Christians on the Left call for protection for Middle East minorities

Delegates to next week’s Labour Party conference in Manchester will be asked to support aid and protection for minorities facing oppression in the Middle East.

Christians on the Left (formerly known as the Christian Socialist movement) is proposing a resolution calling on Labour and the UK government to do more to help Christian and other minorities facing persecution by ISIL, the Islamist extremist group fighting in Iraq and Syria.

Members of minority communities, including Christians, Muslims, and Yazidis, are being murdered, sold into sex slavery, and displaced from long established homes by violent extremists.

Christians on the Left believes the UK should do more to contribute to a major humanitarian effort and other measures to protect people. It also echoes calls from the Archbishop of Canterbury for asylum places to be granted for those most in need, in line with other European countries.

Stephen Beer, a Christians on the Left delegate to Labour Conference, said: “The horrific news we hear from Iraq and Syria is only part of the story. The atrocities committed by ISIL, including the murder and kidnapping of minorities, and executions of hostages, need to be confronted. At the least, the UK needs to commit to ongoing humanitarian support and we also need to protect people from further atrocities.

“In recent years Christian communities in the Middle East, and other minority groups, have been persecuted, as Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander has highlighted. Communities that have existed for almost two thousand years have been uprooted and people forced to leave their homes. Many have been killed. Yet we have heard little about this from the UK government until now. The atrocities committed by ISIL are the latest, extreme, manifestation of a trend against tolerance and peace. We should not ignore it.”

Christians on the Left will also be running the Labour Party’s church service at Labour Conference this year. Conference delegates will join with local people to worship together and hear how faith, policy, and lifestyles can be integrated.

Christians on the Left will also be holding a series of fringe events at the Conference. For full details see: www.christiansontheleft.org.uk/events 
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