as European values, and the kind of anti sentiment towards them.