Category: News

The Dhaka Tribune reports that Nazimuddin Samad, 28, a masters student, was killed in Old Dhaka last night by suspected Islamist militants chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’.

He was attacked around 8:30pm by three assailants while walking to his home in Gendaria with another youth after completing university classes.

The youth accompanying the victim has not been seen since the incident, police said.

His friends said that Nazim used to campaign for secularism on Facebook and was critical of radical Islamists. A day before the murder, he expressed concerns over the country’s law and order in a Facebook post.

Police said that the killers who came on a motorcycle first intercepted them and then attacked Nazim with machetes. At one point, he fell on the street and then the attackers shot him to confirm death before leaving.

Shamir Chandra Sutradhar, inspector (investigation) of Sutrapur police station, told the Dhaka Tribune: “Even though the spot was crowded at the time of the murder, they are not sharing any information with the police. “However, we are trying to identify the assailants by talking to the shopkeepers and residents of the area.”

The Chair of the APPG for International Freedom of Religion or Belief, Jim Shannon MP, and Co-Chair Baroness Berridge, have strongly condemned this tragic outrage.

Tributes and alarmed messages are flooding in on Nazimuddin’s personal Facebook page, where he regularly posted atheist and feminist criticism of Islam. He was critical both of the Islamist political parties, and against the failings of the current government. Shortly before he was killed, he wrote a post implying that the ruling Awami League party would fall if it did not make swift changes, writing (in Bengali): “The situation of the country, deterioration of law and order in the country, speak that maybe you cannot stay long in power.”

President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), Andrew Copson, commented:

“It is clear from Nazimuddin’s Facebook posts and protest activity that he was a politically and socially engaged young man. He offered criticisms of certain radical religious figures and doctrines, thoughts of a kind that many people, not just atheists and humanists but also many religious people, express all over the world, every day.

“Every time a thoughtful and honest person like Nazimuddin is hacked or gunned down, apparently for doing nothing more than speaking their minds on secularist, political and religious topics, we and others will make a point of finding out what he said, what he did, what he wrote about, and sharing it. It will be seen by more people than ever would have seen it before. And we will remember his name and the growing list of names of those who were singled out and killed, by small-minded, hateful extremists who appear to think that words can be killed. They cannot.”

A post on the Bangla secular blogging platform Mukto-Mona (“Free Mind”) has responded to the attack saying, “Even though nobody has claimed responsibility for this murder, the modus operandi was very similar to all the killings carried out by the extremist Islamist militants in Bangladesh.”

In 2015, four bloggers variously identifying as humanist, atheist and freethinkers, as well as one publisher of secular books, were killed by groups of men in machete attacks.

 

Following the publication of the APPG’s Pakistan report in February and the active work of APPG members lobbying for change, coupled with the publicity given to the issue by the BBC (see below), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Thailand has begun issuing verification cards to asylum seekers, a temporary arrangement informally recognised by the Thai government.

A Pakistani Christian, Francis Sodagar, told World Watch Monitor the UNHCR has given verification cards and appointments to all registered asylum seekers.

“The crackdown was meant to deport those living without asylum-seeker status,” he said. “Now we will be safe from police raids and will be at peace after such a long time.”

The verification cards read as follows: “The card-holder is a person of concern to the UNHCR, registered and documented pursuant to its UN General Assembly Mandate, and should not be involuntarily returned to his/her country of origin. Any assistance accorded to the card-holder is most appreciated.”

“We still cannot work here, as issuance of this card doesn’t mean we can be legally employed, but now fear of the detention centre and deportation is over,” said another Pakistani Christian.

ORIGINAL POST, 29 February

Chris Rogers writes for the BBC online magazine:

A BBC investigation has found that Thailand, a country known for its hospitality to tourists, routinely arrests and detains asylum seekers. Many are Pakistani Christians who have fled religious persecution in their own country. Some are children. And they are held despite being UN-registered asylum seekers, whom the UN is under a duty to protect.

The sound of the faithful in prayer and song bursts out of a small rented room where a congregation of more than 100 people have gathered for Sunday mass.

They would be risking their lives to worship like this in their homeland, where Islamist extremists force Christians to convert, or even kill them.

Leading the prayers is Pastor Joshua, a Christian from Lahore, in what is officially known as the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Along with thousands of other Christians, he’s had to flee to Thailand and still fears the people in Pakistan who punished him for converting from Islam to Christianity.

“My bone was broken – the one right above the heart. And they tried to cut my arm off,” he says.
“My sister was murdered, she was burned alive, just because she spoke the word ‘God’. They hate the word ‘God’ so much. She was burned for this reason alone.”

The Pakistani Christians head to Thailand because it’s easy to enter the country on a short-term tourist visa and in Pakistan’s hostile neighbourhood there are few safe options closer to hand.

But there is hardly a welcoming committee in Thailand. The country doesn’t want asylum seekers from anywhere. It is not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention, and anyone without a valid visa or a work permit risks being arrested, charged with illegal immigration and jailed.

Thailand has allowed the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, to step in and investigate the credibility of those claiming to flee persecution – a process with two possible outcomes, either repatriation or relocation to another country. But many of these families say they’ve been waiting years to be assessed by the UN and they have no access to work, education or healthcare.

As they await the outcome of their case, thousands of Pakistani asylum seekers set up temporary home in dingy rooms in a network of tower blocks on the outskirts of Bangkok. People who were once comfortably-off professionals arrive with just a few possessions, their rent and food paid for by local Christian charities.

And they live in constant fear.

The Thai immigration police have lost patience with the UN’s failure to process asylum cases in good time, one young father tells me, holding a 25-week-old baby in his arms.

“They are taking people out of the rooms from everywhere, they can strike at any time, there is always tension,” he says.

I hear that the immigration police are raiding a block of rooms close by, so I go straight there and find dozens of women crying and clutching their children.

The police have just broken down the doors and taken away all their husbands. Women and children were also taken from other blocks. All told, more than 50 Pakistani asylum seekers have been arrested.

I find them at the local court, where they are handcuffed, charged with illegal immigration, fined 4,000 Baht (£90) and then sent to Bangkok’s Immigration Detention Centre.

This isn’t supposed to happen. All registered asylum seekers are issued with a UN document, which certifies them as an “internationally recognised UN person of concern”. This means they should not be arrested or detained for seeking asylum while the UN investigates their case.

Earlier I met one man called Sabir, who fled Pakistan two years ago with his wife, Laila, their two daughters, Laila’s parents, and her siblings and grandparents. They shared a small, sparse room with no kitchen or toilet, all 10 of them – until Laila was arrested two months ago.

Sabir hasn’t seen her since and sobs that he is lost without her. He doesn’t regret leaving Pakistan though, where he says a gang threatened to kill his family if they didn’t convert to Islam. “Over here, the only fear we have is of the immigration police, nothing else,” he says.

But the UN won’t investigate his asylum case until 2018. He says he’s been told there is a backlog.

In a statement to the BBC, the UNHCR admits it is struggling. “Amid the context of today’s acute global humanitarian funding crunch, it is correct that at present we are facing long delays in the processing of asylum claims with funding for Thailand at only a third of the level needed.” But it adds that it has managed to prevent the arrest of more than 400 “people of concern to UNHCR” in the last six months, by insisting on their status as registered asylum seekers.

Meanwhile the Thai government complains the UN’s inactivity is “creating far-reaching impacts on its security” – a reference to Thai fears that immigrants from Pakistan could be involved in terrorism – “leading to a number of arrests of illegal immigrants in the past year”.

Anyone arrested – Sabir’s wife, for example – is taken to Bangkok’s filthy and overcrowded immigration detention centre.

Journalists and cameras are not allowed inside but volunteers delivering much-needed fresh water and food for inmates are, and that is how I enter, with other members of the BBC crew. Wearing search-proof hidden cameras we nervously pass through security checks and hand over our water and food to be checked by the guards.

We are led to a large, stiflingly hot room, crammed with hundreds of asylum seekers pressing their faces against a wire-mesh internal barrier. They are nearly all Pakistani Christians. For one hour a day, some of the 200 asylum seekers held here are let out of their cells to see visitors.

The men are semi-naked. Unaware we are BBC journalists, they tell us it’s the only way to keep cool in the overcrowded cells they’re kept in. The women cradle their children and babies. Many complain their children are suffering from diarrhoea and vomiting because of poor sanitation and dirty drinking water. The room gets noisy as the inmates cry out to the visiting charity workers for their help to get released, but food and clean drinking water are all they can offer. One mother tells me she has been here for three months with her children. “The youngest is three and the eldest is 10. They are finding it very difficult being here, they are getting so ill,” she says.

The Thai government says parents “often choose to have their children with them while in detention”.

Yet the country has signed up to a number of UN international laws governing the humane treatment of prisoners and outlawing the imprisonment of children – particularly in centres holding adults.

None of the detainees I speak to have received legal assistance from the UNHCR since their arrest.

“We have no faith in the United Nations,” 19-year-old Nazeem tells me, as she holds on to her baby cousin. “We only have faith in God. He will bring us freedom.”

Their only way out of detention is for local charities to request bail from the Thai authorities. It costs about £900 ($1,250) to release one person, so they do this only for those deemed most vulnerable.

There are no official figures for the numbers arrested, but campaigners say it amounts to hundreds every month. It’s alleged that 132 Pakistani Christians were arrested on one day alone in March last year. Altogether there are an estimated 11,500 Pakistani asylum seekers in Thailand, more than from any other country except Burma.

Suddenly I come across a young woman I was hoping to meet. There on the other side of the security cordon is Laila, Sabir’s wife. It’s an emotional meeting – she is obviously desperate to see her family. “I miss them, bring my daughters here so I can see their faces,” she pleads. But the only way she is likely to see children for the foreseeable future, is if they are arrested too.

