Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his Pakistani counterpart on the persecution of Christians in that country.

We remain deeply concerned by the treatment of minority religious communities in Pakistan. This includes Christian communities throughout the country, including in Karachi.

We regularly raise our human rights concerns with the Government of Pakistan at a senior level, including when the Foreign Secretary saw Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, in December 2018. Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief, raised the treatment of minority communities with Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Human Rights, Dr Shireen Mazari, on 19 February during his visit to Pakistan. At the UN Universal Periodic Review of Pakistan in November 2017, the UK pressed Pakistan to strengthen the protection of minorities, including by establishing an independent National Commission for Minorities.

On 30 January 2019, the Foreign Secretary and the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, Bishop of Truro, launched an Independent Review of Foreign and Commonwealth Office support for persecuted Christians overseas.