Freedom of Religion and Belief

Rehman Chishti Excerpts

Tuesday 19th September 2023 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Bruce]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. I am pleased that the international response through the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance is strengthening, but we need to do more and we need more countries to join it.

In Nicaragua, the Catholic Church has been targeted this year, with religious organisations running schools and medical centres peremptorily expelled. A university was shut down last month. Even Mother Teresa’s nuns, who have been working there for 30 years, were thrown out with no notice. Meanwhile, dozens of pastors flee Cuba. We are all too aware of China’s incarceration of 1 million or more Uyghurs, but how many of us know that a similar number of children—1 million or so—as young as two years old have recently been removed from their homes and families in Tibet and transported to residential schools, to alienate them from their families, cultures and beliefs? In Hong Kong, the public voice of the Church has been neutered.

In the period since I was privileged to take up the office of envoy, the war against Ukraine has erupted, with places of worship being deliberately destroyed, pastors disappearing and Putin weaponising Orthodox Christianity. In Russia itself, Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are pacifists, are now being imprisoned as criminals—even the very elderly.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s amazing work as the United Kingdom’s envoy. With regard to Ukraine and Russia and the point made by the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell)—who is to my right in this Chamber but not to my right politically—the United Kingdom has imposed the toughest sanctions possible to address Putin’s war machine and hold him accountable. The question was raised about the international community coming together to address and to hold to account those who violate religious freedom. Will the envoy say whether the 42 member countries of the alliance—I declare that I was its vice-chair—have come together to ask respective countries to look at sanctioning certain individuals across the globe for their violations of international religious freedom or belief?

[Fiona Bruce]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. As chair of the alliance, I have certainly asked our sanctions unit to look at individuals, but it is an excellent point: the alliance collectively could also look at that.

Ukraine is a founder member of IRFBA, but Ukraine and many central European countries around it now face Putin crouching at their door. For them, defending FORB is more than a principle; it is a lived reality. They faced communism, they faced the Nazis. Working with my counterparts from those countries humbles me. I am referring to counterparts such as Ambassador Robert Řehák from the Czech Republic, the IRFBA vice-chair. When he was at school during the communist era in what became the Czech Republic, the state police came to see him and said, “If you keep speaking out like this, we’ll take you away.” He says, “I knew they meant it, because I had seen the bodies taken away through the streets of Prague in black bags.”

All the FORB violations that I have referred to and more, in all the countries where FORB violations have increased, are impacting on millions of people across the world. It is a tragedy that so many violations are happening in our time and that the numbers of people affected are so huge. Individual men, women and children are affected. They are suffering simply because of what they believe and simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But there are too many wrong places and this is in our time, the 21st century.

It is a tragic paradox that globalisation, which not long ago, in the 20th century, was heralded as the route to a more connected, confident and civilised future for the world, seems to have spawned, in the 21st century, a far more insecure, fractious and fragmented international landscape. The current global trajectory is away from a rights-based order or consensus, prioritising democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law, to what could increasingly be described as a values-based order—and those values are not always positive, focusing on national, religious, ethnic or political priorities.

Since the turn of the century, an increasing number of countries have seen the creeping eclipse of liberal democracy and its replacement by an authoritarianism led by so-called democracies such as Russia and inspired by the model of the People’s Republic of China. A new authoritarian influence that openly seeks to reinterpret and redefine human rights is on the increase, aided and abetted by technological developments, facilitating persecution on a scale unimaginable a generation ago. That technology, which is sold around the world to dozens of countries, also feeds another recent trend: transnational repression. Consequently, it often appears, as the writer Anne Applebaum so powerfully noted in The Atlantic, that “The Bad Guys Are Winning”—a piece she otherwise titled, “The Autocrats Are Winning”.

For authoritarians, FORB represents an existential threat. For states and rulers who seek to impose their worldview or ideology and who wish to control the national narrative, the public presence of diverse and vocal religious and belief groups is intolerable. For them, ultimate loyalty must be to an authoritarian leader and no other. That, of course, is no more tragically seen than in the outworking of the egregiously cruel regime of Kim Jong-un in North Korea, where three generations of a family can be punished for the so-called crime of one, and where a two-year-old child has been sentenced to life in prison simply because his parents owned a Bible.

As well as the autocrats—the so-called bad guys—regrettably, too many Governments, which may be called “the good guys”, view FORB merely as a niche interest, to be engaged by a few of us with a particularly religious perspective on life. Yet FORB is not a niche topic or a sidebar issue. That perception has to change. Here in the UK, we cannot just tick the FORB box by saying, “Well, there’s a special envoy.” The so-called good guys have to be bolder and braver to call out FORB abusers, and those of us involved in this work need to work harder to communicate that.

