Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of persecution of people who practise Falun Gong in China.

We remain deeply concerned about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, as well as Christians, Buddhists, Muslims and others, in China on the grounds of their religion or belief. Everyone should be free to practice their religion according to their beliefs, in accordance with the international frameworks to which both the UK and China are party. We believe that societies which aim to guarantee freedom of religion or belief are more stable, prosperous and more resilient against violent extremism.

We raised our concerns about freedom of religion or belief during China’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in November 2018. We also highlighted our concerns in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s most recent Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy.