Persecution of Religious Minorities: Middle East

Debate between Mark Durkan and Gavin Shuker

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.

Palestine

Debate between Mark Durkan and Gavin Shuker

Monday 1st December 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

My constituents have been very animated about the prospect of this debate. They know about conflict and peace processes and they know all about excusery, whataboutery and blame games when peace processes stall and initiatives fail. They even know about when institutions fall.

My constituents also know outrage when they see it—as there was this summer, with the scale of the violence visited on the people of Gaza by Operation Protective Edge. They know that violence makes no contribution to upholding anyone’s rights, and violence on the part of any armed group in the name of any Palestinian interest will not advance the cause of Palestinian rights or a Palestinian state. Indeed, much of that violence is aimed against the very process that would lead to a two-state solution. Let us remember that the people carrying out the violence—with whom, according to Netanyahu, those of us who support Palestinian statehood are aligning ourselves—are doing it to undermine the two-state solution. They are totally opposed to that concept, just as some people in Israel are.

I have said before that if we are serious about a two-state solution, we need to create more of a semblance around a two-state process. That is why moving towards recognising Palestinian statehood is so important; it is the single biggest thing that those of us outside, representing the international democratic interest, can do. Doing that is not about a little token PR win for Palestine or about one in the eye for Israel; it is about trying to create a more equal process and trying to say that international standards will and do apply—not just to Israel, but to Palestine. Any Palestinian state that is created or recognised will have to adhere to all the legal instruments to which they wish to bring Israel.

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

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful contribution. Does he not recognise from his own experience over recent decades that the heart of any successful negotiation is recognition of the legitimacy of the partner that someone is seeking to work with and legitimacy in the eyes of the international bodies? For that reason, we were right to back the vote on Palestinian recognition in October.

[Mark Durkan]

Absolutely, and our process shows that is true. It shows that if people are serious about negotiating a process, they have to recognise that it is not going to be a matter of them all converting others to their views. It will be a matter of convergence, so people, based on the integrity of their own position and knowing that their own interests and identity are going to be secured in the arrangements, can move forward to respect and accommodate each other.

In any situation of historic conflict, people need to recognise that they cannot be secure against each other; they can be truly secure only with each other. They cannot prosper against each other; they can truly prosper only with each other. That is why we need a two-state solution and why that needs strong international support. The issue is not about simply leaving things to the parties themselves and saying, “It is up to them to find enough will.” We cannot leave it to the parties themselves, any more than it was just left to the parties themselves in our process. International good will and interest has to find its standard. People also have to know that, whatever the outcome, the states created will fully adhere to human rights and conform to international law. They can hold each other to that and affirm those guarantees for all their citizens, whatever identities those citizens have.

Let us be very clear: Israel cannot go on believing that it can ignore all the world all the time and still buy arms and sell all the illegal settlement goods that it wants to sell. The public have got fed up; the international public are indignant at the failure of the diplomatic musings and all the excusery and ruses used to exercise a veto at the UN. That is why we have this petition and why people want to see us move forward on the basis of the vote that has already been held.