Church admits it has no way of knowing if asylum seekers’ conversions are genuine

‘It is impossible... to make a window into someone’s soul to confirm definitively that it is a genuine conversion’

THE Church of England has admitted it is “impossible to know” if asylum seekers who claim to have converted to Christianity are genuine in the wake of the Liverpool attacker’s baptism.

Ben Ryan, home affairs adviser at the Church, said ministers could never be certain that a person had truly converted. He said however, that the Church was not “naive” and had “extremely rigorous” guidelines for assessing people wishing to convert.

Mr Ryan made the comments after it emerged that the perpetrator of the bomb attack, Emad Al Swealmeen, 32, had converted to Christianity. The Church of England is facing questions over its role in converting hundreds of asylum seekers to Christianity to help them avoid deportation.

Mr Ryan, speaking on BBC Radio 4 yesterday, said: “It is impossible to know for certain – to make a window into someone’s soul and confirm definitively that it is a genuine conversion.”

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, last week criticised the “merry-go-round” of failed asylum seekers changing religion and using other tactics to launch “appeal after appeal” to stay.

Mr Ryan defended the Church’s policy of giving asylum seekers support and helping them convert. He said: “Baptism is something we take very seriously – it is a critical part of our faith. It is a sacrament ordained by God.

“It is critical that it is open to anyone of goodwill who wants it but we are not naive in the way it is handed out. Our guidance is solid and anecdotally when you speak to clergy you will find, and we have many flourishing Iranian-christian communities in the UK, that there are very few instances where there is evidence of abuse and certainly nothing that is sufficiently widespread to be of concern to the Home Office.”

He added that converting to Christianity was not a “golden ticket” and said the Church was one of the only organisations supporting asylum seekers.