Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 13 May 2014

Oral evidence, 13 May 2014.

Witness

Professor Malcolm Evans OBE, Professor of Public International Law, University of Bristol, gave evidence.

Chair

Welcome, Professor Malcolm Evans, and thank you very much for joining us. The Committee is now focusing on the Government’s work to promote freedom of religion and belief. Perhaps I may start off before handing over to colleagues. The Foreign Office has stated that it has ramped up its efforts to promote freedom of religion or belief in recent months in response to what it calls a “rising tide of restrictions.” In your view, Professor, has the situation worsened in reality, or are we just more aware of persecution restrictions?

Professor Evans

It is very difficult to know whether it is just greater awareness, but all the evidence seems to suggest that there is a greater realisation, perhaps, of those things that ought to be understood as being a form of—let us call it—violations of the freedoms of religion and belief. For many of the things, which perhaps in the past were considered to be just the way things were, their effect and the impact they may have on the enjoyment of freedom of religion and belief is probably now better understood, so I would think that that is one of the things that are contributing towards that, but that is only part of the story. At the same time, there seem to be increasing reports and evidence of what is properly called a rising tide of difficulties around the enjoyment of this belief around the world today. Clearly, better knowledge and reporting is an element of that, but it would be right to think that this is an increasing problem.

Chair

Are there particular parts of the world where this is an increasing problem? Is it a trend in the Middle East, for example?

Professor Evans

From what we can see, there is clearly evidence of considerably less tolerance and co-existence between religious communities in countries where historically, although there have been major differences of approach, there appears to have been tolerance and co-existence for many years. We also see an increasing number of states introducing laws on blasphemy, and so on and so forth, in a way that can be used in a negative fashion. My own particular area of focus is not so much on country-specific situations, but the way this has been handled through international organisations and institutions at an international level.

Chair

So to take you up on your area of expertise, how would you assess what the Foreign Office is doing? Do you think it is doing the right kind of thing? What more could it be doing?

Professor Evans

The first thing to say is that I have been working in this area for over 20 years now as an academic, and as an academic who has involved himself in the practical end of international protection. I have no hesitation at all in saying that the position being taken by the Foreign Office at the moment is probably the most robust it has been throughout all that time. That is the first thing to be quite clear about. The inclusion of freedom of religion and belief as a Foreign Office thematic priority, as it currently is and has been for the last couple of years now, frankly would have seemed unachievable a number of years ago. So the fact that it has achieved that level of prominence and focus is to be greatly welcomed. That being said, the question is how that translates over into action in practice and whether more can be done to make that focus a reality. I think there is.

Chair

Okay, so could you give us some concrete examples of what more the Foreign Office could be doing?

Professor Evans

One thing that is much talked about is the idea of mainstreaming the theme within other areas of activity across the Foreign Office. That is said to be being done; I think moves are being made in that direction. As I understand it, new training is taking place in an attempt to raise what is increasingly called “religious literacy”—that is rather an unfortunate way of putting it, but I think we know what we mean—among those working within the Foreign Office, certainly here in London. The extent to which that is capable of being replicated in the work being done around the world is slightly more problematic. The way in which the Foreign Office configures some of its aid and assistance programmes could be better in this regard. For example, the human rights development programme operates on an annual application cycle. If you are going to make meaningful impacts in an area such as this where much of it is based on building bridges between communities, Governments and sensitising awareness-raising, the time frame for effective realisation of projects will almost certainly have to be longer than this to have the impact that it should. Whether it is possible to look at the way that those schemes are configured in order to give them a greater chance of impact is something that could be done. That is one concrete example.

Chair

Do you reckon that individual embassies really understand how to do this work? Are there challenges for the Foreign Office in being seen as a credible actor? Will people in the Middle East, for example, really see the British Government as an independent actor on religion?

Professor Evans

It is always a difficulty when embassies are involved in any programme of this nature, no matter what the field, so in one sense I don’t know that the challenges are that much greater than they are in any other area, but I do think they are somewhat greater than in other areas. One of the problems, in my view—to go back to the way that fund is configured—is, for example, that applications need to be in conjunction with the various embassies. If you are a group that is looking to put in for project support, yet you have to be talking to a foreign Government to be able to configure this, that could be a big disincentive, particularly in such a sensitive area as this. One of the consequences of that can also be that you might unwittingly be giving aid to those who have a degree of—shall we say—Government sanction and are therefore perhaps not the most appropriate partners and lack credibility in the eyes of some within a country. So I think there are some structural issues around the way in which both the programme is configured and is being attempted to be delivered—which is just endemic in the way that the thing is structured—which may play out less than optimally, shall we say, in the context of its work on freedom of religion and belief compared with other areas.

