North Korea again tops list of world’s worst persecutors of Christians

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North Korea again tops list of world’s worst persecutors of Christians

January 9, 2010 -- North Korea is again the world's worst persecutor of Christians, according to a new ranking released today by religious liberty advocates Open Doors. The communist nation has topped the missions organization's World Watch List for eight consecutive years because of its long history of targeting Christians for arrest, torture and murder. California-based Open Doors estimates that of the 200,000 North Koreans languishing in political prisons, 40,000 to 60,000 of them are Christians. “It is certainly not a shock that North Korea is No. 1 on the list of countries where Christians face the worst persecution,” said Open Doors USA President Carl Moeller. “There is no other country in the world where Christians are persecuted in such a horrible and systematic manner. Three generations of a family are often thrown into prison when one member is incarcerated.”

Although Iran has repeatedly surfaced in Open Doors' Top 10, the nation rose from No. 3 to No. 2 on this year's list because of a recent wave of arrests of Christians that began in 2008 and grew stronger in 2009. The ministry estimates that at least 85 Christians were arrested last year, including two sisters who became the focus of an advocacy campaign by Open Doors and other Christian ministries. “Iran jumping to No. 2 is noteworthy,” Moeller said. “Iranian Muslim background believers Maryam Rustampoor and Marzieh Amirizadeh were arrested simply for being Christians and refusing to recant their faith in Jesus Christ. They were released almost two months ago, helped by an advocacy campaign by Open Doors and other Christian organizations. But these two brave women along with hundreds of other believers still remain at risk inside Iran.”

Saudi Arabia remains at No. 3, though Open Doors said it received no reports of Christians being killed or physically harmed for their faith, and only one report of a Christian arrested was noted. Somalia moved from No. 5, to the No. 4 spot after its Parliament in April voted unanimously to institute Islamic law. Open Doors leaders said the ministry also received reports of Christians being killed and arrested. Rounding out the top 10 are Maldives, Afghanistan, Yemen, Mauritania, Laos and Uzbekistan, respectively. Yemen's position at No. 7 was unchanged over last year. But concern about Islamic fundamentalism in the nation has grown since U.S. officials discovered that al-Qaida leaders in Yemen planned a failed attempt to bomb a plane en route to Detroit on Christmas Day. Open Doors reports that the Yemeni Constitution guarantees religious freedom but has declared Islam to be the state religion and Sharia law the source of its legislation. Although expatriates can practice religions other than Islam, Open Doors said Yemeni citizens who convert from Islam could face the death penalty. Even with the limited religious liberty, nine expatriate Christian health workers were kidnapped by armed men last June. A few days later the bodies of three of them were found, and the fate of the remaining six remains unknown.

While most of the worst offenders in the World Watch List ranked in the Top 10 last year, there were notable exceptions. Mauritania moved up 10 positions from No. 18 last year to No. 8 this year. Open Doors attributed the jump to the assassination of Christian aid worker Christopher Leggett in June, the arrest and torture of 35 Mauritanian Christians in July and the arrest of a group of 150 of sub-Saharan Christians in August. And though the situation for Christians is still severe there, Eritrea fell from No. 9 last year to No. 11 this year. Open Doors also recorded fewer incidents of Christian persecution in Algeria, India, Cuba, Jordan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, which made the biggest improvement, dropping from No. 41 to No. 48.

The change in rankings is not necessarily a sign of improved religious liberty, however. “There was definitely an intensifying of persecution of Christians in quite a few countries this year, which I think outweighed the improvements in other countries,” said Lindsay Vessey, advocacy director for Open Doors, pointing to the increased arrests and murders in Iran, Somalia and Mauritania. “Those types of huge number of arrest and restrictions on religious freedom, I think, outweigh the rather small improvements in the countries we reported on, such as the improvements of India or Cuba,” she added.

Despite the persecution, Vessey noted that churches continue to grow in the world's most restrictive nations. “North Korea has been on the top of our World Watch List as the very worst persecutor of Christians for the past eight years in a row,” Vessey said. “The situation there is very dark. There really is no religious freedom whatsoever. If people are caught, they are put in prison or executed. And we've been receiving reports very regularly the past several years and continuing on into this year that the church is very vibrant, the underground church, and it's growing.” “I think that's really encouraging,” she added. “Just the testimony that even that when there is persecution, that's what God uses to grow His church.”

Open Doors develops its World Watch List by sending its workers, church leaders and recognized experts in 70 countries a 53-question survey. The questionnaire examines such issues as the degree of legal restriction, state attitudes toward religious freedom, the liberty churches have to organize themselves, and incidents of anti-Christian violence. Open Doors works in 46 of the 50 nations included in its World Watch List.