In its statement to the BBC, the UNHCR says it is working with the Thai government to find a solution. “Better and more humane management of the situation must be found in accordance with international legal norms,” it says.

The Thai government insists that it strives “to provide the best possible care… based on international humanitarian principles.”

Yet it inflicts an even worse fate upon some Pakistani Christians and their children. Those who are unable to pay the 4,000 Baht fine after they are arrested are thrown into one of Thailand’s notorious jails.

This happened last year to a group of 20 Pakistani men, women and children. Separated from the women, the men’s heads were shaved, and their ankles and hands placed in shackles.

“We had a lot of problem sleeping, sitting, standing up and walking,” says one. “The chains weighed about 4kg or 4.5kg, and we used to have injuries on our ankles. We were in a lot of pain. It was very difficult for us.”

One of his cellmates, Daniel, bursts into tears when he describes how the men were searched. “All we had to wear for clothing was a small piece of cloth,” he adds.

The people charged with assuring the protection of these UN-registered asylum seekers were nowhere to be seen.
It was a local missionary who eventually bought their freedom.

But remarkably, Daniel is still able to invoke his faith’s humility and forgiveness.

“Jesus said to us, ‘If someone troubles you, don’t ask for curses for him, instead, you should ask for blessings for him.’ So, we ask for blessings for the UNHCR.”

Thailand’s Asylum Crackdown can now be viewed on the i-player, follow this link

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee report published today says that there is a clear perception that the human rights work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been deprioritised.

Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, chair of the Committee, said on this morning’s BBC Today programme “There has been a change in language and a change in symbology which would suggest it is not as important as it used to be… The current set of ministers have allowed [this] perception to gain ground…” Listen on BBC i-player (from 01:14:00)

Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond rejected the committee’s criticism, saying: “I do not recognise this characterisation of our human rights work.”

Read the report    Download the report

The Committee found that the words and actions of FCO Ministers have generated a perception that their work on human rights has become less important, despite funding for the FCO’s dedicated human rights programme, the Magna Carta Fund, having been doubled to £10.6 million.

The FCO needs to do a better job of selling its human rights work by evaluating it more effectively and presenting it in a more user-friendly fashion.

The Chairman of the Committee, Crispin Blunt MP, said:

“The actions and words of Ministers in the Foreign Office have undermined the excellent human rights work carried out by the Department. This needs to be remedied. We recommend that the FCO is more mindful of the perceptions it creates at Ministerial level, especially when other interests are engaged such as prosperity and security—as is the case with China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Perceptions, and the symbols that reinforce them, matter, particularly in the context of the UK’s soft power and international influence.”

Three themes of humans rights work
In August 2015, the FCO announced it would focus human rights work on three themes: democratic values and the rule of law; strengthening the rules-based international system; and human rights for a stable world.

It is not yet possible to judge the impact of this shift but the Committee is concerned about the lack of specific commitments in the three themes and the difficulties this presents for implementation and accountability.

Crispin Blunt commented:

“The actual effect of this change of approach could be to lose the focus of specific human right priorities. It will be important for specific issues, such as the prevention of torture or women’s rights, not to be overlooked by FCO Missions and for strategies to be developed and progress measured. In the absence of measurable targets for the Department’s human rights and democracy work, it is extremely difficult to hold the Foreign Office to account for its spending and to assess whether projects deliver value for money. We will keep the FCO’s human rights work under review over the course of this Parliament to ensure that it receives the focus that it requires.”

The Guardian
The Mirror
ITV News

Freedom of Religion or Belief

Freedom of Religion or Belief is one of the 6+2 thematic priorities under the previous government now subsumed into the three themes (democratic values and the rule of law, strengthening the rules-based international system and human rights for a stable world). There is no mention of FoRB  in the Select Committee Report; neither is it represented among the cases it proposes to monitor from this point.

FoRB was mentioned by APPG stakeholder Christian Solidarity Worldwide in the written evidence presented to the Select Committee, including the following extracts:

• The current funding and staffing levels allocated specifically to freedom of religion or belief are inadequate. While officials working on FoRB do excellent work, the resources allocated to FoRB reflect neither the increased number of global violations nor the problems caused when these violations occur over a sustained period of time. The increased and reconfigured ‘Magna Carta fund’ however is welcomed.
• The FCO’s three new human rights priorities show a dynamic approach to how the department and all its officials can best tailor human rights work to ensure it has the most impact. While it is too early to make any informed and holistic judgement about how they operate in practice, FoRB is wholly applicable to all three, emphasizing the importance that it must be recognised as such. This unfortunately does not address the underlying problem that human rights is a decreased priority within the overall objectives in the FCO.
• With regard to the staffing and funding, current levels allocated specifically to freedom of religion or belief in the FCO are inadequate. In answering a WPQ in March 2015, Minister of State David Lidington stated that while a number of officials spend a percentage of their time on FoRB, the FCO has only one full time desk officer wholly dedicated to FoRB.
• While officials working on FoRB do excellent work, the resources allocated to FoRB reflect neither the increased number of global violations nor the problems caused when these violations occur over a sustained period of time. Some of the biggest issues the FCO is currently encountering, including Daesh, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, the Syrian Civil war, and radicalisation to name a few, have at their root an element of FoRB restriction and denial.
• While FoRB is an important human right, religion is more than just a human right. UK foreign policy, designed to promote and secure the interests of those overseas and at home, needs to account for a world where 84% identify with a religious group, and where religious leaders and religious principles play a complex and important role. One full time FoRB desk officer is insufficient resourcing to address what should be an increasingly important reference point of FCO work.
• CSW has encountered significant discrepancies in knowledge and awareness of FoRB among staff in overseas missions. Without explicit reference to FoRB or any of the former thematic priorities, there is danger for them to all lose ground to the ‘prosperity agenda’.
• It is perhaps too early to make an informed and holistic analysis of the impact of these new themes. It is our position however that FoRB is applicable to all three and should be recognized as such.

CSW’s full evidence

APPG officers are seeking a meeting with Crispin Blunt to discuss their monitoring of FoRB going forward.

World Watch Monitor reports that an Egyptian Copt, Bishoy Kameel Garas, has been declared innocent after he served more than half his six-year sentence for charges including defamation of Islam.

Garas, now in his late twenties, was jailed in September 2012 for offending the country’s dominant religion, the then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, and a Muslim sheikh’s sister. The charges related to Facebook posts found on a fake page opened in his name.

On 25 July, Cairo’s senior court had ruled against the prison sentence, but it took Garas until 9 Oct. to be released, due to “intransigence by the prosecution, and prison authorities dragging their feet”, his lawyer Magdy Farouk Saeed told World Watch Monitor back in November.

Despite mounting evidence weighing on the side of his acquittal, the prosecution and two lower courts insisted on condemning the Christian, until the higher court finally declared him innocent on 13 March.

“Back in 2012, the defence team was mobbed by scores of angry people around and inside the courthouse shouting, ‘Are you Muslims or what?’ The lawyers were themselves accused of apostasy and had to be spirited from the court’s security office,” said Ishak Ibrahim from the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR).

Coptic activists insist the proceedings were a travesty from the beginning.

“To be accused of defamation [of Islam[ is to be guilty of it, especially with the mob pressure and rioting accompanying the proceedings,” said Safwat Samaan, director of Nation Without Borders, a human rights advocacy group.

Instead of investigating the hacking, which Garas insisted was done out of malice by a certain ‘Michael’, the prosecutor said: ‘Bishoy is as good as Michael!’

Garas, a teacher of English, had posted warnings on his own Facebook page about the fake account and alerted cyber police. Still, he was sentenced, despite claims of a named hacker and cyber investigation reports attesting to his innocence.

“Instead of investigating the hacking, which Garas insisted was done out of malice by a certain ‘Michael’ (now in Italy), the prosecutor said, ‘Bishoy is as good as Michael!’,” said Mena Thabet, a religious liberties researcher with the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms. (Both names are easily identified as Christian in Egypt.)

“The judge would not hear the difference between one’s own genuine Facebook page and a page created by another assuming a false identity,” added Samaan, quoting sources close to the proceedings.

The “guilty” ruling went ahead anyway, and was later partly upheld by a court of appeal.

All experts agree that Garas, now legally cleared of guilt, cannot hope to receive adequate compensation.

“The defendant will have his three years in jail as credit, to be debited in case he’s sentenced for any future offenses,” said Samaan, describing the situation as a “legal travesty”.

Garas, understandably, didn’t have much to say about the legal side.

“Within ten days from the beginning of the proceedings, my school dismissed me from my job,” said Garas during a call-in with an Egyptian Christian television channel, Alhorreya TV. He remains uncertain about the possibility of going back to his home town in the province of Asyut (370 km south of Cairo), or claiming his job back.

“Bishoy’s poor father spent money he could not afford over the trials of his son,” noted Samaan.

According to EIPR, nine cases of “defamation of religion” have been filed in Egyptian courts since January 2015. Twelve people have been convicted. Twelve more cases are pending. Over the 2011-2013 period, courts processed 28 cases, where 28 out of 42 defendants were found guilty.

Earlier this year, on 25 Feb., Egypt sentenced four Christian teenagers to up to five years in prison for mimicking Islamic prayer as part of the ritual before beheadings carried out by jihadists.

On Thursday, 31 March, a court of appeal upheld a three-year prison sentence against a liberal Muslim poet, Fatma Naout, who had expressed disgust at the ritual killings of thousands of animals during the Muslim festival of Eid.

Last December, Islam Behery, a researcher with a wide TV following, was sentenced to a year in jail for suggesting Islamic teachings were the source of terror.

In an article for the Financial Times, Archbishop Justin Welby writes about the attacks in Lahore on Easter Sunday and the plight of Christians and other religious minorities around the world.

