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Iraq: Christianity

Volume 486: debated on Thursday 15 January 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what representations the Government plans to make to the Iraqi government on violence against Christians in Iraq. (246815)

Ministers and officials will continue to meet representatives of the Iraqi government to discuss how Christians and all other religious communities can fully enjoy the freedom of worship enshrined in the Iraqi constitution, and are not subject to violence or intimidation. We will continue to advocate that those responsible for such attacks are held to account, regardless of their ethnic, political or religious affiliation.

I also welcome the continued work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) in her capacity as the Prime Minister's Envoy for Human Rights in Iraq on the protection of minority communities.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the Government will make it its policy to support the creation of a self-governing province in northern Iraq linked to Iraq's central government situated in and around the Nineveh Plains and jointly governed by the Assyrian Chaldeans, Shabak, Yezidis and other ethnic groups living in that area. (246816)

As I said in the Westminster Hall Adjournment debate on ‘The Christians of Iraq’ on 16 December 2008, Official Report, column 44 WH, any decisions regarding changes to the federal structure in Iraq are for the democratically elected Iraqi government and the people of Iraq to make.

However, dividing Iraq along ethnic, religious or sectarian grounds would be a vastly complicated and potentially volatile process as in many cities and areas of Iraq, people lived in ethnically and religiously mixed communities.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if the Government will urge the Iraqi government to name publicly the suspects arrested for the recent targeted assassinations of Christians in Mosul. (246818)

The Iraqi authorities have made it clear that attacks against the Christian community are unacceptable. We have echoed that view publicly and privately in our discussions with them. Whether the suspects should be named is a matter for the government of Iraq, and the Iraqi judicial process.

We will await the findings of the Iraqi investigation until it is completed.