society

Against the Most Fundamental of All Rights
Arabia, Sudan, Turkey, Pakistan, India, China… A map of persecution of all religious faiths in all the countries of the world. Christians are the ones who suffer most from violations of religious freedom. This is a massacre that cannot leave us unmoved, and one that very few people talk about

by Camille Eid

2002 will be remembered by the Church as another “black” year. Throughout the world, among Christians alone, 938 were killed, 629 wounded, and more than 100,000 arrested for reasons connected with the lack of religious freedom. This is a gradual, silent slaughter that cannot help disturbing us. This dramatic picture emerges from the 2003 Report on Religious Freedom in the World, prepared by the Italian section of “Aid to the Church in Need”, the movement founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, better known as “Father Lard,” who died on January 31st. For the fifth consecutive year, the report takes stock of the Via Crucis of all religious faiths in every country in the world, but it is immediately clear that, for the most part, Christians suffer the most numerous violations of religious freedom. The long list of physical persecutions and administrative and legislative fetters crosses all the continents, continuing to limit what the Pope has labeled “the most fundamental of all rights.”

Countries of the “Green Area”
Once again, countries of the so-called “Green Area,” those with an Islamic majority, take the negative prize. They represent a vast gulag where sporadic progress here and there is counterbalanced by expansion of the Shariah. Foremost among them is Saudi Arabia, which continues to deny the most elementary religious freedoms to more than 600,000 Christians, who are forced into religious hiding. In 2002, numerous Christians were caught praying and were punished: thirteen faithful of various nationalities arrested in Jeddah; two Filipino Catholics arrested in April in Abqaiq and sentenced to 150 blows of the lash before being expelled from the country; twenty-six people caught by the religious police in two homes in Ryad, where not only the Bibles were confiscated, but also chairs, musical instruments, and microphones; and eleven faithful from Ethiopia and Eritrea, blocked in Jeddah and expelled.

Three doctors killed
In other countries, it is a matter of “administrative persecution.” In the very secular Turkey, people tell of a priest dragged into court with the accusation of “making irregular modifications to the architecture of a church,” or of the closing of places of worship on various pretexts, as well as the obstacles put in the way of Caritas, suspected of proselytism. In tolerant Jordan, a Christian widow has to fight to keep custody of her two children after the high court of Amman decided, on the basis of the Shariah, to assign them to their Muslim uncle. In Pakistan and Yemen, attacks on local Christians or missionaries working there follow one after the other. An example is the murder of three American physicians last December 30th at the hands of a Yemenite Islamic fundamentalist, who explained that by this senseless act he wanted “to be closer to God,” because the doctors were trying to spread Christianity in Islamic territory.
Moving on to Africa, we are struck by the tragically high numbers representing the price paid by Christians for professing their faith–from Sudan, where, contrary to its statements, the government continues to apply, systematically, punishment by amputation also to Christians accused of theft, to Nigeria, where an article held to be blasphemous, published on the occasion of the Miss World Contest, brought about the death of more than 200 Christians, exacerbating the state of conflict aroused by introduction of the Shariah in a dozen States of the Confederation.

Imposition of Hindu culture
The violations take on a reddish tinge when we move to the Communist bloc. The Report meticulously examines the case of the People’s Republic of China, where deep hatred of the Church can be explained only by the fact that, despite more than forty years of a religious policy made up of systematic persecution and control of the faithful, the Chinese government has not succeeded in stamping out the Church’s presence. The new regulations for bishops and communities thus are aimed at subjecting in practice the life of the Church to political decisions, with the risk of reducing the local Church to the rank of a sect.
The situation is alarming also in the Hindu areas. In India, a process of “saffronization” of culture has been going on for years, with the aim of imposing fundamentalist Hindu culture in the schools and institutions, arousing concern among the Catholics. Moreover, in some States of the Federation, an anti-conversion law is in effect, called by various different names, with the purpose of discouraging missionary activity. In the country of Gandhi, acts of vandalism and intimidation continue against the Church and the faithful, as demonstrated by the grievous acts of aggression and pillage that have taken place in Bangalore, Somasca, and Sanjeli.
The report is a compendium of denunciations that are as alarming as they are well-documented, which only an increased sensitivity to the problem on the part of believers can keep from becoming a dead letter.