Chair

Thank you very much, Professor Evans.

Sandra Osborne

Just before I ask the question I was going to ask, could I just ask about the UK itself? We know that all religions can be subject to discrimination, persecution or whatever throughout the world, but there is quite a strong feeling in this country about persecution against Christians at the moment. I have certainly noticed a big increase in my postbag, with people writing to me about North Korea, the Middle East and other areas where Christians are being persecuted. Does the Foreign Office engage with the Churches in this country about how they could assist with this problem abroad or, indeed, with the Muslim community and other religions in the country? Are there connections between the different religions and the Foreign Office on this particular issue?

Professor Evans

I cannot speak for the full range of contacts that the Foreign Office has in this regard. One of the difficulties that I know in the past the Foreign Office has had—as many have when engaging with religious communities on such issues—is that of selectivity. There are a large number of religious communities, and one of the great difficulties in this area is knowing who you speak to, because the moment that you start speaking to some, others wonder why you are not speaking to them, and so on and so forth. I think these were used as reasons in the past perhaps not to do this as much as has been done; I think now there are attempts to do this in a meaningful fashion. I believe that there are attempts to have meaningful engagement with faith and belief communities—I should stress: it is belief as well as faith communities—in this country around international engagement with freedom of religion and belief, and I think that is a positive. One of the difficulties is knowing how to structure this effectively. I think perhaps there is scope for listening more to those communities and knowing how they can best input into these conversations.

Sandra Osborne

How much infringement of religious freedom in the world is due to official state policy and how much is state-tolerated activity conducted by others?

Professor Evans

Of course, a lot of the violence and persecution that takes place is not necessarily mediated by the state, but it is a fine line to draw between that which is state-imposed, shall we say, and that which is state-tolerated, and tolerance of known likelihood of abuse is tantamount to the same thing in many instances, so I’m not sure that it’s very easy to make that distinction. A lot depends on what we mean by “violations”. Many of the violations that seriously impact on religious believers around the world are the result of legislative frameworks that are perhaps difficultly drawn together. For example, in many countries it is still difficult to get legal personality if you are a religious organisation, or there might be very real difficulties in attaining legal status, which may make it very difficult to be able to own property, for example, and places of worship. In some, if you don’t have a legal personality or are not officially recognised according to some strict criteria, and even the very practice of religion is unlawful in that country. A lot of things flow on from that and those sorts of restrictions clearly are state-sponsored in that sense, as is the way that some restrictive laws on apostasy, blasphemy and so on play out in other countries. But in other places, of course, it tends to be more acquiescence in traditional rivalries and hostilities which Governments at different times have encouraged when it suits their interests, frankly. It is difficult to be more precise than that, I am afraid.

Sandra Osborne

Do you think that the FCO should prioritise its resources on tackling persecution of a certain kind?

Professor Evans

I have grave reservations about the entire approach of focusing on persecution as the way into dealing with the problem. Persecutions in many ways form the backdrop to the issues that need to be addressed, but whether focusing on dealing with particular instances of persecutions is the focus for action I think, in many ways, has proven to be ill-founded. We have seen that in other areas where there has been a focus on anti-Semitism then being matched by claims that we ought to be focusing on Islamophobia that lead on to claims that we ought to be focusing on Christianophobia and so on. There is a danger—I have seen this in some international organisations that I have worked in, particularly the OSCE—that, frankly, religious groups almost end up competing for the position of most persecuted group to try to attract attention. That is obviously borne out of a genuine concern for the way in which their co-believers are being treated, but it also makes it more difficult for the international community and others to engage with them. The reason for this is that, when you do, it appears that you are taking sides and supporting some groups as opposed to others. The argument that I would always advance is that it is important to build on the idea of the freedom of religion and belief as a positive good to be enjoyed by all, rather than focusing on particular vulnerable groups as the only point of attention. Clearly, when some groups are being targeted, their concerns need to be dealt with, but it must be within this broader overall framework if it is to be effective, in my view.

Ann Clwyd

What about when religious beliefs impinge on the protection and promotion of other human rights, such as women’s rights and LGBT rights?