Read the text of the article below

I rang a friend on Tuesday, someone living in Pakistan, to express my deep sorrow about the attacks in Lahore on Easter Sunday, which killed more than 70 people and injured a further 300. The group responsible for the attacks, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, has said it was deliberately targeting Christians gathering to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, though many of the victims were also Muslims.

Lahore is a place I know well. Two years ago, I visited the city to meet Christian leaders and to pray with them. The stories I heard troubled me deeply. There was a real feeling that the Christians of Pakistan were under intense pressure, fearing to worship, even fearing for their lives. Last Sunday’s murderous actions do nothing to dispel that feeling.

Pakistan was founded on a vision of a country at peace with itself and at peace with its minorities. Indeed, the white on the national flag represents the place of minorities within the country. The security and flourishing of minorities was a foundational principle. This founding vision is now under grave threat.

The friend I spoke to earlier this week, who lives daily with intimidation and pressure, listened politely; he thanked me for my words of sorrow for the victims and condemnation of such dreadful atrocities. But then he said: “Justin, condemnation is not enough, we must go beyond condemnation to something better.”

Beyond condemnation? What could that mean?

Around the world, people of all major religions, including large parts of the Christian family, live as minorities. In some places, they live as equals, valued as citizens and play a full part in the life of their communities and countries. But in many parts of the world, unknown to most of us, Christians find themselves under attack, without legal rights, with believers being murdered and their places of worship destroyed.

This is happening in northern Nigeria, parts of Kenya, large swathes of the Middle East, South Asia and right down into South-East Asia. Every day I receive reports of great suffering from a different province within the Anglican Communion. The torrent of tragedy feels overwhelming; I find myself lapsing into the old clichés: “Something must be done”, “We condemn these attacks unequivocally”.

It is, of course, important that religious and political leaders condemn unequivocally the persecution of Christians and other minorities around the world. But it is also vital that concrete action is taken; that, as my friend argued, we move beyond condemnation to something better.

This must involve states and communities understanding their legal obligation to uphold the right to freedom of religion and belief. This right — which includes the freedom to practise no religion and the right to change one’s religion — is underpinned by law at the national and international level.

Furthermore, there is an urgent diplomatic task to ensure that no country, anywhere in the world, accidentally or deliberately, supports the persecution of anyone for their religious belief — or, for that matter, their lack of it. Religious literacy is key: governments, security and military leaders, and diplomats need to be aware of the force and impact of religious belief.

Diaspora communities play an important role in how we go beyond words of condemnation and support religious minorities facing persecution. The Pakistani diaspora in the UK, for example, is part of a network of relationships that enable the shifting and challenging of some attitudes in Pakistan. These relationships can be built on by the diplomatic and business communities, for example by more closely aligning aid and trade policy with the strengthening of the human rights and religious freedom agenda. Academic research shows that societies that guarantee religious freedom are generally more prosperous and stable.

But the task of upholding religious freedom does not fall to politicians and diplomats alone. Mainstream religious leaders (and I include myself in this) must up their game, setting an example of dialogue and communication with each other.

In Britain, this begins with how we treat and value religious and ethnic minorities in our communities, not least those who have and will come as refugees fleeing religious and sectarian persecution in Syria, Iraq and other places of conflict.

Furthermore, the treatment of minorities in all major religions must be scrutinised. Religious leaders must hold each other to account, as well as be held to account, for how we treat minorities, particularly minorities within our own religious or ethnic groups. The tragic murder of the shopkeeper Asad Shah in Glasgow last week is a stark reminder of how important that accountability is.

This requires honest and robust relationships between religious leaders, not platitudes, however well-intentioned. Such relationships involve encouraging each other to actively protect minorities and to challenge those who seek to exploit differences.

To go back to my friend in Pakistan, we must go beyond condemnation, and going beyond condemnation means that religious violence must be combatted by those who lead religious traditions. For it is only in that way that Christians — and indeed those of all religions— will be safe to practise their faith.

This article was originally published on FT.COM.

Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con): I beg to move,

That this House has considered persecution of Christians and other religious minorities under Daesh.

May I clarify the subject of the debate? The wording I applied for was “Genocide under Daesh of Christians and other religious minorities”. It is regrettable that, without any discussion with me, the motion was changed, although I understand it was not changed by the Speaker’s office. I shall say no more about the motion, except to clarify that the violence of ISIL, or Daesh, as we now call it, rages against a number of minority religious groups in addition to Christians, including the Yazidis and minority Muslim groups. Space prohibited me from referring to them by name in the motion.

The 1948 UN convention on genocide makes it clear that genocide is the systematic killing or serious harming of people because they are part of a recognisable group. The specific legal meaning of genocide is

“acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

The convention specifies certain actions that can contribute to genocide, such as killing, forcible transfer, preventing births and causing serious bodily or mental harm.

Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP): I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this matter to Westminster Hall for consideration. It is a massive subject that warrants a 90-minute debate, and I am disappointed that it was not allocated one. Nevertheless, we have half an hour. I know that the hon. Lady, along with others present, shares my concern that Christians are given the ultimatum: “convert or die”. It is a choice between continuing to have religious beliefs and leaving the country or dying. Genocide is the only word we can use for that.

Fiona Bruce: The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point and is quite right. As I stand here today, religious minorities are suffering horrendous atrocities at the hands of this murderous cult in Syria, Iraq and the other countries of the middle east where Daesh has a strong presence. The number of Christians in Iraq has reduced from 1.4 million to just over a quarter of a million in just a few years. The Bishop of Aleppo said this week that two thirds of Syrian Christians have been either killed or driven away from his country.

Acts committed by ISIS against Christians include the assassination of church leaders, mass murders, torture, kidnapping for ransom, sexual enslavement, systematic rape, forced conversions and the destruction of churches. We know about the mass graves of the Yazidis, and about crucifixions, forced marriages and the kidnapping of women and girls, some of them as young as eight, many of them raped mercilessly, month after month, until their bodies are in tatters. We know about children being beheaded in front of their families for refusing to convert.

Jim Shannon: The hon. Lady is being very gracious in giving way. Before the debate, I asked her if I could intervene to say that the Yazidis in particular have been reduced from 500,000 to 200,000 in Iraq. Nobody in the west put out their hand to help or assist, as they should have. The Yazidis have been in the Kurdish camps along the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. They are a small group who have been persecuted, pursued and discriminated against, and their ethnic and religious freedoms have been abused. Perhaps the Minister could respond to that point as well.

Fiona Bruce: Again, the hon. Gentleman makes a strong point.

We are sometimes at risk of being desensitised by the horrors under Daesh. They are so extreme that their evil seems almost fictional. But for those who are suffering—people who lived lives like us just a short time ago—they are very real.

Surely one thing is becoming increasingly clear. Bearing in mind the definition of genocide to which I referred a moment ago, can anyone now seriously doubt that Daesh’s actions are genocidal? Nor, surely, can anyone seriously doubt that Daesh is trying to destroy minorities such as the Yazidis, in the words of the convention,

“in whole or in part”.

As Bishop Angaelos, a general bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, has said:

“How can we not declare Genocide if Christians are suffering the same fate, at the same time, under the same conditions, at the hands of the same perpetrators?”

The entire population of Christians in the city of Mosul in Iraq, all 60,000 of them, have been effectively eradicated by Daesh—gone, fled or dead.

Daesh’s intentions in perpetrating its violence are a matter of record, as reports have made clear repeatedly. It regularly makes public statements of a genocidal nature, such as the following message, which was broadcast on its Al-Bayan radio station:

“We say to the defenders of the cross, that future attacks are going to be harsher and worse…The Islamic State soldiers will inflict harm on you with the grace of Allah. The future is just around the corner.”

As US Secretary of State said just last week, after a unanimous vote by the House of Representatives to declare a genocide by 393 votes to none:

“Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions—in what it says, what it believes, and what it does…The fact is that Daesh kills Christians because they are Christians; Yezidis because they are Yezidis; Shia because they are Shia.”

I submit that the legal criteria for genocide have been amply satisfied. Not only have the US Government now said so, but so have the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the Pope, the US Congress, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and 75 Members of both Houses of Parliament when we wrote to the Prime Minister, including the former chief of staff and former head of MI5. A group of leading QC peers also recently wrote to the Prime Minister on this issue. All agree that the crimes of Daesh are genocide.

Why is it so important that we, as Members of Parliament, also collectively define these crimes as genocide? Because doing so would be more than mere verbiage—more than mere words. It would bring into play a whole series of mechanisms that can strengthen the response of the international community to challenge this evil force. The convention on genocide is clear that such a declaration brings with it obligations to prevent, protect and punish. I suggest that our making such a declaration would challenge the 147 countries that are party to the convention to step up and act on their obligations to help to prevent further atrocities, to protect those who are suffering, and to work towards punishing the perpetrators.

Jim Shannon: I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again. She has outlined clearly the need for us to have this debate. It is an opportunity for us to speak out on behalf of our Christian brothers and sisters throughout the whole world who have been persecuted because of their beliefs. We have the chance to be a voice for the voiceless. I congratulate the hon. Lady again on bringing this debate to Westminster Hall for our consideration.

Fiona Bruce: It is right that we should be a voice for the voiceless.

Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con): I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Before I heard the start of her speech, I did not know the original wording of her motion. May I press her to submit the motion again and, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, request more time for the debate and possibly a vote in the Chamber? I, too, was a signatory to a letter to the Prime Minister on this subject, and I think there are many more parliamentarians who would welcome the opportunity to debate it at length and to vote on it.

Fiona Bruce: My hon. Friend pre-empts me. He is absolutely right. I suggest that such a motion should be worded in the following way: “That this House believe that religious minorities in the middle east are suffering genocide.” Crucially, that would mean that those who have participated in such vile crimes would know that they face justice and the full weight of genocide law when they are tried before the International Criminal Court. Must the relevant conflicts end before we work to bring to justice those who are responsible for these terrible atrocities? How long will that be? How much of the evidence will have disappeared? How many of the witnesses will have gone?

