Millions uprooted from homes, says UK report, with many jailed and killed
Israel is the blatant exception where Christians are
the most educated demographic in the country
Patrick Wintour in Addis Ababa
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was mentioned in the report for denigrating Christians.
Pervasive persecution of Christians, sometimes amounting to genocide, is ongoing in parts of the Middle East, and has prompted an exodus in the past two decades, according to a report commissioned by the British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt.
Millions of Christians in the region have been uprooted from their homes, and many have been killed, kidnapped, imprisoned and discriminated against, the report finds. It also highlights discrimination across south-east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and in east Asia – often driven by state authoritarianism.
“The inconvenient truth,” the report finds, is “that the overwhelming majority (80%) of persecuted religious believers are Christians”.
Some of the report’s findings will make difficult reading for leaders across the Middle East who are accused of either tolerating or instigating persecution. The Justice and Development (AK) party of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for instance, is highlighted for denigrating Christians.
Hunt described the interim report – published on Thursday, based on a review led by the Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen – as “truly sobering”, especially since it came as “the world was seeing religious hatred laid bare in the appalling attacks at Easter on churches across Sri Lanka, and the devastating attack on two mosques in Christchurch”.
Hunt, an Anglican, has made the issue of Christian persecution one of the major themes of his foreign secretaryship. “I think we have shied away from talking about Christian persecution because we are a Christian country and we have a colonial past, so sometimes there’s a nervousness there,” he said. “But we have to recognise – and that’s what the bishop’s report points out very starkly – that Christians are the most persecuted religious group.”
He added: “What we have forgotten in this atmosphere of political correctness is actually the Christians that are being persecuted are some of the poorest people on the planet. In the Middle East the population of Christians used to be about 20%; now it’s 5%.”
“We’ve all been asleep on the watch when it comes to the persecution of Christians. I think not just the bishop of Truro’s report but obviously what happened in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday has woken everyone up with an enormous shock.”
If only!
The interim report is designed to set out the scale of the persecution and a final report in the summer will set out how the British Foreign Office can do more to raise awareness of the issue.
The report shows that a century ago Christians comprised 20% of the population in the Middle East and north Africa, but since then the proportion has fallen to less than 4%, or roughly 15 million people.
In the Middle East and north Africa, the report says, “forms of persecution ranging from routine discrimination in education, employment and social life up to genocidal attacks against Christian communities have led to a significant exodus of Christian believers from this region since the turn of the century.
“In countries such as Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia the situation of Christians and other minorities has reached an alarming stage. In Saudi Arabia there are strict limitations on all forms of expression of Christianity including public acts of worship. There have been regular crackdowns on private Christian services. The Arab-Israeli conflict has caused the majority of Palestinian Christians to leave their homeland. The population of Palestinian Christians has dropped from 15% to 2%.”
In Gaza, which once had a very large Christian community, Christians were driven out when Hamas took over the government and made their lives even more difficult. The Christian population in Gaza is down to about 1% and getting smaller every day.
Contrast that with this statement from Wikipedia re Israel -
Despite the fact that Arab Christians only represent 2.1% of the total Israeli population, in 2014 they accounted for 17.0% of the country's university students, and for 14.4% of its college students.
Palestinian Christians attend an Orthodox Easter service in Gaza.
Photograph: APAImages/Rex/Shutterstock
The report identifies three drivers of persecution:
political failure creating a fertile ground for religious extremism;
a turn to religious conservatism in countries such as Algeria and Turkey; and
institutional weaknesses around justice, the rule of law and policing, leaving the system open to exploitation by extremists.
Countries where Islam is in the majority, invariably, and inevitably, become more conservative, more militant and less tolerant of those who are not Muslims, or Muslims of the same beliefs as they.
The report says: “The rise of hate speech against Christians in state media and by religious leaders, especially in countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia, has compromised the safety of Christians and created social intolerance.”
In findings that may pose difficulties for the UK as it seeks to build relations across the Middle East, the report states: “In some cases the state, extremist groups, families and communities participate collectively in persecution and discriminatory behaviour. In countries such as Iran, Algeria and Qatar, the state is the main actor, where as in Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya and Egypt both state and non-state actors, especially religious extremist groups, are implicated.”