FORB is a foundational human right. FORB concerns should therefore be core concerns at every international summit, because they are at the core of so many human rights violations today. I will give just one of the many examples of continuing blind spots in identifying FORB abusers for what they are—and this one is by the good guys. While women in Iran have bravely led the charge against the brutal theocratic regime, journalists and politicians alike have not fully grasped the fact that, at heart, the protests are about FORB violations. The imposition of religious dress codes is a FORB issue. It is FORB that the Iranian regime fears most because, as with all authoritarian regimes, FORB represents an existential threat. With angry crowds shouting, “Women, life, freedom,” it is the realisation of FORB in full that will ensure respect for women, for life and for freedom for everyone in Iran. This is the issue on which the future of Iran hangs.

If global trends continue, the stage is set for an era of diminishing human rights. FORB will continue to be a prime casualty of that decline, which will be exacerbated by inadequate understanding—even by the good guy countries—of FORB as a foundational human right and of its importance in the human rights realm. We have been too accustomed to countries merely paying lip service to FORB rights and obligations, having signed up to international agreements including article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights and the international covenant on civil and political rights, but without honouring the obligations in them. In a country that has signed up to both those agreements, it is simply not acceptable for a young girl to be kidnapped from her home, forcibly “married” by being raped multiple times, and then turned away when she goes to a police station or tries to get justice through the courts. We should call this out more.

If the era that I have described continues, we can expect even the pretence of assent to begin to fade. That is why the good guys must be bolder and braver. Although human rights are independently valuable and interdependent, the right to FORB is a foundational value. Without the freedom to believe or not to believe, it is hard to see how other human rights make sense. Freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, the right to equality before the law, the right to education, privacy, family life and marriage—all those rights are predicated and contingent on the right to thought, conscience and religion.

Citizens cannot be truly free if they cannot live according to their beliefs. Without the expression of what has long been considered a sacred inner liberty, external rights lack grounding and legitimacy. Political, social and economic freedoms cannot co-exist alongside major limitations on FORB. FORB can exist without democracy, but it is hard to see how democracy can exist without FORB. FORB can also be considered a foundational value, because violations of it provide an early warning system for other human rights troubles and their trajectory. That is why we need to call out abuses at an early stage.

Much good work is being done, as I mentioned at the outset, but we need to do still more to be bolder and braver and to turn more of our words into action. We need a dedicated Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Minister in the House of Commons working on the issue of religion or belief. I am grateful to the Minister for being here today, and I know she takes great interest in the subject, but last week it was the Minister for Europe, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), who responded to our debate on the Ahmadis. During Question Time in the main Chamber, it is the Minister responsible for international development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who answers questions on FORB. This is too important an issue for us not to have a dedicated Minister in the House of Commons, much as we have one for women and girls. On every foreign trip, a Minister should be accompanied by a FORB briefing, which my special envoy team is more than willing to provide. We also need to ensure that recommendation 6 of the Truro review—that the special envoy role be embedded in legislation—is put into effect.

On 18 October, I shall present a private Member’s Bill on the issue. I thank hon. Members who are supporting the Bill, and I pay tribute to parliamentary colleagues across the parties for their commitment to and interest in FORB. We in the UK are a beacon in that respect, but we need to ensure that the energy and momentum of the current special envoy team endure beyond the next general election and that they are given better and more adequate and substantive departmental support in the FCDO. This is an area in which the UK is now seen as a global leader. Let us keep it that way.

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[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I start with a declaration of interest: I am a former UK special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, and was also the co-vice chair of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance when it was first set up in 2020, working alongside the United States. I also refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for other interests related to religious freedom.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who has done an outstanding job as the United Kingdom special envoy. I echo her request to the Foreign Office and the Government for a dedicated Minister. I was an envoy and a Minister in the Foreign Office, so I know that we have brilliant duty Ministers, but to do fairness and justice to this issue, we must have the consistency of a Minister turning up to the Dispatch Box, having heard what Members of Parliament have said before; that would bring credibility to the issue. I also support the call for dedicated support, structure and resources for the envoy’s role.

That having been covered, the question is this: how do the United Kingdom Government advance international religious freedom as a top priority? Page 3 of the report produced by the House of Commons Library on 8 September 2023 reads:

“In her submission to the Backbench Business Committee, Fiona Bruce MP, who acts as the UK Government’s Special Envoy on FoRB, raised 13 countries of particular concern: Algeria, Afghanistan, China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Russia, Sudan, Tunisia, Ukraine, and Uganda.”

They were also on my desk when I was the envoy. How do we make those countries accountable?

We have the tools. Our key tool is sanctions. I am a former Minister for sanctions; we have seen the key role that sanctions have played in addressing Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine. In how many of those 13 countries have we applied sanctions to individuals who are FORB violators? We have sanctions with regard to Ukraine and Belarus and we have Magnitsky sanctions, but how many have been applied in these countries? I ask the same question of the 42-member alliance. It was 26 when we started it, so I pay huge tribute to the envoy for taking it to 42. The alliance has a responsibility. Has the alliance come together to say, “These are the individuals across the world who violate human rights and, to protect freedom of religion or belief, we need decisive action in a co-ordinated manner and to share that with our respective countries back at home with a sanctions department”? I think that is absolutely crucial.

