I beg to move,
That this House has considered religious persecution and the World Watch List 2024.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving time for this debate on religious persecution and the 2024 Open Doors world watch list. Several hon. Members have spoken to me and said they would have liked to have attended and spoken in the debate, but that it directly clashes with the debate in the main Chamber on Holocaust Memorial Day. We fully understand, because as hard as MPs might try, we still have not worked out how to be in two places at one time.
That allows me to speak more at length than I might otherwise have the luxury of doing, so I take this opportunity to thank Open Doors for its 2024 world watch list and for all the organisation does to ensure that the issue of persecution of Christians and, generously and rightly, of those of other faiths and none is highlighted globally and in particular in this Parliament. Open Doors does a tremendous job of ensuring that its supporters, whom I thank, ask our Members of Parliament to attend the annual launch of the world watch list. This year’s event took place last week here in Parliament, with just under 100 Members of Parliament attending. That is a huge number for a gathering of that kind.
I also thank other organisations, such as Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Aid to the Church in Need and those that represent people of other faiths such as the Baha’i, the Ahmadiyya Muslims or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, with which I work as the special envoy for freedom of religion or belief. I thank them for what they do, working as part of a global network of organisations, individuals, NGOs, academics and Government representatives, and collaborating now more than ever to promote and protect FORB worldwide and to challenge its abuses.
Before I proceed, I will also say that while I have had the privilege of being the Prime Minister’s special envoy for more than three years and I have learned a great deal through that role, I speak this afternoon as a Member of Parliament. I will be interested to hear the responses from the Minister, who I am delighted to see in his place. I know he has taken an enormous personal interest in this issue over many years.
As chair for the past two years of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, consisting of Government representatives from 42 countries, I know that we as representatives cannot do our job without the grassroots accounts and information brought to us by those working on the ground in countries and often at great risk and cost to themselves. With that information about the persecution of individuals, we can then advocate, and it is wonderful to be able to advocate confidently on the facts when an organisation such as Open Doors and others I have mentioned bring to us those facts and cases of individuals being so maltreated.
For more than 30 years, Open Doors has produced its annual world watch list, most recently last week for the current year’s edition. It is the product of intensive, year-round research, data collection, interviews and action, all independently analysed and verified to produce a ranking system to portray Christian persecution globally. Details are collected on five areas of non-violent pressure on the freedom of religion for Christians: private life, family, community, the church and business life. Separately, details are collected on violence against Christians, which includes reports of attacks on churches, homes and businesses, detention without trial, jailing, abduction, sexual harassment, forced marriage, and Christians being exiled or displaced, tortured and even killed.
It is a gruesome schedule. It is even more distressing when we realise that when the Open Doors world watch list started just over 30 years ago in 1993, Christians faced high, very high or extreme levels of persecution in around 40 countries and 30 years on that number has just about doubled. Year on year the world watch list now reports increasing numbers of Christians persecuted. According to the report, this year more than 365 million Christians around the world faced high levels of persecution or discrimination for their faith in Jesus Christ. That is one in every seven Christians worldwide. In the top 50 countries covered by the report, 317 million Christians face high, very high or extreme levels of persecution.
Why should that be in the 21st century? As I say, this is happening not only to Christians but to those of many other faiths, and indeed those of no faith at all—humanists, atheists. The watch list highlights a number of reasons. First, there is a shrinking space for civil society. That means a shrinking space for people to speak publicly about their religious beliefs. There is an increase in autocratic regimes across the globe. Religious faith and allegiance is anathema to an autocratic regime, which demands undiluted loyalty.
That goes not just for North Korea, where we hear of a two-year-old child having been sentenced to life imprisonment simply because his parents owned a Bible. It does not just go for China, where we know there are severe restrictions on practising the Christian faith, with children under 18 now banned from church, along with many other groups in society. It is happening in Asia and Africa too, in countries such as Eritrea, where there is appalling cruelty. Tens of thousands are imprisoned there simply because of what they believe.
Prisons in Eritrea are not like prisons here. People are placed in shipping containers where they nearly burn to death in the heat of the noon sun at over 40° with little if any ventilation, or they are virtually frozen at night. Many go mad. Many die. Others are imprisoned in what are literally holes in the ground dug into the earth —maybe no bigger than 4 metres by 6 metres, if that, and often shared. They have little chance of escape, and are often kept for years with little chance of release.