The international community’s record is not strong on this issue. Our incumbent Foreign Secretary and the previous Foreign Secretary have both lamented on the record the international community’s response to previous genocidal suffering. In 2015, the Foreign Secretary said that

“the memory of what happened in Srebrenica leaves the international community with obligations that extend well beyond the region…It demands that we all try to understand why those who placed their hope in the international community on the eve of genocide found it dashed.”

On the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, William Hague, then Foreign Secretary, said:

“The truth is that our ability to prevent conflict is still hampered by a gap between the commitments states have made and the reality of their actions.”

Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She talked about waiting until the end of the conflict. On 17 December 1942, the then Foreign Secretary made clear in the House what Britain’s attitude would be at the end of hostilities to those who had committed the massacre of the Jews in Europe. Does my hon. Friend think that a similar statement today of what the international community’s attitude will be at the conclusion of hostilities to those who are committing genocide in the middle east would be welcome?

Fiona Bruce: Indeed I do.

We must learn the lessons of the past. It is right that the international community should shoulder a burden of guilt for failing the victims in Rwanda. Those of us who have been to Rwanda a number of times know how many people still suffer as a result of our failure to act promptly then. Let us act now and be bold enough to call this genocide what it is. Let us avoid the regret that so many now feel about that past failure and not acting more promptly to go to the aid of those who suffered so severely in Rwanda in the early 1990s.

What has been our response to the middle eastern genocide perpetrated by Daesh to date? In the time I have left, I want to talk about the Government’s response, as I understand it—the Minister may correct me. I believe that the Government say that they have a long-standing policy that any judgments on whether genocide has occurred are a matter for the international judicial system. Their approach appears to be to refrain from expressing an opinion on whether genocide has occurred until the international judicial system makes such a declaration. However, why can Parliament not make a declaration?

I respectfully suggest to the Minister that there are perhaps four reasons—probably more—why the Government should reconsider their approach. First, I find it remarkable that the UK is willing to declare itself not competent to judge whether the conditions for genocide, which I have described, have been met, particularly in a case as clear as this. If the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the US Government and the European Parliament, none of which are judicial bodies, can declare a genocide, why cannot we?

Secondly, as I understand it, the Government have previously been willing to express their view on genocides that neither the UN nor the International Criminal Court have ruled upon, such as the case of Cambodia. Thirdly, the Government’s approach is frustratingly circular. We are told that nothing can be done until the ICC or the UN declares genocide, but historically neither have been willing to do so without international pressure. This is potentially a recipe for doing nothing. I know that the Minister is an extremely genuine person and is deeply concerned about matters of justice of this nature, but is it acceptable for this country to effectively risk doing nothing on this particular issue of declaring genocide—I am sure that is not true elsewhere—when we sincerely wish to pursue an ethical foreign policy?

Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, we have a moral duty to speak out and do what we can for the religious minorities that, even now, are being horribly persecuted at the brutal hands of Daesh. Staying silent in the face of such evil is not an option.

Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP): I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. What she says about silence is important. The way that Christians, Yazidis and other minorities are being targeted in the areas controlled by Daesh is appalling. I hear a lot about it from my constituents, but I do not hear about it more widely than that. Encouraging further discussions in this House would help to raise awareness of the persecution of Christians and other minorities.

Fiona Bruce: I thank the hon. Lady for that comment. The issue certainly needs much closer attention in this place and more broadly in our country. The dignity of the people who are suffering so horribly cries out for it.

I want to digress for a moment, to refer to an announcement that was made in the House last Wednesday. The Minister may be able to assist us by clarifying it. Many Members were left with the impression that only states can commit genocide. I have the greatest respect for the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), and I have no doubt that he gave that response with total sincerity, but will the Minister responding to today’s debate clarify the advice that he was given? As I understand it—I stand to be corrected—all that is needed for a non-state party to be found guilty of genocide is for the UN Security Council to confer jurisdiction on the ICC, and for the ICC to agree that a genocide is taking place. That cannot happen without lobbying from our Government, so we should press the UN Security Council to take action accordingly.

An amendment to the Immigration Bill was introduced yesterday in another place. If passed, it would have presumed that victims of genocide meet certain conditions for asylum in the UK, and it would have put that determination in the hands of a High Court judge. I watched that debate, after which the amendment was narrowly defeated late last night. Although some of the contributors had reservations about its wording, which I believe is why they felt they could not support it, the support for it was much wider than the vote reflected on the principle that we need to call these atrocities what they are: genocide.

I am focusing on that narrow point today. I seek support for a motion to be introduced in the terms that I referred to—“That this House believe that religious minorities in the middle east are suffering genocide.” That would enable us to refer the matter to the UN, so that the International Criminal Court could proceed with examining what is happening in the middle east.

In the debate in the other place last night, the Minister responding to the debate proposed that

“the appropriate way forward would be to consider a Motion of this House, directed to Her Majesty’s Government as to how they should address or not address the issues that pertain here with regard to whether there has been genocide.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 March 2016; Vol. 769, c. 2177.]

If my understanding that such a motion could be brought before the House is correct, will the Minister consider whether it would be appropriate for the Government to bring it forward? As he knows, such a motion introduced by a Back Bencher would have little chance of being considered by the House in the immediate future. Will the Minister consider whether the Government should introduce such a motion and arrange for a vote on this issue? If I understood the Minister in the other place correctly, the Government proposed that amicable solution. May I now press for it to be made possible? Will the Minister confirm that we should be pushing for international recognition of, and action against, these unspeakable crimes, and for them to be declared as genocide? We can and should express an opinion, so that we can lead the charge at the international level and bring those who are committing such atrocious evils to justice.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood):

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue. I am sorry to hear that the wording of her motion was altered. I am not aware that it had anything to do with us—I do not think we have that privilege, or I am sure that I would change many motions, although not in this case. I congratulate her on securing this important debate. No one can fail to be moved by the harrowing stories of Daesh’s brutality and the way in which Christians, Yazidis and others have been singled out for persecution, and I pay tribute to both Government and Opposition Members who have campaigned so hard to ensure that minority voices are heard in the fight against Daesh.

In the middle east, we are now witnessing systematic and horrific attacks against Christians and others on the basis of their religion, beliefs or ethnicity. Tragically, the very survival of communities that have existed peacefully in the region for centuries is now at risk. Members on both sides of the House are united in our condemnation of Daesh’s inhumane treatment of minorities. It is also right that we condemn Daesh’s equally brutal treatment of the majority Muslim population in Iraq and Syria.

Today, we have heard appalling examples of Daesh’s abuses. The Government want to see accountability for those abuses and have supported efforts to document them. The UK co-sponsored the Human Rights Council resolution mandating the investigation of Daesh abuses, which were also recorded and condemned in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s 2014 human rights and democracy report. We will do the same in the 2015 report, which is to be published in April. The Government are directly funding training for Syrian activists to document abuses to a standard suitable for criminal prosecution. I pay tribute to those involved in that work for their courage.

Turning to the core of what my hon. Friend has discussed today, I understand the urge for us to declare that there is genocide. As the Prime Minister said in the House yesterday, however, we maintain that genocide should be a matter of legal rather than political opinion, although there is clearly a growing body of evidence that terrible crimes have been committed. It is vital that all of us to continue to expose and condemn Daesh’s atrocities and, above all, do everything in our power to stop them, but we maintain that it is right for any assessment of matters of international law to remain in the hands of the appropriate judicial authorities. I assure the House that the Government are working hard with our international partners to ensure that Daesh is held to account for its crimes and that those who have suffered at its hands receive justice.

To be clear, I associate myself firmly with the comments made by Secretary of State John Kerry that no Government are judge, jury or prosecutor—we are not in a position to make such statements. It is for the international criminal courts to do so. However, we are participating in collecting the data, preserving the documents and providing the evidence that will be needed to take things forward. It is important and of symbolic value that international justice is seen to take place, with a commitment by the international community to see accountability for the most serious crimes of international concern.

The matter is complex, however, and an awful lot of due diligence needs to take place, not only on genocide but on the whole issue of crimes against humanity, as my hon. Friend is aware. She has done extremely well to bring the matter before the House today, and I absolutely encourage a further, wider debate with a vote in the House to continue the process.

Michael Tomlinson: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way—I am conscious of the time. Given his experience of military service in the Balkans and of Rwanda, does he see the importance of debating the subject further, as he has just said? Will he support a debate taking place in Government time, with a vote?

Mr Ellwood: My hon. Friend makes his point fully, but it is up to the usual channels to make any decision. I firmly believe that we are not doing justice to the subject; we are only skimming the surface of such an important matter. We have touched on Rwanda, the Balkans and so forth, and, indeed, following Rwanda, the world recognised the duty of care on leaders—again, a legal stipulation—to look after the people under their remit. That failed in Rwanda. I would very much welcome a further debate on the subject, so that the world can hear what this Parliament thinks and the Government’s reaction to that, and so that we can pursue and continue the process. I welcome that and hope that today is only a beginning.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): We are at one in this Chamber in our horror of the reports that we have heard. Will the Minister tell us precisely what he expects us to be voting on after a debate in the main Chamber, and what action would be recommended?

Mr Ellwood: That is not for the Government; it is for the Backbench Business Committee to make such a judgment. Any debate would be an indication of the mood or spirit of Parliament, of where we would like to go, and of what we would like the permanent members of the UN Security Council to discuss. It could lead to recommendations for action, perhaps through the international criminal courts or any number of other avenues.

Kevin Foster: In 1942, this House made a solemn resolution that those responsible for such crimes should not escape retribution. Would the Government be minded to support such a resolution in this instance?

