UK Urged to Prioritize Christian Refugees Over Muslim Asylum Seekers

By Ray Nothstine, Christian Post Reporter Monday, October 26, 2015

An Afghan migrant kisses his child moments after disembarking from a raft at a rocky beach during a rainstorm on the Greek island of Lesbos, October 24, 2015. Over half a million refugees and migrants have arrived by sea in Greece this year and the rate of arrivals is rising, in a rush to beat the onset of freezing winter, the United Nations said.

A migrant uses her cell phone in a canteen in a refugee camp in Celle, Lower-Saxony, Germany, October 15, 2015. With the approach of winter, authorities are scrambling to find warm places to stay for the thousands of refugees streaming into Germany every day. In desperation, they have turned to sports halls, youth hostels and empty office buildings. But as these options dry up, tent cities have become the fall-back plan: despite falling temperatures, a survey by German newspaper Die Welt showed at least 42,000 refugees were still living in tents.

An Afghan migrant carries his one-month-old child as he disembarks from an overcrowded raft at a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos, October 19, 2015. Thousands of refugees - mostly fleeing war-torn Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq - attempt daily to cross the Aegean Sea from nearby Turkey, a short trip but a perilous one in the inflatable boats the migrants use, often in rough seas. Almost 400,000 people have arrived in Greece this year, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, overwhelming the cash-strapped nation's ability to cope.

A young girl is carried by his father as refugees from Syria and Irak disembark from a coach at a refugee centre in Champagne-sur-Seine, near Paris, France, September 9, 2015. France is ready to take in 24,000 refugees as part of European Union plans to welcome more than 100,000 in the next two years, the French President said on Monday, dismissing opinion polls showing public opposition to the move.

Refugees and migrants rest after disembarking from a Greek ferry arriving from the island of Kos in the port of Piraeus near Athens, Greece, August 15, 2015. United Nations refugee agency called on Greece to take control of the 'total chaos' on Mediterranean islands, where thousands of migrants have landed. About 124,000 have arrived this year by sea, many via Turkey, according to Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR director for Europe.

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Members of the House of Lords are asking U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron to give Christian refugees priority when granting asylum to those fleeing the Middle East.

Lord Alton and Baroness Cox sent a letter to Cameron expressing their concerns that Christians will be left to be slaughtered since they are not included in the 20,000 refugees the U.K. has vowed to take.

"Many Christian refugees, having been terrorized by IS in Syria and Iraq, have had to leave the refugee camps because of cruelties inflicted upon them inside the camps. They will therefore not be included in the camp referrals and will thereby be excluded from the 20,000 the U.K. will take," Alton and Cox wrote, according to The Daily Express.

Alton believes that since there are more peaceful Islamic countries for Muslim refugees to inhabit in adjacent countries, priority should be given to Christians. The text of dialogue and debate from October concerning the plight of Christians is available on Alton's website.

The gravity of the situation is underlined by events over the last few days. Following the beheading of a group of Eritrean Christians and the execution of Assyrian Christians, last weekend Islamic State in Libya released a video showing the beheading of a Christian from South Sudan," Alton continued.

"That ideological hatred of difference is driving on a systematic campaign of deportation and exodus, degrading treatment, including sexual violence, enslavement, barbaric executions, and attempts to destroy all history and culture and beliefs that are not their own.

"Pope Francis has described these events as a genocide of Christians, and many others of course suffer too," he added.

Earlier this month, the Daily Express reported that over 700,000 Syrian Christians have been forced to flee their homeland. Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, called on greater action from Cameron to stem the crisis.

"Time is running out for Christians in the region. It is 100 years since Armenian and Assyrian Christians faced genocide and since then they have experienced increasing persecution in the region.

Carey further argued that the British government hasn't done enough to protect Christians in the Middle East. He believes, like many, that their very existence is at stake and they could be wiped out of the region where Christians have dwelled for 2,000 years.

"I urge David Cameron, to consider the claims of Christian communities for asylum and to pursue both diplomatic and military means to end the threat of Islamist violence against minority communities," he added.

Conflict between Church of England clergy and Cameron has intensified as the Church has called on the government to increase the number of refugees allowed into the country. In a letter sent to Cameron in September, but made public in October due to frustrations over Cameron's percieved lack of response, Church bishops offered to support the government in managing and handling the refugee crisis.

Paul Butler, the bishop of Durham, rebuked Cameron for his alleged inaction.

"It is disheartening that we have not received any substantive reply despite an assurance from the prime minister that one would be received," declared Butler. "There is an urgent and compelling moral duty to act, which we as bishops are offering to facilitate alongside others from across civil society."

"There is a real urgency to this issue with those increasingly being forced from their land as their homes are literally bombed into the ground," he added. "As the fighting intensifies, as the sheer scale of human misery becomes greater, the government's response seems increasingly inadequate to meet the scale and severity of the problem."