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Iraq: Minorities

My Lords, we all owe a debt of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Hylton for securing this debate on a subject which has been seriously neglected. For various minority groups, including the Christians of various traditions, the situation is extremely grave and I will be echoing and endorsing all those concerns expressed by previous speakers. As has been said, there has been a Christian presence in Iraq since the first century. The country's Christians now comprise about 3 per cent of the Iraqi population, about 85 per cent of whom belong to the Assyrian tradition. They face severe pressures and are under such threat that their very survival is at risk. They face danger daily. Many have already been killed, kidnapped or subjected to such intimidation that they have fled the country to exile in Jordan, Syria or further afield. The first co-ordinated attacks against churches occurred in August 2004. Further attacks have followed. Many of the attacks involve physical violence in which Christians have been killed and others intimidated, for example, with letters warning, "You are not wanted here". Christians have been targeted for various reasons, and partly because they suffer a double stigma. On the one hand, they were seen as favoured protégés of Saddam, who needed their knowledge and skills. On the other, they are now seen as guilty of association with the coalition forces and thus defined by militant Muslims as "modern-day crusaders". Also many Iraqi Christians were educated at Christian schools, where they learnt languages needed for work as translators for the coalition forces. These characteristics legitimise, for some, the killing of Christians and attacks on Christian property. Christians are also vulnerable because they do not belong to large tribes and have relativity little familial protection. Widespread kidnapping is another major problem. Christians are particularly vulnerable here because of their faith and also because they are deemed to be sufficiently wealthy to pay the ransom and to have access to western sources for funds for paying for their freedom. In some cases, a victim was killed if his family had difficulty raising the necessary money. Therefore some Church leaders are afraid to travel to visit their communities for fear of kidnapping. Another very serious problem confronts the Christian community: the fear that the proposed constitution will not allow freedom of worship. Despite assurances by the Transitional National Assembly that the rights of minorities will be protected, proposals to combine Sharia with the so-called "best of the west" in democracy and protection of the rights of minorities are untenable. By its nature, Islamic Sharia law violates fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—such as the principle of equality before the law and freedom to choose and change religion. As it has been applied over the centuries, Sharia does not allow equality before the law between men and women or between Muslims and non-Muslims. Moreover, while Sharia allows freedom to choose to become a Muslim, that is a one-way street. The decision to convert from Islam is apostasy, punishable by death—dictated by Sharia court, the family or local community. Therefore, Sharia law would have further devastating effects on the rights and freedoms of Christian and other non-Muslim communities in Iraq. One needs only to consider the situation in places such as northern Nigeria, where I was last week, or Pakistan, to understand how serious would be the effects of Iraq adopting a Sharia-based constitution. Last year, I happened to be speaking at an inter-faith conference, where I voiced my concerns about Sharia. I was the first speaker to raise that potentially sensitive subject and I did so with trepidation, worried lest I should offend Muslims present, especially a sizeable group of devout Muslim women from Iraq. After my presentation, I went up to them to apologise in case I had upset them. Their response was unequivocal and enthusiastic: to my surprise, they said that before I spoke, they had begun to think they were wasting their time coming to the conference. They said that they were grateful to me, because I was the only speaker to raise the issues that really mattered to them, including the question of Sharia law. They then added emphatically, to my great surprise, "We hate Sharia". Such passionate feelings about Sharia and its implications for the rights of women have been echoed by other Muslim women—the famous writer, Irshad Manji and the Dutch Member of Parliament, Hirsan Ali. I therefore very much hope that not only Christians' anxieties about Sharia law will be taken into account but those of other Iraqi citizens, especially women. I therefore ask whether the Government will demonstrate a much stronger commitment to the fundamental rights of minorities, including the Christian communities, by putting more pressure on the Iraqi authorities to provide systematic protection for all minorities, so that all can live, work and worship in peace and safety. Will the Government undertake to put pressure on the Iraqi authorities to resist any form of Sharia law, which would inevitably curtail the rights of non-Muslims and of women, as well as denying the fundamental freedom to choose and change religion? The Christians and other minorities in Iraq feel severely let down by the international community—primarily, perhaps, by the United Kingdom and the United States. It is essential that Britain and America act, and act quickly, to protect the Christians and other vulnerable minorities. We have a particular responsibility to do so, because the present situation is a direct result of American and British intervention. We must therefore accept responsibility and do much more to reverse the spiral of violence in which minorities feel increasingly vulnerable. Unless Britain and America take appropriate action, we will be responsible for a situation which may deteriorate to such an extent that Iraq will join the tragic catalogue of countries in that part of the world where the rights of minorities, including Christians, are not respected or protected and they are left so vulnerable that their communities wither on the vine and their people emigrate, leaving a land bereft of the priceless traditions of cultural diversity and religious tolerance. That would be a tragic outcome and a betrayal of the principles for which the United States and United Kingdom went to war and continue to engage. Religious freedom and the rights of all minorities must be the touchstone of success or failure of that engagement.