Forty Bibby Stockholm asylum seekers converting to Christianity
by Charles Hymas and Gabriella Swerling, Telegraph:
Forty asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm barge are converting to Christianity amid growing fears that migrants are claiming to have changed their religion in order to stay in the country.
Nearly one in seven of the 300 migrants on the barge in Portland, Dorset, are attending churches under the supervision of local faith leaders, according to a church elder.
The disclosure comes amid a growing row over the role of UK churches in supporting the conversion to Christianity of migrants including Abdul Shokoor Ezedi, the suspected Clapham chemical attacker.
Ezedi was granted asylum on that basis, despite having been convicted of two sex offences three years earlier.
On Monday, James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, is expected to receive an initial report setting out the full facts of the case as government sources questioned whether it was “really possible to credibly substantiate the validity of a religious conversion”.
Mr Cleverly is expected to consider whether any legal changes are needed to ensure tighter scrutiny of asylum seekers’ conversion claims and to enable the automatic deportation of convicted foreign criminals such as Ezedi, who received a two-year suspended sentence for sexual assault and exposure before being granted leave to remain in the UK.
As the police manhunt for Ezedi entered its fourth day, Scotland Yard offered a reward of £20,000 for information leading to the arrest of the 35-year-old.
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