Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure those responsible in Afghanistan for the (a) attack on a maternity hospital and (b) other targeted attacks on the Hazara community are brought to justice.

The UK Government was appalled by the attack on a maternity hospital in Kabul last month. The Foreign Secretary and the Minister for South Asia, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, publicly condemned the attack. The UN Security Council made clear the need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of these reprehensible acts of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice, in its statement of 13 May. We commend this. We continue to support the Afghan National Defence and Security Force (ANDSF), helping them combat the threat from insurgent groups. All ethnic and religious groups, including the Hazaras, have equal rights and an important role to play in Afghanistan's political decision-making. At the Human Rights Council (HRC), the Afghan Government accepted our recommendation that they establish an independent mechanism to assess how security protection can be improved for religious and ethnic minorities.