Christian refugees have been assaulted in refugee camps. Reuters
ishtartv.com - christiantoday.com
Harry Farley, Journalist 19 January 2017
"Serial
reluctance" to intervene by the UK government and other western powers has
worsened the plight of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle
East, a damning report claims.
A
cross-party coalition of senior politicians, including the former Archbishop of
Canterbury Lord Carey, has written to the Prime Minister this week urging her
to support the world's oldest Christian civilisations. Their intervention comes
after a joint report by 15 charities accused Theresa May of overseeing
"very effective discrimination against those who have been the victims of
genocidal violence".
In a
startling letter sent to Number 10 this week, 13 MPs from across the major
parties and nine peers co-signed a letter warning that without immediate help,
"Christians and other minorities will be all but driven out of the Middle
East".
They
say "political correctness" has prevented aid agencies and
governments from helping Christians and others religious minorities whose faith
makes their status worse.
"The
West (since the middle of last century) has been broadly unwilling to associate
specifically with Christians.
"Furthermore,
the Christian and other minority populations are not positively considered in
the international humanitarian and development planning and are therefore
missing out."
They
add: "We hope that a political and humanitarian lifeline would now be
extended to the Christians and other religious 'minorities' who are caught up
in the terrible conflict throughout the Middle East."
As
well as Lord Carey, the signatories include the crossbench peers Lord Alton and
Baroness Cox as well as MPs from a rang of parties including Jeremy Lefroy, Conservative
MP for Stafford, Keith Vaz, Labour MP for Leicester East, Gary Streeter,
Conservative MP for South West Devon, Rob Flello, Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent
South and Philippa Whitford, SNP MP for Central Ayreshire.
The
letter was sent on Wednesday and is also signed by a host of faith leaders
including heads of Orthodox, Catholic, Coptic and Armenian Churches.
It
accompanies a report from an alliance of charities including Release
International and Aid to the Church in Need that religious persecution is now
extending into UNHCR camps, with Christians and other minorities facing attacks
even once they reach the comparative safety of the UN-provided centres.
"This
– in combination with a one-size-fits-all, 'need, not creed',
non-discriminatory, approach has resulted, paradoxically, in very effective
discrimination against those who have been the victims of genocidal violence at
the hands of the faith-majority on both sides of the Sunni Shia divide,"
the report reads.
It continues:
"Ongoing persecution coupled with serial reluctance by the western powers
and the UN to recognise the specific vulnerabilities of these minorities has
led to rapidly diminishing numbers and a realistic fear of the extinction of
these faiths and their ancient cultures from the Middle East."
It
called on Theresa May to make the Middle East's Christians and other minorities
a priority and said the security in UNHCR camps must be reviewed and more
non-Muslim staff employed to protect other faiths.
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