Open Doors talks about one such prisoner in its report. It is only when reading about the experiences of individuals that we can appreciate that the numbers we talk about relate to people like us. Abdullah—not his real name—had a Government job, like many people in this room, in Eritrea. A co-worker baited him into making comments while secretly recording him. The next day, he was arrested, charged and sent to prison. He grew up in a traditional Muslim family, but became a Christian and married a Christian woman; they had seven children. He was recorded after he spoke about his faith to his colleagues, and spent two years in prison. His wife shared that she was not allowed to bring him extra clothes, and he only received food three times a week. His health deteriorated and he needed medical attention; he died in 2022. There are many like Abdullah in Eritrea, imprisoned simply on account of what they believe. It is no wonder that Eritrea is No. 4 on the world watch list.
Persecution is also increasing due to the rise in the use of technology by regimes. It enables persecution on an industrial scale unimaginable even a few years ago, and that technology is being exported all over the world. A human rights lawyer and Uyghur activist, Nury Turkel, has written a wonderful book called “No Escape”. It is a powerful and authoritative memoir about the detention of the Uyghurs in China; he himself was detained. He writes that in East Germany, once the Stasis targeted a dissident, it took an entire team of covert agents to tail them—not any more. All-pervasive surveillance cameras can use artificial intelligence to scan vast numbers of people using facial recognition software, or even a person’s particular gait or walk, to pick them out of the crowd. A handful of people can now keep tabs on millions, and then arrest and incarcerate at scale. The problem, of course, is that AI has no moral sense of right and wrong.
There has also been an increase in gender-based violence: violence against women and girls, who suffer doubly if they are a member of a religious minority. This discrimination, often justified on religious grounds, exacerbates lawless mob violence—with no legal action taken. Time permitting, I hope to speak more on this regarding the abduction of young girls in Pakistan for so-called forced conversion and forced marriage. I wish we could think of another phrase, because that is a heinous way to put it. There are potentially hundreds of Hindus, Sikhs and Christians being mistreated in this way, including girls as young as 12, often with no recourse to justice, cast out of their communities even if they escape.
Another reason for the increase in persecution worldwide is what Open Doors describes as the collapse of Government institutions—the collapse of the rule of law in the face of widespread lawlessness. Open Doors quite rightly highlights Nigeria, where there are major problems, as we have said many times in this place. It is no surprise that Nigeria is No. 6 on the world watch list.
It is important to describe personal experiences. At the launch last week, Henrietta Blyth, the CEO of Open Doors UK, relayed the experience of one man. She said that while we were all enjoying Christmas eve, and while Christmas day found us all with our families once again, at exactly the same time in Nigeria, in the middle of the night, gangs of Fulani militants launched a devastating attack on Christian families in the central Plateau state. Twenty-five villages were attacked; 160 people burned to death in their homes; 15,000 people fled; and eight churches were burned down. She said that the violence continued from Christmas eve until the morning of Boxing day.
The militants discovered older people, women and young children who were hiding by the riverside. They shot some of them, and hacked others to death with machetes. One man tells how his wife “was not fast enough” and the attackers caught up with her:
“They grabbed her and my two children. They shot my wife and my children before my eyes. There were so many things we wanted to do. All our plans are shattered. Now I don’t know where to start from.”
That is happening on a regular basis in Nigeria. People go to bed at night fearing attacks from militant Islamic extremists, and not enough is being done by the Government there to address it. We need to call it out and help those people. They are asking for help when they suffer in that way and lose their homes and livelihoods.
The UK in 2022 spent £110 million on UK bilateral aid. Surely some of it could be spent on helping victims of massacres such as the Owo massacre, which I spoke about recently at Prime Minister’s Question Time, and in which more than 40 people were killed in their church. I brought here one of the survivors, Margaret Attah, and her husband. She lost both her legs and an eye. She spoke in the Jubilee Room next door. I was amazed at the grace of her husband, Dominic, when he said, “I forgive them all.” That takes some doing. It was moving; Margaret was sitting quietly in her wheelchair, and one of the people there asked, “How can we help you?”. Dominic and Margaret said, “We really could do with a computer”, and within three days, money had been gathered by volunteers and a computer was delivered to them. Margaret also needs prosthetic limbs. Wonderfully, again as a result of that meeting, a colleague in this place has offered to try to help with that. That is wonderful, but survivors of massacres ought not to have to rely on almost individual charity. There should be a way in which UK aid can quickly help them.
