The Home Office's bizarre decision proves the UK doesn't take religious persecution seriously
It is rare that stories of individual failed asylum-seekers make national news, but this time the Home Office has excelled itself in its crassness. As immigration caseworker Nathan Stevens revealed yesterday, his client, an Iranian, was refused asylum in Britain because he claimed Christianity was a peaceful religion and therefore his conversion could not be genuine.
The Iranian, who claimed for asylum in 2016, had apparently said in his interview that he concluded that Christianity, not Islam from which he had converted, was the religion of peace. The Home Office wonk who had been given the responsibility of replying to the applicant did so with a list of biblical references to violence and Quranic references to peace. These were “inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion, as opposed to Islam which contains violence, rage and revenge.” Where was the consideration of the Iranian regime’s regular jailing of Christians?
The Home Office has told the BBC that the letter is “not in accordance with our policy approach to claims based on religious persecution”. Certainly, the academic culture in which our brightest and best are formed – and from which the Civil Service fills its ranks – tends to view Christianity as unsophisticated, out of touch, offensive or imperialistic. A widespread ambivalence towards our historic national religion is detectable in many parts of public life, and newcomers – especially Christians or those sympathetic to the Christian faith – find it incomprehensible.
Take the case of 64-year-old Nigerian Pastor Oluwole Ilesanmi, who was arrested for breach of the peace outside Southgate tube station after being accused of Islamophobia. This case was recently highlighted in a blog for the Spectator by the Sikh journalist Hardeep Singh.
Why a Sikh? Where was the Christian reaction from all but a predictable few outlets? But stories like this are of national significance too. I have written for years about Christian minorities in Middle Eastern contexts, not because their creed resembles my own, but because minorities are the canary in the mine. You can tell a lot about a majority population by the way it treats minorities. In Egypt for example, where authoritarian rule creates tensions and never quite gets round to stamping out Christian persecution, successive Coptic Popes have been caught between wanting to criticise an authoritarian president, and fearing the removal of the few state protections that are offered. So they praise their president and infuriate their constituency.
Weirdly, Christians in Britain find themselves both a majority and minority. A majority if you look at the skeleton: the establishment of the Church of England, the Queen as its Supreme Governor, fancy cathedrals for royal weddings, the parish system, public holidays for Christmas and Easter. But a minority if you look at the flesh on the bones: the numbers who attend church weekly (around 895,000 for both Anglicans and Catholics), or of those prepared to voice beliefs that go against the strong winds of secularisation.
The upside to the Iranian’s case is that this letter has come to light, and a Church of England bishop has spoken out publicly about it. Bishops usually prefer to raise such issues behind closed doors, hate to appear biased towards Christians, and fear for their long-term future in the House of Lords. But the Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, said yesterday in a statement that despite the Home Office’s comments, the case showed that “the management structures and ethos of the Home Office, when dealing with cases with a religious dimension, need serious overhaul.”
We know that the Foreign Office’s independent review into the persecution of Christians will include neither the Home Office nor DfID, meaning that its impact has been limited before a word of it has been written. If the Home Office insists on throwing Christians back to the lions, be it out of ignorance or cynicism, then we should at least stop pretending to other nations that we take seriously human rights such as freedom of religion and belief.
