Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what representations his Department has made to the Government of Pakistan on (a) the murder of Mr Muhammed Shoban on the 25 June 2018 and (b) the ongoing persecution of Ahmadi Muslims in that country; and if he will make a statement.

We remain deeply concerned by reports of discrimination and violence against the Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan. As I stated during the backbench business debate on Ahmadiyya rights on 24 May 2018, we wholeheartedly condemn attacks on the Ahmadiyya community. We regularly raise with the Government of Pakistan at senior levels the importance of religious tolerance and its duty to uphold the rights of all Pakistan's citizens regardless of religious identity.

During my visit to Pakistan in November 2017, I raised the treatment of religious minorities, including discrimination and violence against the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, with the Ministry of Human Rights. My Ministerial colleague, the Minister of State for Commonwealth and the UN, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, discussed the issue of freedom of religion or belief, and the protection of religious minorities, with Pakistan's Interior Minister in February 2018. At the UN Periodic Review of Pakistan's human rights record in November 2017, the UK called on Pakistan to strengthen protection of minorities and establish an independent National Commission for Minorities.