Another cause of the rise in persecution is religious nationalism. It is often accompanied by hate speech, which drives persecution of religious minorities and often incites mob violence. Criminality is overlooked. I ask colleagues and those listening to have a look at the concerns relayed in the report about the collapse in stability in Manipur in India. Since May last year, I have worked with Open Doors on looking into what has happened there. It has ensured that we have interviewed individuals affected, and that people on the ground have gathered accurate information. What is happening in Manipur is horrific and widespread, yet the world knows very little about it, partly because the internet has been disconnected there for much of the time since what happened. Let me read hon. Members a little about it:
“attacks have not been limited to one tribal group. More than half of the 400 churches attacked were those of Meitei Christians— 249 of these within the first 36 hours of rioting.”
How could so many churches be attacked in the riots without some premeditation? We have even heard that houses that were attacked had been marked; the doors of Christians had been marked. According to Open Doors’ sources, around 70,000 Christians
“have been forcibly displaced….Particularly horrific has been the situation for Christian women in Manipur.”
I have mentioned the plight of women already. In one incident,
“women were dragged from a police van by a mob…before being stripped, paraded and sexually assaulted. The younger woman’s brother and father were killed trying to protect them.”
Sadly,
“Open Doors researchers have verified five case studies of women being targeted for sexual violence, with the police failing to intervene or protect the women.”
As I say, the increase in persecution is happening all over the world, much of it due to autocratic regimes. The world watch list 2024 highlights that in South America there are concerns about Nicaragua and Cuba. In Nicaragua over the last year, the Catholic Church has been severely attacked by the Government. Radio stations run by Catholics have been shut down, as have schools, medical centres and even a university. Even Mother Theresa’s nuns, who have been there for 30 years, were expelled without notice.
It is heartening that in such cases the international community comes together. Non-governmental organisations and Government representatives from the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, of which I am a member, have championed the situation of Bishop Álvarez of Nicaragua, who was imprisoned for 26 years for speaking out about human rights violations last year. I am very pleased to say that two weeks ago, he was released as a result of that campaigning, so it does work, although sadly he has been expelled from the country.
I encourage people to campaign for and support Pastor Lorenzo of Cuba, who has been imprisoned in Cuba for a seven-year term for raising the issue of human rights violations. There is information about his plight on the CSW website. We want him released, so please support that campaign.
Other cases include that of 27-year-old Hoodo Abdi Abdillahi, from Somaliland—I apologise; I know that I have not pronounced her name correctly. She was arbitrarily arrested and sentenced in October 2022 to seven years in prison, simply for becoming a Christian. She was reported to the authorities, in violation of her right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and her right as a member of a religious minority in Somalia. Of course, Somalia too is high on the world watch list; in fact, it is No. 2. We have learned that during her trial, which was allegedly very swift, she did not even have defence counsel, and she has not had an opportunity to appeal her sentence. Her appeal case is being brought to the Somaliland court of appeal, but the hearing date has been repeatedly delayed by the court. International organisations have taken up her case. I do hope that she will be released, and I urge others to support her.
Ordinarily in such debates, I would not have this much time. I am very pleased that I have been informed that today I do have the luxury of time, so I now turn to the recommendations in the Open Doors report. I apologise, because some of the comments that I will make will perhaps appear just a little bit dry after the human stories of the last few minutes, but it is important that we look at the recommendations.
One of the recommendations says that the UK Government should
“Promote and protect FoRB as a leading priority in foreign policy and diplomatic engagement”.
The UK Government frequently pronounce that promoting and protecting freedom of religion or belief is a priority in their international human rights work. It is true that it is much more of a priority than it was just a few years ago. Defending FORB has risen up the political agenda.
I am interested in comments made by Sir Malcolm Evans, the principal of Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, and a member of the Foreign Secretary’s advisory group on human rights. Sir Malcolm has said that in the mid-1990s—that would be about the time that the Open Doors watch list began—the growth of international human rights law concerning freedom of religion or belief had barely begun. It is testament to many, including Open Doors, that in the 30 years since, it has indeed risen up our Government’s agenda.
I pay tribute to all individuals and organisations, such as Open Doors, CSW and Aid to the Church in Need, that have worked to ensure that parliamentarians here continue to press our Ministers. I pay enormous tribute to my colleague the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for his sustained work on this issue, because it is in large part as a result of that that our Ministers and officials have taken hold of this issue in a way that they did not just a few years ago.
I have worked internationally, and I think we can be very proud of our Parliament. There is no other Parliament in the world where, across the parties, this work and advocacy happen on this scale. Having 170 Members of Parliament and peers as members of the all-party group— it is the biggest all-party group out of, I think, over 700 now—is testament to the commitment of our colleagues to this issue.
