Persecution of Religious Minorities: Middle East

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am extremely grateful to be called in this very important debate. I commend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing it forward and for the leadership that he displays on this issue, alongside many others in the House. The salience of this issue means that it has been spoken about many times both in the Chamber and in this place, and the story of recent years is a tragic one. It reflects the importance of the issue against the historical backdrop.

I welcome the Minister to his new role. He has always been a good and decent Minister in any Department, so we welcome his leadership at the Home Office.

The middle east has suffered at the hands of sectarian and religious-based conflict for centuries. Sadly, religious persecution remains a prevalent issue across the region. Minorities have suffered from sectarian strife, with whole communities being destroyed in Iraq. Up to half of Christians have fled, many to Syria, where today they face new threats. The situation greatly deteriorated last year with the escalation in the conflict and the rise of Daesh.

Daesh has been one of the most lethal organisations in the history of the middle east and is engaged in the persecution of anyone who does not espouse its medieval, corrupt and extreme Islamist theology. It has particularly targeted minority religious and ethnic communities, including the Christian, Yazidi, Shi’a, Turkmen and Shabak communities, who are especially vulnerable. Daesh has threatened the whole region, but Iraq’s stability has been at particular risk from this abhorrent organisation.

Human rights and religious freedoms have been threatened—Daesh’s violent religious and political ideology allows no space for religious diversity or freedom of thought or expression. As the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) mentioned, the group has deliberately expelled minority communities from their historic homelands, forced them to convert to its version of Islam, raped and enslaved women and children, and tortured and killed community members. It has deliberately targeted Iraq’s smallest religious minority communities. That could well mark the end of the ancient religious pluralism displayed by communities in northern Iraq.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, this scourge has contributed to more than 3.3 million internally displayed people within Iraq alone, who have fled their homes since January 2014, in addition to the more than 1 million people who remain displaced since the sectarian conflicts of the mid-2000s. There are 230,000 Iraqi refugees in countries across the region. It is important to note that these are only the Iraqis registered by the UNHCR in camps in Egypt, Gulf Co-operation Council countries, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. As the International Development Committee recently noted, many refugees, particularly Christians, avoid refugee camps out of fear of persecution, and so, many vulnerable people may not even be considered for resettlement—as refugees in host communities are less visible to relevant authorities. We, as an international community, need more creative solutions to assist those people, although that is not to say that those in refugee camps are not also vulnerable and in need of refuge. In this country, our response should include a modest extension of our current Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme.

The House recently unanimously voted to describe what is being done to Yazidis, Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria as

“genocide at the hands of Daesh”.

Estimates put the number of Yazidis in Iraq at between 500,000 and 700,000, with the vast majority concentrated in northern Iraq, in and around Sinjar. In Syria, the number of Yazidis is estimated to be a tenth of that. Despite the fact that the majority of Yazidis in the region are overwhelmingly Iraqi, they are not eligible for the VPRS, simply because they do not live in Syria.

In 2015, 102 Iraqi refugees were resettled under the Gateway protection programme and four under the Mandate scheme and 216 grants of asylum or other forms of protection, at initial decision, were given to Iraqi nationals. In contrast, official statistics show that, by the end of March 2016, nearly 1,900 Syrians had been resettled under the VPRS in the UK, including 1,602 who arrived since October 2015. The current levels of resettlement in the UK provide persecuted Iraqi minorities considerably lower levels of protection than Syrians. That is a simple fact, and it is particularly disconcerting given that Syrian and Iraqi minorities have both suffered from Daesh. The former can qualify as part of the 20,000 that the previous Prime Minister spoke of. To be consistent and fair as a country, as we should be in the world community, the VPRS should be extended to include Iraqi minorities suffering from Daesh.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

On that point, and the hon. Gentleman’s previous point that many people of a particular religious persuasion are not going to the camps because they feel at risk, does he recognise that that is particularly true of women and girls, because of the threat that they face? Does he also recognise that the German Government have been much more responsive in respect of Yazidis and other Iraqis, not only offering them refugee access but making sure that they have pathways to counselling and therapy?

[Mr Shuker]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The particular vulnerability suffered by women and girls is visible inside and outside the camps. They also need safe passage to areas where they may gain asylum. Some scary numbers—for example, the number of young women travelling into Europe and disappearing, many of whom will inevitably be forced to trade their own bodies to enable their survival—should make us especially concerned about that group.

On the Iraqi minorities and the vulnerable persons relocation scheme, we should consider that the previous Prime Minister himself drew no distinction between either side of the “line in the sand” between Iraq and Syria. Indeed, this Parliament determined, in its decision on air strikes in Syria, that if Daesh were not respecting that line in the sand, neither should we in our counter-extremism tactics. We need to respond to that inconsistency in the existing VPRS.

Whatever people’s view of the decision in 2003—personally, I was opposed to the war in Iraq at the time—we have a continuing responsibility to the sovereign state of Iraq. The UK should not absolve itself of responsibility, especially given the recent Chilcot finding that the UK decision to embark on the programme of de-Ba’athification and the demobilisation of the Iraqi army exacerbated sectarian divisions, contributing to many of the problems in Iraq today. Making Iraqis eligible for resettlement through a modest extension of the VPRS is an appropriate and modest response, and entirely consistent with the decent man that I know the Minister to be.