No excuses for shunning the persecuted
SIR – John O’Sullivan (Cover story, April 5) refers to de facto discrimination by some governments against Christian asylum seekers from Syria, under cover of nominally non-discriminatory policies, citing Australia as an example.
The UK government has a formal policy of not discriminating on grounds of faith. Yet, in the House of Lords in January, Baroness Berridge quoted figures showing that “in the second quarter of last year, only 0.08 per cent of the people who came to the UK from Syria were Christians, despite over 11 per cent of that population pre-civil war being Christians and being targeted by IS”. She echoed NGO reports that “the Government are operating a discriminatory policy against Christians”.
