International Contact Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief (ICGFRB) minutes and plans

The request was partially successful.

Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

I hereby request, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000,
electronic copies of the following:
*Minutes of the first meeting (June 15, 2015) of the International Contact Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief (ICGFRB)
*Any reports and/or memoranda about the ICGFRB written from June 1, 2015 to July 1, 2015.

Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

Corin Tentchoff

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Dear Ms Tentchoff,

Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. It has been assigned a unique reference number (above) and has been passed to the relevant section within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to deal with. They will be in touch with you should your request need clarification.

We received your request on 08 December 2015 and will aim to respond within 20 working days, following the date of receipt.

Yours sincerely

FOI and DPA Team
Foreign and Commonwealth Office

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

1 Attachment

Dear Corin,

 

Please find attached a reply to your FOI request.

 

Kind Regards,

 

Human Rights & Democracy Department

 

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Dear Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Foreign and Commonwealth Office's handling of my FOI request 'International Contact Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief (ICGFRB) minutes and plans'. Specifically, I am solely requesting a review of the two s. 27(1)a redactions on the one released page, covering the identities of the Contact Group member entities.

I am rather doubtful that there is, to use the wording in ICO Awareness Guidance 20, a very significant and weighty chance of non-trivial prejudice to the UK if the roster of member entities is revealed. Very little about the UK's relations with or thoughts on these entities would be revealed as a result. It seems rather a stretch to say that saying certain entities are promoting human rights through the Contact Group would harm the UK's relationship with those entities, too, setting this far apart from the prejudice examples given in ICO Awareness Guidance 14.

It is worth noting that a somewhat significant portion of the redacted information is already public. In addition to Canada and the UK publicly noting their membership in the Contact Group, the United States has mentioned its membership (https://blogs.state.gov/stories/2015/09/...) and Canada has noted Germany's membership (http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/ger...).

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i...

Thank you for your consideration.
Yours faithfully,

Corin Tentchoff

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Dear Ms Tentchoff,

Thank you for your request for an Internal Review of our response to your FOI Request Ref 1209-15. It has been passed to the relevant department within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to deal with and they will respond to you with the outcome of the review.

We received your request on 11 Januar 2016 and will aim to respond within 20 working days.

Yours sincerely

FOI and DPA Team
Foreign and Commonwealth Office

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Foreign and Commonwealth Office

1 Attachment

Dear Ms Tentchoff,

 

Please find attached our response to your request for an internal review
of our decision relating to FOI Request Ref: 1209-15.

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

David Hodges.

 

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References

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