Millions uprooted from homes, says
UK-commissioned report, with many jailed and killed
From The Guardian
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.”
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%.”
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.
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.
“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.”
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.”
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