Mr Ellwood: I will write to hon. Members with details on questions to which I have not replied, but I must conclude.

I have given as much indication as I can of the direction of travel that we would like to go in. I am pleased that the Foreign Secretary has made his comments, and I repeat—I do not want to get myself into any trouble, so I am looking around carefully—that we are not judge or jury here. It is not for the Government to call this, which hon. Members will perhaps recognise as a frustration. It is important that voices are heard to make it clear what the expectations are and where we should be going on what is happening in Iraq and Syria.

To truly defeat Daesh, to eradicate its ideology, and to secure long-term peace and security in the region, we must demonstrate through our words and actions our support for all communities, whether majority or minority, Shi’a or Sunni Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, Kurds or others. We will continue to do all we can to liberate the people of Iraq and Syria from the persecution and appalling violence that they face from Daesh. We must all continue to expose Daesh for its criminal and fraudulent betrayal of Islam. In the spirit in which my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton introduced the debate, I also hope that we can take important steps towards bringing Daesh to justice on the international stage.

On Monday 21st March the All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief hosted an event in the House of Lords exploring the connections between religion, security and foreign policy. The event brought together academic experts, civil society actors and Parliamentarians to discuss and better understand the integral role Freedom of Religion or Belief has in promoting national and international security.

Expert speakers at the event included Professor Cole Durham, Director of the International Center for Law and Religion, Dr Peter Petkoff, Director of the Religion, Law and International Relations Programme at Brunel Law School and Regent’s Park College, Oxford and Dr Kishan Manocha, Senior Advisor on Freedom of Religion or Belief for the OSCE.

Poignant and contemporary issues and recommendations were raised by the speakers. Prof. Durham highlighted the importance of freedom of religion or belief as both a fundamental right and as a crucial ‘tool’ for policy makers to use in the process of bringing about peace and stability. Religious and cultural nuances must be incorporated into foreign policies, requiring deeper research on these topics. He warned against implementing policies which target communities of one faith whilst only attempting to counter very small percentages of violent extremists within such groups as this will only serve to alienate British citizens.

Dr Petkoff further called on the international community to create better mechanisms through which information ‘on the ground’ can be communicated coherently to policy-makers. The ‘strategic culture’ within different nations must be analysed so as to track and understand why actors within such countries take different actions. Without this nuanced flow of information, he argued, effective security and countering extremism strategies cannot be formulated or implemented.

17 March 2016 India: Freedom of Religion
Question for Short Debate asked by Lord Singh of Wimbledon
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the extent to which Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, relating to freedom of religion, is being upheld in India.

Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB):
My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to highlight concerns over the plight of minority faiths in India. Narendra Modi, leader of the nationalist BJP, won a landslide victory in the May 2015 Indian election, mainly on ostensibly economic issues, but after his election he has given increasing support to the Hindu extremist agenda of those who helped propel him to power. He refers increasingly to restoring dignity and power to the Hindu community. His own credentials were questioned by many in India and abroad. As Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002, he failed to stop widespread violence against the Muslim community and for some years was banned from entering the UK or the USA.

Narendra Modi’s election was seen, sadly, as a green light by some Hindu extremists to make India more Hindu and to put India’s large Muslim minority, as well as Christians and Sikhs, firmly in their place. Reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and other human rights organisations all tell the same story of forced conversions of Muslims and Christians, with brutal rape and killing and the destruction or seizure of property. This has been paralleled, sadly, by a more general crackdown on the right to free speech.

I do not want to take up too much time reciting detailed examples of an increasing disregard of Article 18 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Some of these are detailed in the excellent briefing notes prepared by the Library. I will give just a few examples to explain the fear now felt, particularly by Christians and Muslims in India. The highly respected US Commission on International Religious Freedom expressed concern in its 2015 report over the biased application of state anti-discrimination conversion laws, under which Christian preachers have been harassed and arrested, while no action has been taken against those who, by inducement or otherwise, force people to convert to Hinduism. Its report also drew attention to the increasing harassment of Muslims and Christians, particularly those who have converted to Christianity, with physical violence, arson and the desecration of churches and bibles. Although this highly respected US Commission on International Religious Freedom is allowed to function in countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and China, it is now banned from entering India.

Muslims in particular are targets of Hindu extremists and are routinely accused of spying for Pakistan, of being terrorists, of forcibly kidnapping and marrying Hindu women and of slaughtering cows. Muslim villages in remote areas, particularly in Bihar, are routinely attacked. Sadly, the police, as with the mass killing of Sikhs in 1984, are either silent spectators or active participants. Discrimination against religious minorities was prevalent, as Sikhs know too well, under successive Congress Governments. Under the BJP Government of Narendra Modi the increasing attacks on minority faiths have become more blatant and are accompanied by a disturbing silence of those in power.

Under Congress, discrimination against Sikhs was direct and brutal. In the run-up to the election that put him in power, Narendra Modi himself pointed out that the Congress Government were responsible for the mass killing of thousands of Sikh men, women, children and infants in 1984. A leaked American embassy document from 1984 revealed that more Sikhs were killed in just three days than the number of people killed in the 13 years of General Pinochet’s despotic rule in Chile. More recently, Prime Minister David Cameron, described the organised killing of Sikhs as,

“a stain on the post-independence history of India”.—[Official Report, Commons, 26/3/14; col. 348.]

Today, the pressure on Sikhs is more subtle but perhaps even more serious. It is nothing less than an attempt to dilute Sikh identity and absorb the community into the Hindu fold. Independent and forward-looking Sikh teachings on human rights and respect for other faiths were described by the writer George Bruce as a bridge between Hinduism and the Abrahamic faiths.

In India, a continuing attempt to erode Sikh identity began with the writing of India’s constitution in which Sikhs are—without their consent—described as a subset of Hinduism. There are other ways in which independent Sikh identity is under constant attack. In India today, people with Sikh names are increasingly shown in Bollywood films and TV soaps as villains wearing the distinctive Sikh kara—a bracelet of commitment to Sikh ideals. Sikhs are also frequently shown participating in Hindu religious ceremonies involving idol worship, contrary to Sikh teachings. In many ways, this subtle erosion of Sikh identity is more dangerous than the direct discrimination of Congress Governments.

Governments with large majorities have a tendency to develop a degree of arrogance that is dismissive of the views and concerns of others. This has become a real concern in India, with the Government becoming less tolerant of dissent of any sort. This was illustrated by government reaction to students at a New Delhi university who were stopped from demonstrating against the imposition of the death penalty on a Muslim convicted of terrorism. The Union Home Minister’s intolerance of dissent was evident in his comment that:

“If anyone shouts anti-India slogan and challenges nation’s sovereignty and integrity while living in India, they will not be tolerated or spared”.

He added, “I have instructed”—the police—

“to take strong action against the anti-India elements”.

The growing assault on freedom of speech has alarmed many in India from all walks of life. Recently, a number of prominent Indians honoured for their work in arts, science and business returned their awards as a protest against curbs on free speech.

Despite my concerns, I believe that India is a wonderful country that has a lot going for it. It is a country rich in talent with a vast pool of highly educated and qualified people in business, science and the arts. But to achieve its real potential, those in positions of authority should heed the words of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who declared that the care of minorities was more than a duty, it was a sacred trust. India has a lofty constitution with grandiose pledges of justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. It is a country that is home to many different faiths, but it cannot fulfil its full potential unless it takes its religious minorities with it. Sadly, there is no sign of this happening. What can, or should, Britain do about the deteriorating attitude to human rights and religious freedom in India?

Recent pronouncements by UK Ministers on human rights are not encouraging. To my disbelief, the Government Minister Michael Fallon, in the context of trade with China, actually declared that we should put human rights to one side when discussing trade. Our country rightly pushed for an international, independent inquiry into human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, a small trading country, but when I asked if the Government would press for a similar inquiry into the mass killing of Sikhs in India, a larger trading partner, I received the brusque reply that it was a matter for the Indian Government.

I have, as the Minister knows, asked the same question on half a dozen occasions, and got the same unhelpful response. Do the Government agree with the words of the great human rights activist, Dr Andrei Sakharov, that there can be no real peace in the world unless we are even-handed in our attitude to human rights? Britain has led the world in many enlightened ways. Today I appeal to our Government to move from the usual anodyne comment that we take human rights very seriously and be true to Dr Sakharov’s noble sentiment in giving a more robust condemnation to attacks on freedom of worship and human rights abuse, regardless of the country in which it occurs.

Baroness Berridge (Con):
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh, for securing today’s important debate. I declare an interest as a director of the Commonwealth Initiative for Freedom of Religion or Belief at the University of Birmingham, which works with Commonwealth parliamentarians to promote this vital freedom.

Most religions or beliefs of the Commonwealth are present in vast numbers in India. It has the potential to be a beacon within the Commonwealth, and across the world, for religious diversity and freedom. The predominant religion of the Commonwealth is Hinduism, a fact which derives directly from India’s membership. The Commonwealth’s second most widespread religion, Islam, is also well represented in India with 172 million people—the world’s third largest Muslim population. By 2050 India is predicted to have the largest Muslim population in the world. India currently has the world’s largest populations of Sikhs, Jains, and Zoroastrians, as well as substantial numbers of Christians and Buddhists and people of no religion at all. India has more people who are not Hindus—a quarter of a billion—than most countries have people. India’s religious diversity has always been part of its national identity and history.

The third century BCE Buddhist king Ashoka, who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent, is remembered for his edicts that did not seek to impose his Buddhist religion, but instead emphasised religious tolerance. Ashoka’s “Lion Capital”, with its four lions sitting back to back, is the state emblem of modern India. It is easy to trace the tolerant ideals of Ashoka to the secular ones of Gandhi, Nehru and the drafters of the modern Indian constitution. As Gandhi said:

“Free India will be no Hindu raj, it will be Indian raj based not on the majority of any religious sect or community but on the representatives of the whole people without distinction of religion”.

