Persecution of Christians (Middle East)

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

And when the wise men were departed,

“behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt:

And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

Joseph would not be very wise today to move from the west bank of Palestine to Egypt, because in August this year, there were targeted attacks on at least 100 Coptic Christian churches in Egypt, as well as Christian homes and businesses; and in September, large mobs carrying machetes and guns attacked properties, including the Virgin Mary and Priest Ibram monastery. It was forced to close for prayers in August for the first time in 1,600 years.

I do not intend to repeat anything that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) excellently said in opening the debate. The freedom of religion is an important human right set out in article 18 of the universal declaration of human rights. In the few moments available to me, I want to say some of the things that I think that Ministers should be doing.

The Foreign Office should consider appointing a special envoy for freedom of religion and belief to co-ordinate the UK’s diplomatic efforts in this field, in partnership with the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief and the US ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Today’s debate has highlighted that this is now an issue of such seriousness that it needs to rise up the list of Government priorities. I hope that we can see a re-establishment of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office freedom of religion panel, to bring together on a regular basis human rights and religious freedom organisations and representatives of religious communities. That panel could inform and advise the Foreign Office on violations of, and methods of promoting, religious freedom, and on ensuring that freedom of religion and belief was part of bilateral and multilateral discussions with relevant Governments on a regular basis.

I appreciate that the Foreign Office often has a difficult task. It wants to promote trade with countries such as Malaysia, but what we heard earlier about the prejudice and discrimination against Christians in Malaysia is appalling for a Commonwealth country that has regular trade with the UK. We want to be reassured by Ministers that these issues are raised regularly.

It is also important to continue to exert diplomatic pressure on Governments of nations in which religious freedom is violated, and to consider imposing targeted sanctions on key individuals or Governments responsible for serious widespread and systematic violations of religious freedom. I very much agree with the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr Brazier): many of the countries that we are talking about are countries to which the UK gives significant amounts of bilateral aid. Pakistan is the largest recipient of UK bilateral aid. I do not think it unreasonable that, in discussions about what bilateral aid we give to countries, we consider this issue and ensure that those countries will give religious freedom to everyone, including Christians.

Lastly, it is important to continue to oppose robustly efforts at the UN to introduce religious defamation measures; we must work to build a coalition of support for the campaign to reject religious defamation laws, and work generally to promote religious freedom.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—