Ahmadiyya Community

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Westminster Hall

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this debate. In spite of our political differences, we often make common cause on issues. I hope that she will therefore welcome the fact that the funding for St Helier hospital has been re-announced in today’s comprehensive spending review; that is a success that she can share with me and, indeed, with the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). I am also pleased to make common cause with the hon. Lady in supporting the Ahmadiyya community. I support her work and welcome the fact that she is setting up an all-party parliamentary group on the issue. I am happy to be a member of that group and to facilitate its establishment.

In her opening remarks, the hon. Lady outlined well the position of the Ahmadiyya community around the world and the difficulties and risks that Ahmadiyyas face in seeking to practise their peaceful religion in various countries. Like her, I have had the pleasure of visiting the mosque in Morden. I went a couple of weeks ago with my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, who I know would have wanted to participate in this debate if his ministerial duties had not kept him elsewhere. We talk a lot about the big society at the moment. The building of the mosque is a good example of how a community can work together and draw on the resources at its disposal. It is a mosque of great stature and presence, and it sets an example for the rest of us. Hon. Members who visit can see the library, the TV station and the facilities for both men and women to worship.

I also welcome the fact that in a similar big-society vein, the Ahmadiyya community is working locally with other faiths to secure a large open space immediately opposite the mosque for the widest possible community use. For me, that is the thing that resonates most and comes across most strongly about that community: the willingness to work with other faiths and people of no faith on issues that are important to us all. That is one of the community’s strengths that we should respect, which is why it is particularly depressing that, as the hon. Lady described, Ahmadiyyas face such risks and challenges around the world and, increasingly, in the UK. I will not repeat the examples that she quoted, but I will say one thing about the incident at the Bentall centre in Kingston. Those who know Kingston will know that if people are inciting hatred and potentially putting lives at risk in the Bentall centre, we have a wider problem in the country as a whole. One could not find a more affluent middle-class environment than the Bentall centre.

When the Minister responds, will he clarify what discussions he is having with the Home Office about the issue, particularly in relation to the Prevent agenda? The Prevent agenda—it is currently under review, which I welcome—is about preventing extremism from developing within communities. It seems to me that there is a risk of that at present, and I hope that he has had or will have discussions with the Home Office about how the Prevent agenda can be brought to bear on the issue. He might also be able to comment on the YouTube clips. I do not know whether he has had an opportunity to see them; I recommend that he does so, and that he reads the translations provided. He might then want to reflect, if he has not already done so, on whether there are implications under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 for some of the statements being made.

That is where I shall leave my comments, as many other hon. Members clearly want to speak. What I have seen on YouTube seems to go beyond a discussion about the relative merits of religions, which is what I think we all want to facilitate, and the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office need to respond to that agenda. I hope that we will hear a forceful response from the Minister shortly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alistair Burt]

The hon. Lady anticipated my next point, which is about the voluntary contributions, but I would not have mentioned that charity specifically, so I thank her for mentioning it. In addition to what the Government have spent, as the right hon. Member for Warley has said, the response from the community across the UK generally, whether or not they have relationships with Pakistan, has been remarkable— £60 million from different communities up and down the country—and those with family connections have been especially involved. We will continue to do that work. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the European Union, and it is important that we work closely with it. Recently, my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister attended a European summit at which they took the lead in pressing the European Community to do still more to improve trade agreements to enable the Pakistani Government not only to get over the immediate hurdle of the floods, but to look forward to re-establishing their economy and to have the right infrastructure to be able to do so. The EU was able to take our lead and produce more trade concessions, which will give significant assistance to Pakistan in the future.

Pakistan is also suffering from the scourge of terrorism. More than 3,000 Pakistanis died last year as a result of terrorist attacks. Those attacks and the groups that perpetrate them pose a grave threat to Pakistan and to the stability of the region and beyond, including the UK. I would like to repeat the words of the Prime Minister when he paid tribute in August to the resilience of the people in Pakistan in facing that threat. We are committed to working with Pakistan to defeat this threat. It threatens both our countries.

Human rights are at the core of our foreign policy. We raise our concerns about human rights wherever and whenever they occur, without compromise and will continue to do so. As the Foreign Secretary made clear in a recent speech, we will improve and strengthen the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on human rights. That will be underpinned by British values and by our support for democratic freedoms, universal human rights and the rule of law. That approach will be based on realism; we will never overlook human rights abuses and will always strive for progress, but we will be practical in our approach and flexible about what might work best in different contexts, which is only sensible.

