WUNRN
Geopolitical Information Service - http://www.geopolitical-info.com/en/article/1435726790089290800
Also via Human Rights Without Frontiers
PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS AROUND THE WORLD IS RISING –
DANGEROUS ISSUE – CHRISTIAN WOMEN
The Islamic State terrorist attack, in which almost 40
holidaymakers were killed in Tunisia, accompanied by atrocities in France and
Kuwait, highlights again the murderous outrages the group is willing to commit.
Christians have been in the firing line of the IS terrorists and other terror
groups in the Middle East and the rest of the globe.
By Lord Alton http://www.geopolitical-info.com/en/expert/lord-alton – July 1, 2015
Some Christians fleeing IS
manage to find refuge in camps (photo: dpa)
THE MIDDLE East’s population of 12
million Christians will be halved by 2020, if current demographic trends
continue. Christians made up a quarter of the Middle East’s population 100
years ago, now they are less than five per cent and just one per cent of the
world’s Christians.
Today, Christians are being persecuted
from North Korea to Pakistan, from China to Sudan. Britain’s heir to the
throne, Prince Charles, described threats to Christians in the Middle East as
‘an indescribable tragedy’.
Systematic persecution is not a new
phenomenon. The Roman Empire outlawed the new growing Christian faith and
condemned all Christians to death. Campaigns against Armenian Christians and,
in German South West Africa - Namibia - of racial extermination of the Herero
and Nama people, were the first genocides of the 20th century 1,600 years
later.
Approximately 10 per cent of the two
billion Christians in the world suffer persecution, according to Gyula Orban,
an official of Aid to the Church In Need, the Catholic relief agency.
Thousands killed
Aleppo’s Melkite Greek Catholic
Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart’s archbishopric in Aleppo has been hit more
than 20 times by mortar shells and was under fire again in June 2015. He said
Christians had lost their lives, homes and livelihoods and are being
traumatised by Syria’s civil war.
‘ISIS, which has already killed
thousands in the region, is terrifying the faithful in Aleppo. After attacks on
Maloula, Mosul, Idleb and Palmyra, what is the West waiting for before it
intervenes? What are the great nations waiting for before they put a halt to
these monstrosities’, he said.
There are fewer than 100,000 of the
250,000 Christians left in Aleppo. Thousands have been killed, churches and
ancient monasteries blown up, whole communities forced to flee, bishops and
priests - such as Father Jacob Murad, Bishops Hanna Ibrahim and Paul Yazici -
abducted, some executed. Torture, beheadings and even ‘crucifixion’ - by
hanging corpses of the executed on crosses - has become commonplace.
Syrian Christians living in areas
controlled by the Islamic State (IS) are forced to convert to Islam or pay a
punitive jizya tax.
Faultlines opening
In the seventh century, Christians - in
what is now Syria - had to pay half an ounce of gold to pay for the privilege
of living under the protection of the Islamic Caliphate. Failure to pay left
two options - convert or be killed. In February 2014, 20 or so Christian
families still living in the northern Syrian town of Raqqa faced the same
choice. The cost of protection is now the equivalent of US$650 in Syrian
pounds.
Vast tracts of Syria and Iraq have
become lawless and ungovernable with faultlines opening between Islamic
extremists and moderates, between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and between Sunnis and
Shias - with funds and arms flowing in from the Gulf and Tehran.
Law abiding minority communities -
mainly Christians - have been caught in the crossfire. They have lived in
places like Aleppo and the Nineveh Plains for 2,000 years and continue to
worship and speak in the Aramaic language.
Joint Syrian and Kurdish forces have
recaptured a number of Christian villages in north eastern Syria from IS
recently, although a huge retaliatory attack is underway. Many Christians have
attempted to flee Syria, some risking treacherous journeys across the
Mediterranean.
Destroying artefacts
The brutality of IS manifests itself in
beheadings accompanied by a blitzkrieg on antiquities and ancient artefacts,
and the destruction of Christian churches and the defilement of Shia mosques.
The fall of Palmyra follows the bulldozing of the ancient city of Nimrud, and
demolition of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Buddhas and the Sufi monuments in Mali.
IS is attempting to eradicate the
collective memory of humanity, destroying all that is ‘different’, while
cynically smuggling and selling the antiquities which they do not destroy to
fund their campaign.
Turkey is turning a blind eye.
IS presents this as a clash of
civilisations but the manner in which they debase all that is civilised simply
pits civilisation against barbarism. IS is also at war with other Muslims and
those of other faith traditions.
Hatred of Christians
It describes itself as the Islamic
State, but this is a misnomer. It is certainly not a state and many Muslim
scholars challenge the Islamic basis on which it forces Christians to convert
or die as the Quran says there should be no compulsion in religion.
This same hatred of Christians has been
nurtured by other radical groups from the Taliban to al-Shabaab and Boko Haram.