Professor Evans

I have to say that this is a question that is rightly raised frequently, but I am always caused to reflect that it is not a question that is raised in other areas in quite the same way. For example, I do a lot of work in the area of torture, torture prevention, prison conditions and so on, yet I have never heard anybody say that one of the reasons why we ought to be cautious or raise issues about ensuring that detainees are not subject to torture and ill-treatment is because these people might have been responsible for violations of the rights of others. I think that we need to be careful in going down this route. Clearly there are very real issues concerning how some believers in the name of their religion do things that tread upon the rights of others, but this is no different from what happens in many other walks of life, and we must not lose sight of the fact that we are not talking here about the rights of religions, but the individual rights of believers. They are certainly to be put in no lesser position than the other legitimate rights of women, LGBT and others. While we must be properly careful to ensure that the rights of all peoples are respected, we must not inadvertently use that as a reason for de-prioritising the legitimate rights of people to enjoy their own freedom of religion and belief.

Mike Gapes

I have two questions, one of which follows on from our earlier evidence session. As you were speaking, it struck me that one country that we were discussing earlier was Bahrain. On the one hand, there are human rights difficulties there but, on the other hand, if you are Jewish or Christian, it is one of the few countries in the Muslim Arab world where you are free to practise your religion with no difficulties whatsoever. In fact, members of the legislative system come from those religious minorities. Clearly there is no blanket overall position, and places considered to have poor human rights in one way may not in others, and yet, in some countries where we might think they are making progress, you cannot really practise your religion at all. Would you like to comment on that thought?

Professor Evans

Indeed, yes; you are absolutely right. One of the regrettable truths in the human rights sphere is that I do not know that any country can really be seen to be—shall we say—level across all areas. It has always been the way that some countries perhaps—if you want to use the expression—score better in relation to others for a whole host of historical, social, cultural or other reasons. I think that is one of the difficulties of seeing human rights in terms of a scorecard, and one of the difficulties with league tables and indicators—it all depends what you choose to weight. I think that, again, reflects the idea that you are viewing it from a country-compliance perspective, rather than what I think ought to be the way, which is looking at the extent to which individuals are able to enjoy the particular right in question. If you view it from the point of view of whether an individual is able to exercise their right of freedom of religion and belief, rather than the general state in regard to other countries within an overall envelope, you get a better focus. Of course I am entirely alive to the reality that, from a Foreign Office and from a diplomatic perspective, one has to deal with the totality, but this is one of the reasons for arguing for quite sharp and better focused instruments at least to make sure that issues of freedom of religion and belief are properly brought to that table. At the moment, although there is a willingness to do so, whether the tools are in place for that is, I think, a matter that needs to be reflected on.

Mike Gapes

My second question is not related. A few years ago, the United Nations established a so-called “dialogue of civilisations”, and Jorge Sampaio, who was the President of Portugal, was put in the lead role in that. In the previous incarnation of this Committee we actually visited him when we were in Lisbon and talked about that activity and organisation. Has that had any impact or progress? They had various meetings where leaders of different faiths came together, globally. Has that had any impact in terms of what is happening down below, or is it just like a lot of international events where good people make declarations, but members of their organisations then carry out bad things afterwards?

Professor Evans

Regrettably, I think there is inevitably a lot of truth in the last observation that you made. At the same time, I do not want to downplay the importance of these important, high-level and symbolic occasions and processes. The question is: how are they translated into practical action? I think that is the critical question that one really should be focusing on, because there are still quite a lot of what I would call important and potentially productive—shall we say—symbolic engagements taking place, but will they then be picked up and taken forward in a concrete and practical way? You mention the alliance of civilisations, and that was partly designed to defuse the tensions in this area around the very difficult issue of the defamation of religions debate, which you may be familiar with. This was the difficult idea that what is an individual freedom of individuals’ religions should be spun over into the protection of religions as an organised entity, so those who speak ill of a religion in some ways could be subject to a legal process, criminalising hate speech against not individuals but religions. This debate has been dominant in the international arena for the past 10 to 12 years. The alliance of civilisations debate was, at least in part, designed perhaps to defuse that, but did not really prove a good route to do it. The defusing then spilled over into something that figures heavily in the Foreign Office report, which is the process around what is called resolution 1618, and now the Istanbul process, which is a process designed perhaps to take the heat out of the defamation of religions debate by focusing on questions of incitement of religious hatred and of violence as the conceptual route through which to deal with this problem. While I think that that is an important step forward, it is by no means the entire picture. I think one of the things we need to be vigilant about is that the entire question of freedom of religion and belief does not get caught up in narrow debates on ultimately negative contexts about how we avoid religious stereotyping and how we combat discrimination and hate speech. All these things are very important, but if that is all that we are doing, we are rather missing the broader issue about how we actually ensure that people, on a more mundane, day-to-day basis, are able to enjoy their freedom of religion and belief in the way that I mentioned.