Articles 25 and 15 of the Indian constitution prohibit discrimination on grounds of religion and give the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. These articles reflect Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. India played a key role in drafting the universal declaration and is a party to the core international human rights conventions. India plays a vital role in promoting human rights across the Commonwealth, not least in its membership of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group.

This is not to pretend that religious tensions and violence do not exist in India today: there have been well-publicised incidents of religiously motivated violence and communal attacks. In January 2015 more than 5,000 people attacked the Muslim-majority village Azizpur in Bihar, setting 25 houses on fire and burning three Muslims alive, following the murder of a young Hindu man. Catholic communities have documented a number of serious incidents, including an arson attack on St Sebastian Catholic church in Delhi, Christmas carollers in Hyderabad being beaten badly by a mob, and a Catholic shopkeeper in Delhi being brutally attacked for displaying images of Jesus in the window of his store. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Singh, in his opening speech, about threats to the religious freedom of Indian Sikhs. However, India possesses the institutional resources to deal with such matters and must do so swiftly.

Article 18 explicitly states that freedom of religion or belief includes the freedom of everyone,

“to change his religion or belief”

It is concerning that a number of state Governments in India seek to enforce anti-conversion laws. As the noble Lord, Lord Singh, mentioned, coerced conversions or reconversions—of which there have been a number of allegations—are incompatible with Article 18, but so is a refusal to recognise a freely-chosen conversion to one religion from another. It is extremely encouraging, however, that the new High Commissioner, His Excellency Mr Navtej Sarna, is the first Sikh to hold such a post. I would be grateful if the Minister would consider discussions on Article 18 with His Excellency and others from among the 1.5 million members of the British Indian diaspora who are concerned about the future of India.

India looks like being one of the 21st century’s success stories, with the fastest-growing large economy in the world, which is lifting of millions of people out of poverty. Yet if it is to continue it must ensure that all of its citizens, from any and every religion and from no religion, have a stake in its prosperity. This requires upholding Article 18 and celebrating the religious pluralism and diversity that has characterised India throughout its history.

Lord Hussain (LD):
My Lords, India is the largest democracy, has a strong civil society, rigorous media and an independent judiciary, but also serious human rights concerns. I was reading the Human Rights Watch report 2016, which states that the Government did little in 2015 to implement promises by the newly-elected Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to improve respect for religious freedom, to protect the rights of women and children and to end abuse against marginalised communities. Even as the Prime Minister celebrated Indian democracy abroad, back home civil society groups faced increased harassment and government critics faced intimidation and law suits. Officials warned media against making what they called unsubstantiated allegations against the Government, saying that it weakened democracy. In several cases, courts reprimanded the Government for restricting free expression. According to the report, religious minorities, especially Muslims and Christians, accused the authorities of not doing enough to protect their rights. Some leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party made inflammatory remarks against minorities, and right-wing Hindu fringe groups threatened and harassed them and in some cases even attacked them.

It has been widely reported throughout the past many years that Hindu extremism in India is growing and the human rights and freedoms of Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Dalits are hugely being victimised through its activities and attacks. I read two news articles in the past two days relating to India; one of them stated that four Kashmiri Muslim students were attacked and charged for eating beef in Rajasthan. That is the kind of environment that people are having to live in. For eating something they like, they are not only attacked and beaten up but then charged. At the same time, I read that an American watchdog had been refused a visa to look into the freedoms and rights of religious communities in India. That shows the intention of the Indian Government. If they have nothing to hide, why would they not allow such independent organisations to look at what kind of religious freedom people are enjoying? India claims all the time that people from every religion come to live in peace in India and enjoy themselves. However, you only have to be either a Christian, a Muslim, a Sikh or a Dalit to find that out for yourself.

In particular, Muslims, who form the largest minority in India, are facing enormous pressure because of various laws. For example, Kashmir is the only Muslim majority state in India, where, as we all know, Indian forces have been since 1947. However, since 1990, they have continuously enjoyed immunity via the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, through which they are being given licence to kill. I bring this up in the debate on religious minorities’ rights because 99.9% of the victims suffering at the hands of the armed forces with immunity under that Act are Muslims. More than 100,000 people have been killed in the last 20 years by the armed forces. I know that there have been reports lately that some soldiers have been charged for wrongdoings in Kashmir, but that is only a token prosecution. When the Foreign Secretary next sees his counterpart in India, will he raise the issue of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and the immunity given to its forces in Kashmir? When will India take that away from them? When will it take the army back out of the cities and heavily populated areas?

Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB):
My Lords, I have the greatest possible respect for the sheer resilience and joy of the Indian people, and the fact that the country sustains such a vast and complex democracy. However, at the moment—as the noble Lord, Lord Singh, so eloquently argued—there are some real worries about the observance of basic human rights, especially the right to practise one’s religion.

On paper, India has an excellent secular constitution. As Amartya Sen has argued, “secular” here does not mean the banishment of religion from public life but the fact that all religions are treated, in theory, with equal respect and concern by the state and its institutions. However, in practice, because of certain Hindu extremist groups, there is sustained violence against Muslims, Sikhs and Christians. Human rights are indivisible, and my concern is with the freedom of all religions in India—Muslims and Sikhs as much as Christians, although I wish to focus on Christians for a few moments.

A new report from the Evangelical Fellowship of India documented 177 recorded attacks on Christians last year. Church services were stormed and Christian leaders harassed and assaulted. There were beatings and violence, including the rape of a 71 year-old nun. There were even reports of 18 church pastors being arrested. This, the report stressed, is a drop in the ocean because most cases are simply not recorded by the police or local government. These attacks on Christianity must also be understood in relation to the caste system, because many Christians are Dalits—the former untouchables. As is well known, Dalits suffer disproportionately by every possible criteria: the number of rapes, lack of clean water and sanitation, poverty, and inability to obtain justice from the police and judiciary. It should also be noted that Christian Dalits do not qualify for the positive discrimination measures that other Dalits enjoy, so they suffer twice—both as Dalits and as Christian Dalits. A full list of these gross injustices is being set out this month at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Not surprisingly, a good number of Dalit Hindus in the past sought to convert to Christianity or Buddhism. However, it should be noted—to the shame of the church—that caste has now also heavily infiltrated the church. The point here is that Christians are the object of attack by Hindu extremist groups, because these groups believe that they seek to attract converts from Hinduism by the promise of escape from the caste system. Whether this is true or not, it is very difficult for people to convert should they want to because of the threat of violence. Yet freedom to convert from one religion to another is fundamental to Article 18.

Mr Modi, in his younger days, was a member of the RSS, the main Hindu extremist group. He has not disowned that past, nor, as far as I am aware has there been a ringing condemnation of Hindu-inflicted violence against other religions. At the moment, there seems to be a culture of impunity, which can only poison the atmosphere further and lead to an increased number of attacks. Will the Minister, in our dealings with the Indian Government, call on Mr Modi to be clear, forceful and unequivocal in condemning these Hindu extremist groups, and firm in ensuring that perpetrators of religious violence are brought to justice? On too many occasions, there has been little or no action against criminals when the victims have been Christian Dalits or simply Christians.

There is one final aspect of this I wish to mention. I learn from people who know India well that NGOs are now being intimidated and are fearful of speaking out on this and other issues. Personnel who have links with foreign countries are having difficulty getting their visas renewed. In short, there is a growing climate of fear in which free speech is muffled and silenced. I hope that our Government will make it quite clear to the Indian Government that this is totally unacceptable.

Lord Sheikh (Con):
My Lords, I was born and raised in east Africa, but my father originated from the Punjab region of India. I am proud of my Indian roots. I have traced my family history back to 1812 and found out that one of my forefathers was a Minister in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s Government. I have just finished a book on the life of the Maharaja that will be published shortly. I mention this for a reason, as the Maharaja treated all his subjects equally and, irrespective of their racial or religious beliefs, they were treated very well. India has one of the oldest civilisations in the world and throughout its long history there has been an influx of different classes of people. As a result, India is a rich and diverse nation.

When India attained its independence, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad and other leaders made it very clear that India would be a secular state. As a Muslim, I would like to say that Maulana Azad was a man of vision and a very able First Minister of Education when India gained its independence. India is home to 1.3 billion people, who belong to all the major religions of the world. More than 780 languages are spoken there. We must recognise and appreciate the institutions that have developed within the country to support the rights of all citizens. It must be remembered that India has no state religion and that the state does not discriminate between religions. Additionally, the state cannot impose any tax to promote a religion or to maintain a religious institution.

The Indian constitution ensures that every citizen of India has the freedom to profess, practice and propagate his own religion. Therefore, citizens can follow their own religions and beliefs. We should all remember that India took an active role and was originally instrumental in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that we are discussing here today. India is fully committed to the rights laid out in the Universal Declaration, being a party to the six core human rights conventions. In India, every citizen has a right to invoke the highest court of the land directly where violation of fundamental rights is concerned, under Article 32 of the constitution. Furthermore, discrimination in public employment on grounds of religion is prohibited under the constitution.

India has its own National Commission for Minorities, which is mandated to recommend effective implementation to protect the interests of minorities by the central and state Governments. Since 1993, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Zoroastrians have been noted as minority communities. I stand here as a Muslim of Indian origin. Approximately 15% of the country is Muslim, totalling about 180 million people. I stress that recent terrorist attacks that have taken place within India, such as the Mumbai attacks, were not perpetrated by Indian Muslims.