Jihadist ideology by
al-Shabaab-affiliated Islamist militants saw Christian students specifically
singled out in an attack where 147 students died at Kenya’s Garissa University
College.
A Christian couple was burned alive in a
kiln earlier in 2015 by a mob of 1,300 people in Pakistan while their young
children were forced to watch. This followed the killing of 85 Anglicans who
were praying in their church at Peshawar in 2013. British politicians have
raised the tragic case of Nauman Masih, a 15 year-old Christian boy, who was
beaten, tortured and burnt alive on 9 April, 2015, in Lahore, after he was
identified as a Christian.
This follows the murder of Pakistan’s
only Christian Cabinet Minister, Clement Shahbaz Bhatti, in 2011. Nobody has
been convicted for this.
Havoc and fear
Pakistan’s first President, Muhammad Ali
Jinnah, said at its founding in 1947, ‘Minorities, to whichever community they
may belong, will be safeguarded. Their religion, faith or belief will be
secure. There will be no interference of any kind with their freedom of
worship. They will have their protection with regard to their religion, faith,
their life and their culture. They will be, in all respects, the citizens of
Pakistan without any distinction of caste and creed.’
Minorities in Pakistan are neither
safeguarded or protected with only about 1.5 per cent or three million
Christians in 2015 out of a population of 182 million people.
Boko Haram is creating havoc and fear in
Nigeria, graphically illustrated by the February 2014 abduction of young girls
and the murder of 59 students from the Federal Government College in Buni Yadi,
Yobe State, while they slept.
Churches have been bombed, pastors
executed, and Christians targeted despite the government’s insistence that it
is tackling Boko Haram. The terror group, which killed more than 80 people in
attacks in June 2015, openly says its interim goal is ‘to eradicate Christians
from certain parts of the country’.
Massive displacement
Nigeria’s north-south conflict is
reminiscent of Sudan’s civil war, (1983 - 2005), when two million people,
mainly Christians, were killed.
Khartoum continues to target whole
communities. It has dropped more than 2,500 bombs on its civilian,
predominantly Christian, populations in Blue Nile and South Kordofan and has
committed crimes against humanity in Darfur with ethnic cleansing by
co-religionists.
The unremitting violence has led to a
massive displacement and generated vast numbers of refugees. Sudan’s near
neighbour, Eritrea, is responsible for around 18 per cent of the 200,000
immigrants reaching Europe in 2014, according to the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights.
Boko Haram is
creating havoc and fear in Nigeria, graphically illustrated by the February
2014 abduction of young girls and the murder of 59 students from the Federal
Government College in Buni Yadi, Yobe State, while they slept
Eritrea is the North Korea of Africa
with one of the world's most repressive regimes. Protestors gathered in London
to mark the 13th anniversary of the imposition of severe restrictions on
churches in Eritrea, the deposing and house arrest of the Eritrean patriarch,
Abune Antonnios and imprisonment of other Christians. Fleeing Eritrean
Christians braved arduous journeys to reach Libya only to be captured there by
IS and beheaded.
Freedom of belief is at the heart of the
struggle for the future of whole societies and countries.
Churches attacked
Egypt was horrified in February 2015 by
the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts who were working in Libya. I suggested in
2013 that we should compare the charred husk of the Fasanenstrasse Synagogue in
Berlin in 1938, with pictures of the blackened walls of Degla’s ruined Church
of the Virgin Mary, and why August 2013 represented Egypt’s Kristallnacht.
This was one of many churches attacked,
along with Christian homes and businesses. The situation has improved under
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi but the head of the Egyptian Social Democratic
Party, Dr Mohamed Abul-Ghar, warned that the forced displacement of Coptic
families by customary meetings is contrary to Egypt’s Constitution, the
principles of citizenship, humanity and justice. These remarks followed the
displacement of a number of Coptic families in Beni Suef because a member of
these families was accused of allegedly publishing cartoons of the Prophet of
Islam on his Facebook account. The man is illiterate.
Religious renewal
Egyptian writer and novelist Fatima
Naaot, in a message to the president, says that the displacement of Christian
families from their villages and the burning of their homes in front of
security forces is a scandal which undermines the sovereignty of the Egyptian
state and indicates an absence of the rule of law and the fall in the prestige
of the government and the president.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
called for a ‘religious revolution’ in 2015 to re-examine those aspects of
Islamic thinking which ‘make an enemy of the whole world’. But, despite his
calls for religious renewal, ‘contempt of religion’ and blasphemy charges are
occurring more frequently.
These can be an impediment to healthy
and constructive religious debate and can encourage vindictive acts.
It against this background - from Syria
and Iraq, to Sudan, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, and many other countries in which
Christians and others are persecuted for their beliefs - that June 2015
witnessed a human rights conference in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on combatting
intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief.
