Yesterday, Conservative Senedd member for South Wales East, Mohammad Asghar, sadly passed away at the age of 74.
Mr Asghar, known to many as ‘Oscar’, was a much-loved member of the Conservative Group in the Welsh Parliament and he will be dearly missed. CFI sends our condolences to his family at this tragic time.
Oscar was the first Welsh Assembly Member to invite the Israeli Ambassador to the Senedd in 2008, a reflection of his deep commitment to interfaith dialogue and mutual understanding. He served as Shadow Minister for Skills, Further Education, Communities and Faith before his sudden passing. Oscar joined CFI in Israel most recently in August 2017 in the first-ever visit by the Welsh Conservatives. He will be fondly remembered by the CFI team.
Leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Paul Davies MS, said the news of Oscar’s passing was a “devastating blow”. In a statement, he said that Oscar was “proud to be British and Welsh and proud of his roots”, with “friends from across the political spectrum”. In the Senedd today, Mr Davies said Mr Asghar was a “man of immense warmth and kindness” who “absolutely doted on his wife Firdaus and his daughter Natasha”.
The Secretary of State for Wales, Rt. Hon. Simon Hart MP, described Mr Asghar as an “extremely significant figure in Welsh politics”, as “both Wales’ first Muslim councillor and first ethnic minority member of the Senedd”.
CFI’s Parliamentary Chairman in the House of Commons, Rt. Hon. Stephen Crabb MP, said Mr Asghar was “a wonderful friend and a strong voice for his Newport constituents in the Senedd”, and would be “missed enormously”.
This week in the Senedd, Assembly Members from all parties paid tribute to Mr Asghar, with a number of his Conservative colleagues recounting memories with him from their visit to Israel with CFI.
Darren Millar MS said: “As is the case for other Members of this Parliament, some of my fondest memories of Oscar were during the Welsh Conservatives’ visit to the Holy Land. There was no greater supporter of Israel and an advocate of peace in the middle east than Oscar. While we were both from different faith traditions, Oscar and I prayed together for the peace of Jerusalem at the Western Wall and we also prayed for one another’s families as we sat, arm in arm and with tears in our eyes, in St Peter’s Church, set amongst the ruins of the biblical town of Capernaum, on the shores of Lake Galilee”.
Angela Burns MS recalled: “The sun was beating down on a group of us who had gone to visit Israel and Palestine, and we were standing on the roof of the Austrian Hospice in Jerusalem, and I was chatting to Oscar and he waved his arms around, as he often did, and he said, ‘Look, Angie—there is Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque, and over there the Holy Sepulchre, and there’s the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives. We are all here. We can live together'”.
