Christian persecution around world has intensified, study finds
October 21, 2013 - The persecution of Christians around the world has intensified
over the last two-and-a-half years, according to a review of religious freedom in
30 countries. Not only are Christians in the Middle East and Africa suffering increasingly
from Islamist terror attacks, but they continue to endure severe persecution and hardship
in Communist, Marxist or post-Communist states, said a 192-page report by the United
Kingdom branch of the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need. Christians also
are persecuted by religious nationalists in some countries where they find themselves
in a minority, said the report, titled "Persecuted and Forgotten?" published Oct.
17. John Newton, a co-author of the report old Catholic News Service Oct. 18 that
the plight of Christians had deteriorated since early 2011, when the last biennial
report on the global problem was published by the charity. "Given that in so many
countries we have seen a worsening of conditions, I would say that, yes, on balance
there has been a worsening of persecution in the last two-and-a-half years," he said.
"Out of the 30 countries that we have assessed, in 20 of them, the situation has worsened
in some way, but in some of these where there has been no change the problems were
already extreme any way," Newton explained. "It doesn't mean, by any means, that
the other 10 are places where it's easy to be a Christian," he added. Persecution
of Christians was a phenomenon "happening in many different contexts," Newton said. Among
the main culprits were the adherents of violent interpretations of Islam and of the
30 countries examined by the charity, six were Middle Eastern or Arabic countries
with Muslim majority populations. Newton said that in recent years, the problem of
attacks by "well-resourced" Islamist groups has reached into several continents, spreading
to such African nations as Nigeria, Mali and Tanzania. Christians in India, Sri Lanka
and Myanmar also faced persecution from majority Hindu or Buddhist nationalists who
have conflicting ideals of "what a citizen of the nation should be like," Newton said.
Some of the worst instances of persecution, however, continued to be found in Communist
or former Communist states, he continued. Foremost of these was North Korea, where
imprisoned Christians routinely faced torture and beatings. "The treatment meted out
to Christians is far worse than that for ordinary political prisoners," Newton said.
He said that in Eritrea, a country on the Horn of Africa, Christians also were persecuted
by a Marxism-inspired government, which had detained more than 2,000 people, arresting
nearly 200 for practicing their faith in the first five months of 2013. Newton said
that some Christians had been tortured by hanging from trees, made to walk barefoot
over sharp rocks or locked in metal containers in the desert. Less severe instances
of harassment of Christians were observed in China and in such post-Communist countries
as Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. All the countries examined
in the report had previous records of persecution or harassment of Christians. The
report was released at a meeting in the Houses of Parliament in London Oct. 17. Anglican
Archbishop Rowan Williams, former archbishop of Canterbury, and Patriarch Gregorios
III, the Lebanon-based leader of the Melkite Greek Catholic, were in attendance.
In an accompanying press release, John Pontifex, the report's other co-author, said
persecution in parts of the Middle East has become so grave that the survival of Christians
in the region was "now at stake." For Christians, the so-called "Arab spring" has
in many cases become what the report calls a "Christian winter," the release said.
The full report can be read online at (Source: CNS)