My SNP colleagues and I are committed to combatting religious persecution of all forms. Freedom of thought, belief and religion is an essential human right and no-one should be persecuted for practicing their religion. In recent months, my colleagues and I have vigorously defended the rights of people from a wide range of countries and faiths who have been persecuted in some form, including Pakistani and Palestinian Christians, Yazidi people, Falun Gong, and Ahmadiyya Muslims, as well as repeatedly standing against the worrying rise in anti-semitism in Europe, America and elsewhere. My colleague Brendan O’Hara MP last year invited Sakharov Prize-winner Nadia Murad, formerly held as a slave in Mosul, to address parliamentarians on the terrible persecution faced by many from Daesh in Iraq, before leading a debate on this persecution in November 2016.
Rest assured, that we will continue to raise the plight of Christians and minorities who are persecuted around the world.