In the United States, Knox Thames, who was a State Department adviser for over 20 years, has written a brilliant report. In May 2023, he said that the United States has only once ever refused a visa to an individual for FORB violations. If it is once in the United States, how many times have we in the United Kingdom refused visas for individuals who breach religious freedom or belief? Can the Minister take that away? Time is running out.

The other point I want to raise is with regard to a closed petition condemning the burning of the Holy Koran in Sweden. A petition was put to the House of Commons, and 64,000 people signed it. It made the point that where individuals burn holy books with regard to the incitement of hatred, whether it is the Koran, the Torah, the Guru Granth, the Gita or the Injil—across the board—that kind of behaviour incites intolerance and hatred. Therefore, countries such as Sweden and Denmark that allow it under freedom of expression need to reconsider what that leads to. The point was made earlier that freedom of religion or belief is not just doing the right thing; it is absolutely about doing that, but it is also a national security imperative. If we do not have strong cohesive societies, it leads first to non-violent extremism and then violent extremism, and that creates havoc in our societies.

I finish with words from His Holiness Pope Francis. On the burning of the Holy Koran, he said he was “angry and disgusted” and that he “rejected and condemned” permitting the act as a form of freedom of speech. I ask the Minister to make very clear the United Kingdom Government’s commitment to ensure respect for all scriptures and that, whenever that is violated, we call it out, and to ensure that we do everything to make representations to Denmark and Sweden so that this kind of behaviour does not go unchallenged.

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[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), the special envoy, for securing the debate. I thank all colleagues for their contributions and all the organisations that many of us have drawn on. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) said, they do such important work, often in very dangerous circumstances, bringing the truth to light about some truly horrific situations around the world.

I thank the special envoy in particular for her powerful opening speech and for highlighting the growing trend of clampdowns on freedom of religion or belief across the world in many different contexts, including by states. She was right to highlight not only the situation of the Uyghur Muslims in China, which we often hear about, but the persecution that has gone on in Tibet, not least of Tibetan Buddhists. The horrific circumstances there include the state monitoring of monasteries and the use of facial recognition cameras, restricting people’s practice of their beliefs. She was also right to highlight the Bishop of Truro’s important report, which we have debated many times in this place.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is always a powerful advocate on these issues, was absolutely right to draw attention to the situation in Pakistan. The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) raised important concerns about Cyprus, which have also been raised with me; I saw some of that with my own eyes on my visit there. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) is always a powerful advocate on these issues as well, and she rightly highlighted the dangers of social media and disinformation in spreading intolerance and hatred. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) raised the situation in Nepal, and the hon. Member for Glasgow North rightly raised the situation in Iran, particularly for women.

All those examples and the others that we have heard about show the real concerns about the clampdown and the trends that we see globally. There is huge concern across the House about these issues and a desire for the Government and the United Kingdom to play a role in promoting freedom of religion or belief not only domestically, but globally through our diplomatic networks and other engagements, including sometimes difficult conversations with allies and friends about issues in their own countries. We have a crucial role in that as a leading member of the United Nations Security Council and many other bodies, including the Human Rights Council.

We all know that the 1948 declaration of human rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and freedom to choose, change and practise their own belief or faith—or, indeed, not to profess one. In their most recent survey, in 2020, the special rapporteur found that legal restrictions on freedom of religion or belief have increased in recent years, including restrictions on the freedom to worship publicly, the operation of humanitarian agencies and associations, the appointment of faith leaders and access to education.

We know that in many cases the greatest persecutors and inhibitors of such freedom can be states themselves. The special rapporteur said that

“states employ a range of extra-legal measures that violate freedom of religion or belief, which also serve to delegitimise and stigmatise certain religious or belief groups.”

As we have heard on a number of occasions, the rising intolerance of authoritarian regimes throughout the world is supplemented by the increasing use of technology as a means of state-sponsored repression and the increased adoption and implementation of anti-blasphemy laws and the criminalisation of apostasy.

[Rehman Chishti]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the role of authoritarian states, but what about democratic states? The House of Commons Library briefing dated 8 September contains a question by the special envoy to the Second Church Estates Commissioner, in which she referenced the killing of about 100 people, and the displacement of 50,000, in Manipur in India. We have a strategic foreign policy objective of prosperity, security and values, and we have engagement with the Indo-Pacific region on security, but then we have issues in a democratic state with regard to religious minorities. How would the hon. Gentleman go about addressing those challenges and engaging with a country as important for the United Kingdom as India? What levers would he use?

[Stephen Doughty]

We have to have a robust, honest and candid dialogue with our closest friends and allies. Indeed, a number of those have already been mentioned, and I will go on to mention a number of them myself. It is incumbent on us to have those conversations when there are clear concerns. The hon. Gentleman mentioned several countries, but there are a number of democracies around the world where we see these issues.