Mike Gapes

Can I just ask a follow-up question? You referred in an earlier answer to the question of people being regarded as apostates. Clearly some groups—certainly within Islam—are regarded as apostates. Ahmadiyya Muslims are discriminated against in Saudi Arabia and in Pakistan. There are the Baha’is in Iran, and there are clearly other groups. Is the problem that there is no agreed definition of what is a religion?

Professor Evans

Getting a definition of what is a religion is always going to be a difficult thing—I think we all understand that—but we also have great difficulties defining other things we seem happy to work with, such as minorities, national minorities and so on. The difficulty of defining a religion ought not to quite stand in the way. We must remember we are not talking only about religion, but about religion and belief, so we are also talking about those who do not subscribe to religious forms of belief, and atheists and others are protected by these norms. The real difficulty that many have in this area is that there is just a lack of normative substance around what the freedom of religion and belief actually entails in practice. It is hugely notable that, compared with many—indeed most—other areas of human rights, such as rights of the child, women’s rights and racial discrimination, there has really been no serious attempt in the last 45 years or more to try to lend greater specificity to what the freedom of religion and belief actually means. We have the statement in the universal declaration, and we have the international covenant on civil and political rights. The normal route would then be to devise an international convention that would take this matter forward. This was first instigated in the 1960s and then put on ice in the mid-1960s, and the received wisdom is that it would be premature to return to it, because it is a little bit difficult. This is exactly what is always said. Perhaps the more positive argument not to do such a thing is that it would be very risky to do so, because it would risk unsettling the consensus that currently exists around what we have, but the trouble with that argument is that when we look to the introductory comment about the “rising tide” and so on, this so-called consensus does not seem to be delivering very well for more and more people, so there is at least an argument that we are trying to defend a consensus which, if it exists at all, is ineffectual in delivering what it is meant to achieve. So the risks may not be as great as they appear after all. Be that as it may, the point remains that there is this—shall we say—severe lack of understanding within the international community about what, practically, freedom of religion and belief means, in a way that is not true of other rights. Of course, this makes things difficult for the Foreign Office and anyone else trying to work towards its implementation.

Chair

Professor, talking about organisations and their rules, I am afraid we have to remain quorate, and, at some point, a couple of our colleagues are going to have to go and see the Egyptian Foreign Minister, so I want quickly to bring in Sandra Osborne for a final question.

Sandra Osborne

Going back to what you said about priorities, what do you think about the research by the Pew Research Centre, which said that Christians are now the most persecuted faith group in the world? Do you think that is grounds for the FCO to prioritise its efforts to confront that trend, or would that undermine its encouragement of a cross-faith response to persecution?

Professor Evans

I am not sure that it needs to be the most prevalent form of persecution to justify this being a course of activity. I would take the view that any form of known persecution of persons on the basis of their freedom of religion and belief should justify concerted policy action, not only because of the importance of the right, but because of all the other things that it feeds into. The research that you mention also points to increasing evidence of the extent to which, in those countries where freedom of religion and belief is not enjoyed, there is more likely to be a multiplicity of other forms of human rights violations, and also poor governance and poor opportunity for economic growth. There is an increasing understanding that, actually, the enjoyment of freedom of religion and belief from a human rights perspective is a key to releasing a much broader range of goods within a community in terms of the enjoyment of all rights, but also economic rights, economic development, and stability and security.

Sandra Osborne

But do you agree with the assertion that Christians are now the most persecuted faith group in the world? That is what they are saying.

Professor Evans

They are certainly saying that. I am not in a position to—nor would I wish to—contest that. All I would say is that, once again, this shows that this is a very serious phenomenon that, frankly, I do not believe has been taken seriously by enough people over the last 30 or 40 years. That is why I welcome the new focus that the Foreign Office is bringing to this, but I do think that it needs to think through precisely what making this a policy focus actually means in terms of concrete action and activity.

Chair

Professor, thank you so much. I am afraid we have a couple more questions that we will send in writing, if that is okay, just in case you have a chance to respond to them in a written submission. We are very grateful for your time and apologise that the Division bell has cut down the time that we could have had with you. We look forward to seeing you, I hope, in the future. Thank you very much indeed.

Professor Evans

Thank you. Oral evidence: The FCO’s human rights work in 2013, HC 1281 26