Yesterday, I attended a function at the residence of his Excellency, the High Commissioner for India, to celebrate the presentation of his credentials to Her Majesty the Queen. The present High Commissioner of India, his Excellency Mr Navtej Sarna, is a Sikh. In a country such as India, it must be appreciated that in recent years there was at one time an Italian lady who was leader of the Congress Party, a Sikh Prime Minister, a Muslim President and a Hindu Vice-President. We must all appreciate that anyone can reach the top in India irrespective of their religious beliefs. However, we must also accept that there have been some aberrations on human rights, which we all abhor. I am sure that, with the will of the majority of Indians and the Government, these undesirable blips will be ironed out. I am confident of this. India is a great country and I am sure that it will overcome the occasional prejudicial and undesirable practices.

Lord Ahmed (Non-Afl):
My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Singh, for securing this debate and providing us with the opportunity of discussing this alarming situation in the so-called largest democracy in the world. Democracy without human rights, equality, fairness, rule of law and minority rights does not impress me. President Putin was democratically elected; Donald Trump is leading the race for the Republican Party presidential nomination in the US; Hitler was also democratically elected; and so were many others in history who had a terrible record in the treatment of religious minorities. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, with all due respect, that I disagree with him: India’s record on the treatment of religious minorities has been problematic for decades.

We are seeing, as many had predicted, disturbing new levels of threat emerging since the formation of the openly Hindu nationalist BJP Government led by Prime Minister Modi. There are almost daily reports of attacks, intimidation and marginalisation of religious minorities. In 2015, President Obama identified the risk of religious intolerance as a possible cause of India failing as a state The noble Lord, Lord Singh, mentioned the tens of thousands of victims of mass violence, against Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, where mobs widely believed to have official backing massacred, raped and looted with impunity.

In the past year Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made numerous international trips in the hope of boosting trade and India’s engagement in global affairs. However, this did not go as planned as India continued to vote poorly when it came to human rights issues at the United Nations. I accept India being involved with the UN declaration, but India abstained from the Human Rights Council’s resolution on Syria, North Korea and Ukraine and voted against resolutions on Iran and Belarus. India’s long-term determination to play a larger role in global affairs and Prime Minister Modi’s aspirations have been shot down because of India’s weak record on human rights, both at home and abroad.

Christian communities in India have faced discrimination, as we have heard, and religious violence over a period of time. For example, on 17 June 2014 in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, over 50 village councils adopted a resolution which banned all non-Hindu religious propaganda, prayers and speeches. In those communities this effectively criminalised the practice of Christianity for approximately 300 Christian families in the region. Many were also injured in the violence following that. Numerous incidents of violence have recently taken place in India over the consumption of beef, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, and many have been killed.

Lack of recognition of Sikhism as a distinct religion has gone on for too long. Article 25 of India’s constitution deems them to be Hindus for the purposes of religion and personal law. Sikhs’ efforts to amend that incredible, offensive and divisive article have been thwarted for decades. This has resulted in the prevention of members of the Sikh communities from accessing employment, social services and education, preferences available to other religious communities.

Sikh community members are reportedly harassed and pressured to reject religious practices and beliefs distinct to Sikhism. In October 2015, security forces in Punjab killed two Sikhs and injured scores more who were protesting peacefully against the desecration of Sri Guru Granth Sahib, which is the holy Sikh scripture. No action has been taken against those who committed this sacrilege or the security personnel who killed those innocent Sikhs.

The Indian Government has recently refused visas to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom; this denial of impartial international access proves that there is still a veil that the Government of India and Mr Modi do not want the world to lift. I think it is clear that India has been and remains in breach of its duty towards minority religions. Prime Minister Modi and his allies in hard-line Hindu groups, such as Vishva Hindu Parishad, Bajrang Dal and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, present a challenge to the international community. Do we confront this overt threat to tens of millions Christians, Muslims and Sikhs in India, or do we appease these extremist forces in the name of trade and profit? I urge the UK Government to make wiser choices and tailor its India policy towards the protection of internationally accepted religious freedoms. Backing India’s claim to a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, for example, is folly under present circumstances. Surely we should demand compliance with international law as a bare minimum price for such a prize.

Lord Popat (Con):
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh, for initiating this debate. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, outlined, India is a secular nation. India has a long and rich history of religious tolerance and its secularism is enshrined in its constitution. For millennia, India has been home to vast diversities, cultures and traditions. In the rich tapestry of Indian society, we see 780 languages and seven major religions. India’s commitment to the rule of law, democracy and human rights is as old as the nation itself.

Yet India also has a depressingly long list of incidents in which religious tensions have risen. Today’s debate could realistically have happened at any point in the past few decades and still reached worrying conclusions. While India’s diversity is one of its greatest strengths, it so often leads to moments of weakness. We should not pretend that religious tensions in India have come to the fore only recently, or under the BJP. Some, if not most, of the worst riots, including the Sikh massacre of 1984, which the noble Lord, Lord Singh, mentioned, were committed under the regime of the Congress Party.

“My government will ensure that there is complete freedom of faith and that everyone has the undeniable right to retain or adopt the religion of his or her choice without coercion or undue influence. My government will not allow any religious group, belonging to the majority or the minority, to incite hatred against others, overtly or covertly”.

Those were the words of Prime Minister Modi last year at an event honouring Catholic saints. A lot of what precedes this debate is a suspicion, held by some, that Prime Minister Modi may not be sound, that his past associations hint at a darker character. This suspicion has existed since before he was elected Prime Minister, often by the people who did not see eye to eye with him politically. Yet Modi could not have been clearer about where he stands. It is worth reminding ourselves that, when he was elected in 2014, he received considerable support from religious minority communities across India, including Muslim-dominated Jammu and Kashmir, because of his vision for India: to develop the nation economically, to build a cleaner India, and to help India emerge on the global scene.

In a young nation of 1.3 billion people, tensions will always arise. The best way in the long run for those tensions to be negated is to ensure that every person in India has access to a good education, that there are jobs for all people and that prosperity is available to all. Last year, for the first time since 1999, India overtook China on economic growth, helped by a reorientation of government spending towards needed public infrastructure, which helps all citizens. In the same way, we should condemn any acts of religious intolerance. As a Hindu, I absolutely condemn illegal actions taken in the name of my faith. We should also praise the Indian Government for the work they are doing to build a better India for all.

As an aside, we in Britain have to be very careful about how we, and other foreign nations, approach this topic. It is also not uncommon for us to have our own religiously motivated problems in the western world. We should also not lose sight of how these incidents are so often restricted to very small percentages of the population; nor should we forget India’s strong record of protecting small minority communities, such as the Jews and the Parsis. We must not be intolerant of the tolerance demonstrated by so many.

India is, relatively speaking, still a young nation, which is taking great strides to become an economically and socially developed nation welcome to all. I believe that, rather than see the glass as half-empty and focus only on the negatives, we must acknowledge that there is a tremendous amount of good happening in India, a lot of which is being led by the Indian Government. I believe Britain should be India’s—and Prime Minister Modi’s—partner. In the short term, we should take Modi at his word and support him in the desire to clamp down on religious intolerance, but we should also support him in the wider vision to build a prosperous and developed India.

Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab):
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh, for initiating this important debate. Countries that do not respect religious freedom invariably do not respect other basic human rights. Last weekend I listened to BBC Radio 4’s “Sunday” programme—I am a regular listener despite being a Humanist—during which a representative from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom was interviewed about being denied the opportunity to visit India to examine reports of religious discrimination and abuse.

In the commission’s recent annual report, it was suggested that incidents of religiously motivated and communal violence in India had increased for three consecutive years. NGOs and religious leaders, including leaders from the Muslim, Christian and Sikh communities, attributed the initial increase to religiously divisive campaigning in advance of the country’s general election.

However, as we have heard, despite election promises, Prime Minister Modi appears to have done little since the election to improve respect for religious freedom. As the noble Lord, Lord Singh, highlighted, religious minority communities have been subject to derogatory comments by politicians linked to the ruling BJP and numerous violent attacks and forced conversions.

The UK Government has placed a considerable importance on Prime Minister Modi’s promise of economic reform within India, but will the Minister say what representations have been made on the reportedly increasing levels of censorship in India? Has the High Commission in New Delhi paid any attention to human rights within India, especially with regard to freedom of speech and what media outlets in India claim are rising levels of state-backed attempts to curb dissent?

It is a regret that the penal codes legislated during British colonial rule still govern important parts of Indian life. One that I have raised in previous debates is Section 377, which criminalises homosexuality. Happily, India’s Supreme Court agreed last month to reconsider its stance on this. Another section, often overlooked and loosely defined, is Section 295A, under which a person can be threatened with a jail sentence for hurting the religious sentiments of another, however personal and bizarrely delicate that portrayed sentiment might be.

As we have heard in this debate, the Indian Constitution does not have any such imposition. This was confirmed in a 2014 judgment by the Supreme Court, which gave priority to the fundamental right of the people to express themselves as enshrined in the constitution. Again, as we have heard, some states still rely on that colonial penal code to impose penalties on religious minorities. Bearing in mind Britain’s responsibility for these laws, can I ask the Minister whether the Government have any plan to support and encourage training on human rights and religious freedom for the police and for the judiciary in India? Do the Government ensure that the issue of religious freedom is integrated into regular dialogue between India and the UK?

Once again, as we have heard, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office seems focused on what it called prosperity interventions in India, but what is being done on human rights since Prime Minister Modi came to power? The prosperity agenda and the lives and fundamental freedoms of people must never be part of a cynical trade-off. You cannot trade human rights with economic trade.

I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, on religious freedom in the Commonwealth. At last year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting the Commonwealth reaffirmed its commitment to promoting and protecting all human rights and fundamental freedoms, and to support the empowerment of women and girls. The leaders’ statement recognised the economic potential that can be unlocked by tackling discrimination and exclusion. What steps have the Government taken to raise with the Indian authorities the concerns highlighted in today’s debate about holding to the ideals of the Commonwealth, which, as we have heard, they were instrumental in setting? Despite the importance of the relationship with India, which I strongly respect, we must not shirk from raising human-rights issues if the country fails to adhere to domestic and international law.

