CAMPAIGNERS have voiced concern that no religious-freedom envoy has been announced in time to represent the UK at a global conference of presidency ministers, religious leaders, and civil-society figures on 10 October.
Furthermore, the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, said that the continued lack of a Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) risked squandering Britain’s status as a frontrunner in the sector.
Sources expressed concern that the shortage of appointment of a special envoy was the results of Downing Street politics or inertia on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO).
The International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief is on account of happen on Thursday, hosted by the German Government’s Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, and its Commissioner for Freedom of Religion or Belief, Frank Schwabe, in addition to the 38-member International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance (IRFBA). It will take a look at challenges posed by artificial intelligence, similar to increasing surveillance and transnational repression.
Until July, the IRFBA was chaired by Rishi Sunak’s Special Envoy for FoRB, the previous Conservative MP Fiona Bruce.
Sources told the Church Times that, within the absence of a special envoy, they understood that the UK Government might send Foreign Office officials who weren’t senior specialists in FoRB issues. The FCDO and Cabinet Office were contacted for comment.
Ben Rogers, a co-founder and trustee of Hong Kong Watch and the deputy chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, said that he was “upset and anxious” by the shortage of an appointment. “The British Government was considered one of the leading governments on the planet to prioritise freedom of faith or belief,” he said. Several prisoners of conscience had been released after Fiona Bruce and the IRFBA spoke up usually about their plight, he said. “International attention . . . actually may also help.”
Bishop Mounstephen said that it was “a really great shame” that a special envoy had not been appointed in time for the conference. “There is a danger of the UK losing hard-earned traction on this critical area [and] of the developing expertise on this area within the Foreign Office being lost and dissipated,” he said. The appointment “will definitely be noticed by concerned partners, including the US, and will likely be warmly welcomed internationally”.
Mervyn Thomas, the founder-president of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, who chairs the UK FoRB Forum, and is a member of the IRFBA’s council of experts, said that the shortage of an appointment was “very disappointing”.
In an interview published before the election, Sir Keir Starmer told Premier Christianity magazine that, if elected, “Labour will likely be a champion of non secular freedom”, but didn’t reply directly when asked about keeping the position of special envoy (News, 2 August).
The crossbench peer Lord Alton said: “An appointment is long overdue. The Ministerial in Berlin will likely be impoverished by the absence of a UK special envoy on FoRB. This is a problem around which the UK has built up global respect. It can be a tragedy for that to be squandered – not least for the hundreds of thousands of individuals that suffer for his or her religion or belief . . . this isn’t any fringe issue, but central to how we conduct our international policies.”
Mr Thomas praised Ms Bruce for increasing the dimensions of the IRFBA from 30 members to 38, and recalled that considered one of the recommendations of the 2019 review by Bishop Mounstephen, requested by the then Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, was that Britain should “articulate an aspiration to be the worldwide leader in championing FoRB”. “How can we, if we’re not on the Ministerial at a senior level?” Mr Thomas asked.
The review, during which Bishop Mounstephen assessed the Foreign Office’s record on religious freedom, makes, in Mr Thomas’s view, “an important blueprint for the way we go about tackling the abuse of freedom of faith or belief all over the world”. Its recommendations were accepted by the governments of Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Mr Sunak.