I also thank Ministers. I thank the then Foreign Secretary, now the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for initiating the Bishop of Truro’s independent review for the Foreign Secretary of Foreign Office support for persecuted Christians. The review was published in 2019 and made 22 recommendations. It has been part of my mandate as envoy to try to get those recommendations implemented. I also thank the Prime Minister and the current Foreign Secretary for their support for my role, which I know is strong. I thank, too, the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who is responsible for development and Africa, and of course the Minister present today.
We have come a long way in the last few years, and there has been improvement in addressing FORB, but there is much more to be done. Three years after the Truro review’s work, experts carried out an independent review of it. Rather politely—they are academics, so this may be the language they use—the review concluded that
“there remains scope for further developments in order to ensure that the protection of FoRB for all becomes firmly embedded in the operational approach of the FCDO as a whole.”
That is right. A number of Truro recommendations still need to be implemented fully or effectively if, in line with the review’s core principle, FORB is to become truly mainstream in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and a leading priority in foreign policy and diplomatic engagement, as the Open Doors report recommends.
I will mention a few areas in which we—I use the word collaboratively, because I recognise that I, too, have responsibilities in this regard—need to step up. For example, a lot of work has been done on producing religious literacy materials, including a FORB toolkit, to help our officials and diplomats in embassies across the world to understand what FORB is and the importance of protecting it, promoting it and understanding the principal areas of different faiths and beliefs. However, it is really important that the material is read and used. The problem is that, although its roll-out should be mandatory, as Truro recommended, it is not—it is just recommended. We need a review of how often and to what degree the materials are being taken up, because we need to ensure that every diplomat working in the world watch list’s top 50 countries has been through them, and others too.
Engagement by the diplomats who work in our embassies and diplomatic posts around the world needs to be ramped up, acknowledging that in the context of peacebuilding, supporting democratisation and the development of inclusivity, FORB needs to be included with other human rights. It is more necessary now than ever. As international commentators now frequently remark, the rules-based international order has not been so imperilled for decades. The international scene is darkening. There can be no assumption of peace and security; we have to work for it.
Although religion can be a cause of conflict, it can also be a force for good. Is peace not a core value of most religions? In the context of our trying to prevent conflict and deter wars, the promotion and protection of freedom of religion or belief is vital. Indeed, it has much to contribute upstream to preventing conflict in the first place. I commend the education materials that have been developed in four primary schools across the country, one in my constituency, that help children as young as four to understand this. It is one of the activities that our international alliance has inspired. What has come out of it is that children as young as four grasp very quickly how important it is not to be unkind to people simply because of their beliefs.
Similarly, we have worked with older young people. In October, we had a 24-hour global conference—a virtual conference—which young people across the world could join using open space technology. They came from countries where there was persecution and where they wanted to work on the issue. More than 500 young people from more than 70 countries across six continents joined the conference. If we could inspire young people to be global ambassadors for FORB in the same way as they have been global ambassadors for climate change, we could really see change in the next generation. That is what I call the ultimate upstream prevention work, but most of that work is being done by the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance. Let us look at how we can ensure there is some real support from the FCDO for that work with young people.
We should be bolder when we work with countries where persecution is high or where there is risk of persecution. We should not underestimate the UK’s influence. I see that happening around the world: we underestimate our influence on this and other issues, but Ministers in post need to be equipped and to know about what resources are available to them from across the FCDO. It would be interesting to ask the Minister how many briefings on freedom of religion or belief he has received when travelling to countries where he is responsible for representing the UK. I believe those countries include Nicaragua and Cuba in the Americas, which rank as 30 and 22 respectively on the world watch list and where FORB concerns have seriously increased in the past year. That should be happening as Ministers travel, whether to countries such as those or to like-minded countries where we can discuss how to work more closely with those countries to promote FORB.
I am not saying that good work has not been done, but I think we could work more strategically. We need to have specific action plans for certain at-risk countries. Just as His Majesty’s Government has focused so well on women and girls, we need to strengthen collaborative working with those in the FCDO and elsewhere who are working on this issue.
I went to the conference on the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative around a year ago. I was surprised that there was such limited—if any—reference to freedom of religion or belief, despite the double jeopardy of women who are in a religious or belief minority. I spoke about those in Pakistan, but we also see women in Iran and Afghanistan, from religious groups such as the Hazara Shi’a community, being excluded from society. They are women and they are members of a religious minority. We need to look at how we can integrate work on freedom of religion or belief in the FCDO, along with other human rights issues. We need to ensure that the Foreign Secretary’s advisory group on human rights meets regularly to ensure that FORB issues are incorporated into wider human rights discussions.