The multiplicity of links between the UK and Pakistan means that we engage with each other on all subjects—counter-terrorism, security policy, immigration, trade, development, education, the rule of law and human rights. As I have outlined, that last subject is critical to the conduct of UK foreign policy. It is as relevant to our relationship with Pakistan as it is to our relations with the rest of the world. We do not shirk from our responsibilities in highlighting our concerns about human rights, including to our friends.

Pakistan has made important progress in improving human rights. The ratification of the international covenant on civil and political rights and the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment is an important step in enshrining inherent rights in law, although we hope that the Government will look to remove or redraft the current reservations that they have lodged against both treaties. It is important that those instruments are fully implemented to help to ensure the human rights of all Pakistanis.

However, Pakistan continues to face significant challenges in those areas, and we remain committed to working with the Government of Pakistan to address them. One of the most important challenges is discrimination against, and persecution of, those of a particular religious belief, whether Christians or Sikhs, as is sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi’a Muslims. It is vital that the Government of Pakistan uphold the fundamental rights of all Pakistani citizens, regardless of their faith or belief. Pakistan can only benefit if all its citizens are able to play a central role in society. We regularly reinforce that point for our colleagues in the Government of Pakistan at all levels, and they have now established a Ministry for Minorities, which has active leadership and has brought about some positive changes. A remaining critical challenge, as has been mentioned today, is the reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy legislation to ensure that it is properly implemented. Misuse of those laws is the basis for much of the discrimination suffered by religious groups in Pakistan, as the hon. Lady made clear.

[Tom Brake]

On discrimination, are the FCO and the Department for International Development in a position to monitor effectively whether the aid for Pakistan is being delivered equally across all communities?

[Alistair Burt]

The short answer is yes, and I know that because the point has come up before. If I may, I will deal with that towards the end of my remarks.

The Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan is 4 million strong. Following the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the community played an important role in the development of the new country; Pakistan’s first Foreign Minister was an Ahmadi, and many prominent members of both the army and the civil service followed their faith. However, since the mid-1950s Ahmadis have faced increasing levels of discrimination, culminating in the passage of constitutional restrictions on their way of life: in 1974 the Pakistan Parliament adopted a law declaring Ahmadis to be non-Muslims, and in 1984 a further ordinance was passed, forbidding Ahmadis to refer to themselves as Muslims or to “pose as Muslims.” Pakistanis themselves must take the lead in legal reform of the constitutional and legislative constraints on Ahmadis. The Government of Pakistan have a responsibility to protect all their citizens, regardless of religion or belief. The structural nature of that discrimination helps to create an environment of intolerance that manifests itself in horrific attacks.

I turn now to the attack on Lahore that was the subject of many of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden. The attacks against the two Ahmadiyya mosques in Lahore on 28 May, which killed 93 people and injured more than 100, prompted a worldwide response and rightly generated widespread indignation in the UK, both from parliamentarians and the general public. The attacks, unfortunately, were among many that violent extremists have carried out against both minority and majority Muslims over the past few years.

The Foreign Secretary, as has been acknowledged this afternoon, was swift in his denunciation of the attacks. Shortly after, the British high commissioner in Islamabad raised both the attacks and the wider discrimination against the Ahmadiyya with the chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif. I echo the point, made by the right hon. Member for Warley, that it is important that we engage at both federal and provincial level, which we do, in order to make our points on human rights. It is essential that the message gets though everywhere.

Senior officials from the British high commission in Islamabad had regular contact with officials from the Ministry for Minorities on the matter long before the attacks took place, and continue to do so. What more, then, can we do to help end the difficulties faced by Ahmadis in Pakistan and elsewhere? Most importantly, we must engage robustly and regularly with the Government of Pakistan, and we do. Following the attacks, I met with members of the Ahmadiyya community from the UK. I had the honour of meeting the national president, Rafiq Hayat, and members of the community in my office, and I am grateful for his insights on the issue at the time. He was able to give me at first instance evidence of discrimination and attacks on the community. As a result of that, in answer to a question from the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake), I contacted the Home Secretary and briefed her about the matter so that she was able to take it into her calculations and her concerns about extremism in the United Kingdom. I shall ensure that a copy of today’s debate goes to her, with emphasis on the remarks that have been made.