Christian charities criticised the government for failing to prioritise religious freedom.
They expressed concern at its failure to appointment a replacement for Fiona Bruce as the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB).
Mrs Bruce stepped down from the role ahead of the election in July, in which she lost her parliamentary seat.
Christian leaders, including members of the the UK Freedom of Religion or Belief Forum, have urged the Foreign Secretary David Lammy to prioritise the appointment of the new envoy.
Mervyn Thomas, president of the charity Christian Solidarity Worldwide, said: “Myself and a number of others have certainly put in a lot of pressure. We’ve been urging David Lammy to treat this as a matter of urgency, but it hasn’t happened yet.
“I guess David Lammy’s got a lot on his plate at the moment, but nevertheless, it's extremely disappointing and we’re going to lose momentum.”
Stephen Schneck, the chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), told The Tablet that defending FoRB was integral to promoting all human rights.
“It is fundamentally important for parties of the left to recognise freedom of religion or belief,” he said, noting that both major parties in the US had reached a consensus on its importance.
Schneck, a Democrat appointment to the nine-member commission, explained that the USCIRF was established to provide “unflinching” advocacy of religious freedom in US foreign policy, though the State Department was not obliged to act on its recommendations.
The UK special envoy, a role created in 2018, performed a similar function. Under the last government, Bruce brought forward a bill supported by the government to put the role on a statutory footing. The bill reached the report stage, but was not passed before the election.
A spokesperson from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told The Tablet: “We will continue to use the strength of our global diplomatic network and our position at the UN, G7, and other forums to promote and protect freedom of religion or belief around the world.”
The lack of a special envoy to attend the 2024 International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief in Berlin last week led the Anglican Bishop of Winchester Philip Mounstephen – whose 2019 recommendations to the FCDO said the post should be made permanent – to warn that the UK was in danger of “losing hard-earned traction in this critical area”.
The FCDO said that officials responsible for FoRB had attended the conference for the UK government.
Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) addressed an open letter to the foreign secretary last week. It called for “persecuted religious communities [to be made] priority recipients of UK Overseas Development Aid” amid a growth in religiously-motivated oppression worldwide, according to ACN research.
It criticised the previous government’s failure to mention religious minorities among the four priorities of its international development plan, which included humanitarian assistance and climate change.
ACN urged the Foreign Secretary to include a fifth priority in the plan centring on religious minorities, and called for the “publication of a standalone religious freedom strategy to outline the most effective means of aid deployment to victims of religious discrimination and persecution”.
John Pontifex, ACN’s head of press and public affairs, said: “For so many years, governments and officials have tended to have a ‘faith blind’ approach, overlooking the degree to which religious hatred and discrimination are significant drivers of extreme poverty, joblessness, sexual violence and other forms of torture.
“This new government has an excellent opportunity to address one of the largest, most egregious injustices facing the world today. By making religious minorities target beneficiaries of ODA, the UK can play a leading role in alleviating the plight of countless innocent people suffering around the world merely for their faith.”
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