Human rights
Was it a black sense of humour or an
astute move to have asked Saudi Arabia to host this event?
Saudi Arabia is one of the worst
violators of religious freedom, and Saudi Wahhabism has fuelled many of these
conflicts.
Given the West’s oil dependent,
arms-providing, symbiotic relationship with Saudi Arabia, it is hard to imagine
much being said about the Saudi human rights activist, Raif Badawi, at the
conference. He is in prison for the crime of religious dissent and under threat
of further public flogging and potential execution
Saudi Arabia ranks sixth on the 2014
World Watch List of most repressive countries for Christians, a list compiled
by the charity, Open Doors.
When a country like Saudi Arabia passes
legislation defining atheists as terrorists, beheads or tortures its citizens,
and refuses to protect the right of minorities to follow their beliefs, or to
have no belief, is it any wonder that such actions are mimicked by IS?
Saudi Arabia beheads people in the
public square which is routinely practised by IS.
Rule of law
The Jeddah Conference aimed to discuss
how to effectively implement UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 on
combating religious intolerance, discrimination, incitement to violence and
violence against people due to their religion or beliefs.
Saudi Arabia, unlike IS, really is an
Islamic state and it would be the first place to start heralding an acceptance
of pluralism of belief and upholding diversity and difference.
In his opening speech to the Conference,
OIC Secretary-General Iyad Ameen Madani said that the international human
rights community attached great importance to combating religious intolerance.
Mr Madani correctly observed that religious hatred needs to be addressed at all
levels, including the need to ascertain the limits of freedom of expression to
determine where it ends and transforms into incitement to hatred.
World leaders face the challenge of
championing and upholding the rule of law and the protection of minorities -
beyond conferences and speeches. That is the antidote to Jihadist ideology, not
assassination squads or endless aerial bombardment.
Safe havens
The war lords and regime leaders
responsible for persecution and atrocities should face justice. The challenge
is to increase the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court,
systematically collect evidence, document the atrocities and demand the United
Nations Security Council instigates prosecutions.
More safe havens are needed to protect
beleaguered groups of Christians, and others, and every foreign minister needs
to promote Article 18 obligations.
Dag Hammarskjold, one of the great
Secretary Generals of the UN (1953-1961), once said, ‘The UN wasn’t founded to
take mankind to paradise but rather to save humanity from hell.’
It is hard to see that the international
community is achieving even that limited objective.
The UN, our Western legislators,
policymakers and media need to become literate about religion. The BBC’s chief
international correspondent, Lyse Doucet, said, ‘If you don't understand
religion - including the abuse of religion - it's becoming ever harder to
understand our world.’
Aid programmes
The central question of how nations
learn to live together, tolerantly respecting and rejoicing in the dignity of
difference is at the heart of all these challenges. It means emphasising a
common humanity; promoting the ability of members of all religious faiths to
manifest their religion; and allow all people to contribute openly and on an
equal footing to society.
Aid programmes and humanitarian
interventions have to reflect values and be used to protect minorities, provide
security, and to open the possibility of decent lives for those currently
trying to flee their native homelands.
Countries can apply ‘soft power’ - or
smart power - in the way aid is provided and by shutting it off, or threatening
to shut it off, where necessary - and in how values are shared through
education and the media.
The immediate and over-arching concern
remains the plight of Middle Eastern Christians.
The international community has to be
more consistent in its moral outrage rather than denouncing some countries for
their suppression of minorities while appeasing others who directly enable
jihad through financial support. Western powers are seen as hypocrites when
business interests determine responses to human rights abuses.
Deep questions
This is not about Christians versus
Muslims. Religious persecution takes place all over the world and those
responsible should be prosecuted. A Pew Research Centre study found that
religious repression was recorded in 151 of 185 countries studied in the last
10 years.
The dramatic rise in the persecution of
Christians has been accompanied by a vilification of Islam and, in Europe
especially, the reawakening of anti-Semitism.
The three Abrahamic religions - Judaism,
Christianity and Islam - need to ask deep questions about what they can to
remedy these issues - and become transformative agents in conflict management,
reconciliation and healing.
World leaders face
the challenge of championing and upholding the rule of law and the protection
of minorities - beyond conferences and speeches. That is the antidote to
Jihadist ideology, not assassination squads or endless aerial bombardment
Can the great faiths motivate their
followers to be peace-makers, peace-builders, protectors of minorities, and
practitioners of pluralism, tolerance, mutual respect, and the upholding of the
rule of law? Could global society devote comparable energy into countering
religious extremism as the energy which has been used to spread religious
extremism?
Countries have to make the cause of
those who suffer for their religion or belief the great cause of our times.
Christians, Jews and Muslims privileged to live in free societies have to
challenge cold indifference and speak up and defend humanity.