Prince warns of loss of religious freedom

The PRINCE of Wales this week spoke again of his despair at the plight of Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities in northern Iraq and Syria.

Concerned at the deterioration of religious tolerance around the world, the heir to the British throne warned that “the very freedom on which society is built is threatened with destruction”.

The prince was speaking in a seven-minute video address for the launch in the House of Lords on Tuesday of the “Religious Freedom in the World Report 2014”, produced by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

In the video, the prince praised the report and spoke of his “mounting despair” at the expulsion of Christians, Muslims and Yazidis from parts of northern Iraq by Islamic State jihadists.

“It is an indescribable tragedy that Christianity is now under such threat in the Middle East … where people of different faiths have been living together peaceably for centuries,” he said. “It seems to me that our future as a free society – both here in Britain and throughout the world – depends on recognising the crucial role played by people of faith”

Urging religions to engage in interfaith dialogue, a process which he said required humility and maturity, the Prince of Wales cited Pope Francis, who in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium said: “Inter-religious dialogue is a necessary condition for peace in the world.”

The prince also urged governments to honour their commitment to freedom of religion in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, although he noted that “even in the West this right is often challenged”.

The ACN report monitored religious freedom in 196 countries and found that in 80 of them – 41 per cent – it had been impaired or was in decline. In Britain, the situation had deteriorated and was “of concern”, as it was in France and Germany.

It pointed out that in Britain “a hierarchy of rights” meant that the rights of equality campaigners “usually take precedence” over the rights of conscience of ­religious believers, and cited the closure of Catholic adoption ­agencies after they refused to place children with gay couples.

The report also listed prejudice in Britain against Muslims seeking work, attacks on imams and mosques, and violence against practising and non-practising Jews. John Pontifex, the report’s editor, told the launch audience at the House of Lords that while much religious persecution was motivated by a militant form of Islam, there was a rising tide of anti-Semitism causing increased emigration of European Jews to Israel.

The report assesses countries by the persecution or discrimin­ation facing faith groups. The worst offenders were listed as Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan and Syria.
(See John Laurenson, page 14. The report and video are at www.religion-freedom-report.org.uk)