The Earl of Courtown (Con):
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh, for his thought-provoking question and for the debate this evening.

The noble Lord’s commitment to building interfaith understanding reflects a key part of the deep ties between the United Kingdom and India. As other noble Lords remind us, this is the world’s biggest and oldest democracy, reinforcing their co-operation based on common traditions of tolerance and diversity. The noble Lord, Lord Singh, is a representative of a community that embodies the best of both countries, one that has made an impact in business, the professions and government, and which has much to teach the rest of us about our service and social obligations to help others. All noble Lords emphasise the point of wishing that this debate was drawn to the attention of a wider audience in the department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and I will ensure that it is made available to the relevant Minister in the department.

The noble Lord’s Question asked about the extent to which freedom of religious expression is being upheld. Article 25 of India’s constitution guarantees freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate religion. Last November, when they discussed the importance of fostering tolerance, Prime Minister Modi reassured my right honourable friend the Prime Minister that he governed for all Indians. At their joint press conference, Mr Modi made a point of saying that he upheld India’s traditions of tolerance and freedom. He repeated this message in his address to Parliament, which some noble Lords were able to attend.

We must, therefore, take note of the passionate views held on this subject, not least those of the 1.5 million British citizens of Indian origin. We all deplore—as have many in India—the desecration of the sacred text of any religion and acts of violence against any human being on grounds of their faith. It is also natural that many will have worried about the effect on their own families of recent events in Haryana, Punjab and at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Many—again both here and in India—are rightly horrified at the crimes inflicted upon innocent women and girls going about their daily lives.

Let us also remember that India provides great examples of tolerance and a celebration of diversity. The Indian Government are acutely aware of the challenges they face, as was noted by my noble friend Lord Popat. We should acknowledge their efforts to address violence against women and girls and their reaffirmation of religious freedoms, while encouraging further steps.

India is not short of robust independent institutions. Many have rightly praised the freedoms and safeguards set out in India’s constitution. The police and judiciary in India are independent and they do investigate abuses. The courts have upheld complaints by NGOs against the Executive. India’s Electoral Commission has successfully upheld the fundamental rights of the world’s largest electorate for nearly seven decades. Recent state election results are a reminder that political pluralism is still very much alive. India’s vibrant media help to maintain accountability and ensure that concerns and abuses are reported in India and beyond. Social media have given millions of Indians a voice. They are increasingly important tools for maintaining freedom of expression and preserving the right to critical debate, which is such a rich part of India’s culture.

The United Kingdom’s relationship with India is deep and wide-ranging. It is right that we seek to strengthen that relationship further. This is why we invited Prime Minister Modi to visit the United Kingdom last autumn. We see India as a key partner in many areas. We face common challenges in combating terrorism and countering violent extremism—India’s people and Government have been the victims of some of the most notorious terrorist acts. Our defence ties are mutually beneficial and growing. There is no denying that trade and investment are important too. The United Kingdom is the largest G20 investor in India, helping to create jobs for the estimated 1 million young Indians entering India’s job market every month. Indian companies invest more in the United Kingdom than in the rest of the European Union put together; the largest private sector employer in this country is an Indian company.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, and other noble Lords drew attention to our own human rights policy. Much has been made of the perceived changes in British foreign policy, of a greater emphasis on trade and investment supposedly at the expense of upholding human rights. It is simply not true, either globally or within our relationships with India. I have referred to this on many occasions in the Chamber at the Dispatch Box. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary noted in the Independent last December:

“Quiet and continued engagement behind the scenes, nurturing a relationship and not being afraid to raise testing issues in private can sometimes achieve surprising results”.

Lecturing people in public does not always work and can sometimes prove counterproductive.

The noble Lord, Lord Hussain, drew attention to Kashmir, as did other noble Lords. We recognise that there are human rights concerns in Kashmir. Any allegations of human rights abuses should be investigated thoroughly, promptly and transparently. We are also aware that in Indian-administered Kashmir the Public Safety Act and the Armed Forces Act provide for detention and house arrest without trial for up to two years. We are also aware of the concerns regarding allegations of immunity from prosecution for Indian Armed Forces personnel in Indian-administered Kashmir. There is also a mechanism which allows people to request that the Government of India investigate such concerns. We expect all states to ensure that their domestic laws are in line with international standards. Any allegations of human rights abuses must be investigated thoroughly, promptly and transparently.

The noble Lord, Lord Singh, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and my noble friend Lady Berridge drew attention to both attacks on Christians and human rights violations on Muslims. As I have said before, India’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion and belief. The attacks on churches in Delhi in 2015 have been investigated by Indian authorities. After the arson attacks, Prime Minister Modi stressed support for Article 25 of India’s constitution safeguarding freedom of expression.

As for the human rights attacks on Muslims recounted by the noble Lord, Lord Hussain, the United Kingdom engages on human rights matters with India, including religious freedom, both bilaterally and through EU-India human rights dialogue. The Indian authorities have investigated the murder of a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly eating beef in October 2015, and I understand that a number of arrests have been made.

The noble Lords, Lord Hussain and Lord Collins, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, also drew attention to NGOs. We are aware of the concerns that some Indian and international NGOs have about the use of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act by the Indian Government and are monitoring the situation closely. Greenpeace India has successfully challenged action taken against them under the FCRA in the Indian courts. This is the best way to address their concerns.

Returning to the issue of Kashmir, a number of noble Lords commented on the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. We are aware of those concerns and, as I said before, they were raised in the EU-India human rights dialogue.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, and others mentioned the harassment of civil society. The courts have upheld cases brought by NGOs against government, and it is important to remember India’s independent judiciary and free press, as I mentioned before.

The relationship between the United Kingdom and India is a partnership of equals. As I emphasised earlier, I will ensure that I pass on the comments made by noble Lords to my colleagues in the Foreign Office. The ties between our Governments, our Parliaments and our people are rich and wide-ranging. These ties between the oldest and largest democracies are the best way in which to help each other reinforce the common values that bind us together.

A special event was held last week in Nottinghamshire to commemorate the 400th Anniversary of the death of Thomas Helwys. Helwys was the founder of the Baptist denomination and has become known as a pioneer of religious liberty for all.

The event was organised by the Bassetlaw Christian Heritage Group and was hosted by The Well in Retford – the nearest Baptist church to Helwys’s most likely place of birth and part of his denomination since at least 1691, when Baptist churches first became legal.

There were two keynote speakers: Baroness Berridge of the Vale of Catmose, Co-Chair of the All Party Group on International Freedom of Religion and Belief, and The Revd Tony Peck, General Secretary of the European Baptist Federation (EBF) and an ordained Baptist minister. He has spoken widely on religious freedom and wrote a well-received report on the history of religious freedom in central Europe.

Tony Peck said “Thomas Helwys is rightly regarded as the pioneer Baptist leader. Today the global community of Baptists numbers around 100 million found in every continent and almost every country in the world. A community that in the 20th century produced evangelist Billy Graham and also that passionate advocate of civil rights and freedom for the oppressed, Martin Luther King. And one core value of Baptist identity all over the world has remained as a Baptist contribution to building a peaceful and tolerant society. That is a commitment to religious freedom for all, not just for ourselves. We owe that to the legacy of Thomas Helwys, even if we have not always lived up to the full extent of his vision.”

“In 1612 Helwys started the first Baptist church in England in Spitalfields in London. He had completed his book, “A Short Declaration of the Mistery of Iniquity’. [It] calls out a pure church to be ready for the final apocalypse. It may seem strange to us today that he does this by attacking every other church in England… To be honest this is not a book that appeals to our modern sensibilities for its literary grace or its ecumenical sensitivity. In that sense Thomas Helwys does not come across as a very tolerant man.

“But in the middle of all this polemic is a pure diamond. Helwys, in the most famous passage in the book, maintained that there should be religious freedom, freedom of conscience, freedom of worship for all of them. And more than that, there should be freedom for those of other faiths to worship and practise in freedom, and even toleration of those he terms ‘heretics’. This is what he wrote

For our Lord the King is but an earthly king, and he has no authority as a king in earthly causes. And if the king’s people be obedient and true subjects, obeying all human laws, our lord the king can require no more. For men’s religion to God is between God and themselves. The king shall not answer for it. Neither may the King judge between God and men. Let them be heretics, Jews or whatsoever, it appertains not to the earthly power to punish them in the least measure.

Read the speech in full

The All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief is holding an event:

Religion, Security & Foreign Policy

Hosted by Baroness Berridge & Jim Shannon MP
Monday 21st March 2016, 18:00-19:30
Committee Room 4, House of Lords

Cole Durham (BYU) and Dr. Peter Petkoff (Brunel and Regent’s Park College, Oxford) will be speaking in Parliament on the themes of Religious Freedom and Security as well as Religion and International Law in Foreign Policy.

Cole Durham is Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies since the Center was officially organised on January 1, 2000. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, where he was a Note Editor of the Harvard Law Review and Managing Editor of the Harvard International Law Journal. He is President of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS), based in Milan, Italy, and a Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion.

Dr. Peter Petkoff is a Law Lecturer at the Brunel Law School. He is also Director of the Religion, Law and International Relations Programme, a collaborative international research network at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, in which capacity he brings together lawyers, theologians, philosophers, and social and political scientists, to develop innovative interdisciplinary strategies for studying law, religion and international relations from legal and theological perspectives.

Sponsored by: APPG on International Freedom of Religion or Belief, Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, Brunel Law and Religion Research Group, Regent’s Park College, Oxford, Brigham Young University.

For more information contact Gurinder Singh Jhans