Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) urged the government to take new opportunities to prioritise freedom of religion.
The charity said the new Labour government had an opportunity to incorporate religious freedom into its foreign policy, following the previous government’s failure to prioritise it.
ACN petitioned the government to protect religious freedoms against increasing persecution worldwide at the launch of its latest Persecuted and Forgotten? report in Parliament on Tuesday.
Lord Alton of Liverpool addressed the launch, alongside Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, in Iraq. Lord Alton said it was “important for governments of whatever colour and shape” to recognise the importance of religious freedom, which was often a “canary in the mine” for other human rights.
Global and regional analysis by ACN researchers revealed that Christian persecution has intensified across most of the 18 countries surveyed, ranging from Latin America to the Far East, with the quickest escalation observed in Nicaragua.
The report detailed incidents including attacks on the Blessed Sacrament, massacres, and the abduction of women and girls in Egypt and Pakistan. Fr Stephen Ojapah, of the Missionary Society of Saint Paul of Nigeria, spoke at the launch on his own experience as a victim of kidnapping, as recorded in his book Tears and Torture: 33 Days in the Kidnappers’ Den.
ACN’s report revealed that “the epicentre of militant Islamist violence has shifted from the Middle East to Africa”, leading to the mass migration and destabilisation of many Christian communities across the continent.
The report followed an open letter encouraging the Foreign Secretary David Lammy, to prioritise UK Overseas Development Aid (ODA) for persecuted religious communities, amid religiously-motivated violence and oppression increasing worldwide.
“All around the world today, people are persecuted for no other reason than because of their peacefully held religious beliefs,” the letter said. “They urgently need the UK’s help.”
ACN encouraged Lammy to make use of the opportunities left by the previous government, which failed to prioritise religious minorities in its 10-year strategy for international development.
The four official priorities for ODA set out by the previous government were reliable investment, empowering women and girls, humanitarian assistance, and climate change, biodiversity and global health. ACN called for the addition of a priority for religious minorities.
John Pontifex, the charity’s head of press and public affairs, said religious minorities “are urgently in need of meaningful UK government support”.
He told The Tablet: “By making religious discrimination a priority area for ODA, the UK will send a strong signal to persecuted Christians and other minorities that they are not forgotten and give them the chance to break the cycle of disempowerment that blights their lives."
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