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The wave of anti-Christian violence

January 14, 2010 -- A recent wave of violent attacks on Christian worshippers and churches in countries across the Muslim world is intensifying concern that continuing military conflict, cultural friction and economic imbalances embroiling Islam and the west are fuelling a parallel rise in religious intolerance at grassroots level. The increase in tensions is seen as particularly disturbing in countries such as Egypt where Islam and Christianity have a centuries-old history of largely peaceful co-existence. In one recent incident, gunmen attacked a Coptic Christian congregation near Luxor, on the Coptic Christmas eve, killing six churchgoers and provoking inter-communal rioting and arson. The Egyptian government said the violence was an isolated event and not sectarian. But many disagreed. About 2,000 Copts took to the streets of Cairo on Wednesday, saying the official response had been inadequate and complaining of systemic ill-treatment. One sign read: "Egypt burns while its leaders sleep." Egypt's constitution guarantees equal rights for all religions. Yet according to Human Rights Watch's 2009 world report, discrimination against Christians, Bahá'ís and minority Muslim sects is entrenched. Egypt's 78 million population is predominantly Sunni Muslim. Copts make up 10% of the total.

Anger in local Muslim communities about Christian proselytising, alleged desecrations of the Qur'an, or "liberal" attitudes towards women often sparks confrontation. An attack on a Protestant church in Tizi Ouzou in Algeria on Saturday night, when Bibles and hymnals were burned, was reportedly touched off by rumoured Christian attempts to convert Muslims. Reactions to the incident were typically defensive. "We have always been persecuted in this country. It is not acceptable and the authorities must do something to stop the attacks against us," said Mustafa Krim, head of the Algerian Protestant Church Association. Government spokesman Fellahi Ada was unsympathetic, suggesting such complaints were a western plot. "The general trend is that Christianity is no longer attractive in Algeria," he said. "This is why some circles outside Algeria are doing whatever possible to portray my country as a country where religious minorities are suffering and that an international intervention is needed to protect them." The U.S. State Department's latest country report on Algeria, whose population is 99% Sunni Muslim, says that "in practice" the Algerian government restricts religious freedom. Restrictions increased in 2009 following implementation of an ordinance limiting public assembly for the purpose of worship, the U.S. said. Twenty-seven churches were closed for non-compliance with the ordinance. It also reported routine antisemitism in Algerian Arab media. In Tizi Ouzou, other influences may be at work: the town 60 miles east of Algiers, a centre of resistance to French colonial rule, is now sometimes described as a hotbed of al-Qaida in the Maghreb. It was the scene of a suicide bombing in 2008. Islamists there are said to take exception, for example, to women mixing with men in Christian congregations.

Attacks on Christian minorities over the Christmas period were also reported in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, and in mostly Sunni Muslim Pakistan. In one case last year in Gojra, Pakistan, several Christians were burned to death and Christian homes and churches destroyed by a mob after reports circulated that a Qu'ran had been desecrated. "The attacks on Christians seem to be symptomatic of a well-organised campaign launched by extremist elements all over central Punjab," Pakistan's human right commission chairwoman Asma Jehangir said. Disturbances have also shaken majority Muslim Malaysia in recent weeks, where attacks on churches and a Catholic school followed a row over whether Christians should be allowed to use the word "Allah" to refer to God. In separate incidents, extremist thugs have also picked on Malaysia's Hindu minority. In Iraq, the problems facing Christians and other minorities are more deadly. An estimated 1,960 Christians have died there in targeted attacks since the 2003 invasion. The Christmas period saw a spate of church attacks in Mosul in defiance of a long, pre-war tradition of co-existence. Other minorities, such as Jews, have also suffered – although by far the biggest toll has been exacted by clashes between Iraq's Sunnis and the larger Shia Muslim community.

Local factors such as disputes over land, objections to the presence of alcohol, large numbers of unemployed young men with not enough to do, or sheer mutual ignorance and suspicion of "rival" religions help explain some of these tensions. And few would argue that somehow all such incidents are linked. But analysts and academics suggest common threads do exist, notably the impact of globalisation on conservative communities across the Muslim world and a resulting threatened loss of cultural identity. Violence against Christians as representatives of the "crusader west" is also an aspect of what French author Gilles Kepel has described as the far bigger civil war, or fitna, raging within the Islamic world itself. Yet hostility also arises, in a fundamental sense, from Muslim perceptions of western aggression against Islam, be it the war in Afghanistan, domineering western economic and cultural behaviour, attempts to ban veils, offensive cartoon caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, airline and immigration profiling, or systemic, unchecked and arguably worsening discrimination and harassment of Muslim minorities living in western nations. To have a chance of overcoming this widening gulf, the west may have to put its own house in order first. One proposed path is wider adoption of Karen Armstrong's new Charter for Compassion, a "spiritual document for the world", whose guiding idea is that while almost every religion has a history of intolerance, all have traditions of compassion that rise above hatred. For faithful believers of all descriptions, the charter offers a golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

[New_Friend]

I've found another book to add to my "must read" list:

Nothing to Envy
In New Book, N. Korea Seen Through Defectors' Eyes : NPR