“In 2017 a total of 99 Egyptian Christians were killed by extremist groups, with 47 killed on Palm Sunday in Tanta and Alexandria. Egyptian Christians were continuously targeted by extremist groups during 2017 and 2018.
“Arrest, detention and imprisonment are common in Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. For example in the course of six days before Christmas 2018, 114 Christians were arrested in Iran with court cases left pending as a form of intimidation. Though most cases in Iran involve converts, indigenous Christians such as Pastor Victor, an Assyrian Christian, with his wife, Shamiram Issavi, have also been targeted and imprisoned.”
It also highlights how states, and state-sponsored social media, sometimes incite hatred and publish propaganda against Christians, especially in Iran, Iraq and Turkey. “The governing AK party in Turkey depicts Christians as a ‘threat to the stability of the nation’. Turkish Christian citizens have often been stereotyped as not real Turks but as western collaborators.”
In Saudi Arabia, the report says, school textbooks “teach pupils religious hatred and intolerance towards non-Muslims, including Christians and Jews”.
The report says freedom of religious belief can also act as a means of helping those suffering gender discrimination, since there is clear evidence that female Christians suffer disproportionately.
Defending the claim of genocide, the report says: “The level and nature of persecution is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide, according to that adopted by the UN.”
The eradication of Christians and other minorities on pain of “the sword” or other violent means was revealed to be the specific and stated objective of extremist groups in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, north-east Nigeria and the Philippines. An intent to erase all evidence of the Christian presence was made plain by the removal of crosses, the destruction of church buildings and other church symbols.
This is also happening today in China as Xi Jinping is destroying churches, removing crosses from churches, and clamping down on church groups that are not registered with the state.
“The killing and abduction of clergy represented a direct attack on the church’s structure and leadership. Where these and other incidents meet the tests of genocide, governments will be required to bring perpetrators to justice, aid victims and take preventative measures for the future. The main impact of such genocidal acts against Christians is exodus.”
While Christians come under persecution from some Chinese, some Indians, and some Buddhists, probably 95% of Christian persecution is at the hands of Islam. It's not just radical Islam, but conservative Islam that persecutes Christians, and there are a lot of countries where Islam is very conservative and getting more so each year.
This is the spirit of antichrist which is in the world and raises up hatred toward God by persecuting Christians and Jews. It will get worse before it gets better!
Referring to the universal declaration of human rights, the report concludes: “The challenge that faces us at the beginning of the 21st century is not that we need to fight for a just legal system, it is rather that to our shame, we have abjectly failed to implement the best system that women and men have yet devised to protect universal freedoms.”
North America was left off this report, probably because there is little in the way of persecution on religious grounds although it certainly does exist. But there are changes in Canada and the USA that will enable persecution of Christians in North America in the coming decade or two.
In the USA, the Democratic Party is being more and more driven by far-left politicians, mainly socialists. Socialism, in the context of a Christian society, has some merits. But in an unChristian society, it sets the stage for extreme intolerance. The next Democratic government, or, at best, the one after that, will be as antiChristian as many Muslim countries.
In Canada, Justin Trudeau has refused anyone who is opposed to abortion the opportunity to run for Parliament for the Liberal Party. His Cabinet is gender-balanced, in spite of having less than 25% women in the caucus. It is colour balanced! It has indigenous (or had indigenous ministers). It has gays, lesbians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and who knows what else. The one demographic, which represents 60% of Canadians, that is missing, are Christians. Not a single Christian in Trudeau's cabinet.
Last year he shut down government funding for charitable summer projects for youths, if the organizers refused to state that they agree with abortion. This year he backed off that bit of bullying, because this year is an election year.
The good news is, Trudeau's arrogance has got him into so much hot water it is quite unlikely that he can win the election in October. However, October is still several months away and Trudeau has powerful friends in foreign countries.
Canada's very Liberal Party, like America's Democratic Party, has moved dramatically to the far-left, well beyond Canada's traditional far-left party, the NDP. If that continues, the next Liberal government whether this fall, or 4, or 8 years from now, will be truly frightening.
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