You will be pleased to hear that I do not have too much longer to go in my speech, Ms Vaz, but there are some important points that I want to make to the Minister. It is good that we have been imposing sanctions following the Magnitsky laws, but we need to be more prepared to impose sanctions, specifically against perpetrators of FORB abuses, through the human rights global sanctions regime in order to send a powerful message to those who target people on the basis of their beliefs.
It is welcome that there is a mass atrocity prevention hub at the FCDO, but, as Open Doors rightly says, that needs to recognise the connection between the persecution of Christians or other religious minorities and the risk of mass atrocities. A plan for the work of the hub is needed, but there is no plan. That is one of the Select Committee recommendations that we have to take forward.
It is good, too, that FORB is more on the FCDO’s radar, but we have not yet fully worked out how to establish cross-departmental work in the Government, as the Truro review recommended. Nor have we convened
“a working group for government departments and civil society actors to engage on the issue.”
We need to do that. I know that needs to happen because, over the past year, I have held several roundtables in my office in the Foreign Office, bringing together officials and civil society—15 or 20 of us sat round the table. Time and again, officials have said that they did not know what civil society was bringing to them. We need to narrow that gap. One of my aspirations is to narrow the gap between Whitehall and Westminster; there is only a road between them, but it is a big gap.
We are doing great work with like-minded countries as members of the international alliance of 42 countries, but we need to work harder to engage with countries that do not qualify to join the IRFBA. Several countries have approached me because they are interested in joining—countries such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Indonesia. I have met their representatives, and we need more dialogue with them in order to move the dial on freedom of religion or belief. All those countries appear in the world watch list top 50, but there is a door and an opportunity for dialogue.
It is excellent that, with the United Arab Emirates, we delivered a landmark security decision on tolerance and international peace and security last year, but we need to look at how to take that work forward. I look forward to meeting the UK mission at the UN next week when I am in New York to discuss that issue.
I am grateful that Open Doors referred to the need to address human rights concerns around emerging technology. It is excellent that our Prime Minister has taken a lead on AI, and we need to include in that discussion its challenges for FORB.
I thank the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield, for listening to my team’s concerns and including the plight of religious minorities in the recent White Paper. When people are discriminated against because of their beliefs—perhaps they cannot get a job, education or healthcare—they will be poorer. That needs to be recognised and addressed, but it has not been to date. It is excellent that religious minorities are mentioned in no fewer than six places in the “International development in a contested world: ending extreme poverty and tackling climate change” White Paper. We need to make that a reality to help the millions across the world who are affected by integrating FORB into UK aid thinking; the Department for International Development did not do that in the past.
We have a real opportunity to be a global leader if we lead the dialogue on the review of the sustainable development goals up to 2030 and provide evidence that they will succeed only if this issue is addressed and included. Marginalising and disadvantaging religious groups drives poverty, and the SDGs will continue to be compromised if those groups are left behind. Our ability to achieve them will be enhanced if there is a better understanding of the value of religious freedom and pluralism in societies. I commend the work of the Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development in that regard. I look forward to working further with it and with Ministers to take this issue forward and build on the excellent White Paper.
I thank Open Doors for highlighting the importance of recommendation 6 of the Truro review, on establishing the role of the Prime Minister’s special envoy permanently. I thank Foreign Office Ministers for their support for my private Member’s Bill, which has its Second Reading tomorrow. It is vital that the envoy role is not dependent on the discretion of any individual Prime Minister. It has been my privilege to serve under three Prime Ministers who have all been very supportive, but the role cannot be dependent on the good will of the Prime Minister in place at the time. If the work done by me and my predecessor envoys, my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) and Lord Ahmad, is to continue and be strengthened, the role must continue.
I conclude with the words of Sir Malcom Evans:
“the establishment of the Office of the Special Envoy has been a real driver of, and catalyst for, change. What is needed is for that Office to have legislative grounding to ensure that this continues, that it has a more clearly defined position and that its impact continues to grow…Making it so will help support the development of detailed, focussed and clearly articulated policies and strategies which will complement take up and lend further substance to what is already now in place. We have come a long way—but there is a long way further to go and it is all too easy to go backwards. Can a bulwark also be a springboard? Hopefully, a legal duty to promote freedom of religion or belief will be both.”