BY Liz Leydon | June 7 | 
0 COMMENTS 
print
Make religious freedom a foreign policy priority
The Conservative Party Human Rights Commission is urging the UK Government to place religious freedom with human rights at the heart of its foreign policy.
The commission’s report on religious freedom, launched this evening by its new chairman Robert Buckland MP, is the result of an inquiry into religious freedom worldwide, with a focus on religious groups who experience particularly virulent persecution.
The news follows criticism from Britian’s most senior Catholic clergyman, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, in March of the government carrying out an ‘anti-Christian’ foreign policy because of it plans to double overseas aid to Pakistan to more than £445 million while seeking no assurances of religious freedom in the country.
Last month Neville Kyrke-Smith of Aid to the Church in Need (UK) also called on the UK Government to uphold human rights and religious freedom as part of its commitment to overseas aid.
He said that action to protect minority groups—including Christians —’must be part of the dialogue’ with countries receiving urgent humanitarian help.
Free Tibet evidence to the commission makes clear that although visitors to Tibet may be impressed by outward signs of a thriving religion, this picturesque appearance masks violations of religious freedom by the Chinese administration which makes it virtually impossible for Tibetans to practise their religion in a meaningful way.
The commission is also calling on the UK government to urge China to ‘end the vilification of the Dalai Lama.’
Pic: Cardinal Keith O’Brien and Neville Kyrke-Smith of Aid to the Church in Need
RSS Feeds