Baroness Cox has contributed today’s Credo in The Times: Don’t walk on by: the persecuted of all creeds need you Some passages in the Bible resound with what I think of as a “reverse echo”. Like an echo, they reverberate through the generations, repeating the same message, but unlike an echo, whose sound becomes fainter…
“My husband Raif Badawi was punished with 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes for voicing his opinion on a blog. Now I hear he could even be executed — but in 48 hours, Germany’s Minister of Economic Affairs Sigmar Gabriel will travel to Saudi Arabia and a huge call from all of us can…
The Bishop of Coventry wrote under this heading in The Sunday Express on 22 February: THE PEOPLE of the Cross, the followers of the hostile Egyptian Church… That is how IS militants described the 21 Coptic Christians they captured, murdered then publicised around the world a week ago. This is the latest in an increasingly…
The All Party Parliamentary Groups for International Freedom of Religion or Belief and Christians in Parliament are launching their Joint Report on The Persecution of Christians in Iran on Tuesday 10th March 2015 at 3pm – 4.30pm. The venue is Committee Room 19 of the House of Commons, and the special guest speaker is Tobias Ellwood MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary…
The Guardian has reported that families in Turkey are finding it increasingly difficult to find a school for their children that does not teach Sunni Islamic religion and Sunni religious practices. Critics have suggested that the government of the ruling Turkish Justice and Development party (AKP) is seeking to reshape the system along Sunni Islamic…
Baroness Berridge, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief, has spoken out against the verdict of an Islamic court in Saudi Arabia which sentenced a man to death after he posted an online video of himself ripping up a copy of the Koran. “Article 18 of the Universal Declaration…
Despite democratic reforms and international pressure that have pushed Burma to improve its human rights record in recent years, religious freedom remains heavily constrained across the country, reports The Huffington Post. The persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority in this majority Buddhist country has attracted much international media and foreign policy attention. But in Chin State,…
World Watch Monitor reports that sources from Syria’s embattled Hassaka province confirmed at midnight on Tuesday, Feb. 24, that at least 72 Assyrian Christian families – thought to be around 200 people – from three villages have been captured by the self-proclaimed Islamic State. Reportedly taken to the Arab Sunni village of Um Al-Masamier, the…
Brussels has done virtually nothing about Hungary’s problematic laws and practices concerning human rights since the European Commission in March 2014 created a “rule of law” measure to address serious abuses in EU member states, Human Rights Watch said in a report released recently. The five-page Human Rights Watch report identifies a range of outstanding…
On 10 February Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws asked Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to investigate breaches of international law by state and non-state actors in Syria with regard to sexual and gender-based violence and persecution of minorities. The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con) replied:…