Last week I had a meeting with Open Doors, a charity which works with
Christians worldwide who face persecution for their beliefs. It was, to
say the least, an eye-opener for me. I was aware that Christians in
various countries around the world are being persecuted for their beliefs.
Indeed, I’ve tried to raise some of those cases to the best of my ability
with the (limited) power that a Member of the European Parliament
actually has (less than you might think, the EU system being designed
to keep power in the hands of the unelected). When something is
happening, but not right on your doorstep, it’s easy to miss something
very serious.
I should point out that Christians are not the only religious group that
is persecuted: talking about the persecution of Christians does not
preclude the existence of persecution of other groups (and indeed, I also
out about those matters) In the 2017 reporting period, around
1,200 Christians were killed for their faith. By the 2018 reporting period,
the number had grown to 3,000. These figures do not reflect the true
situation, because there are many killings that cannot be included.
If a Christian is killed for their faith in North Korea, how do we find
out about it? Instances across the world may not be reported, for a
variety of reasons. The figures I’ve given may just be the tip of the
iceberg: more than 200 million Christians face ‘high’ levels of persecution
of their faith.
In North Korea, children are urged to ‘report’ their parents if they suspect
them of being Christians; those who do are unlikely to ever see their family
again. Afghanistan, perhaps unsurprisingly after the events of recent
years, is almost as bad – with anyone converting to Christianity facing
a death sentence for ‘apostasy’. Open Doors also claims that Hindu
nationalism in India has “embedded the culture of impunity for those
who persecute Christians”. With so much hatred in the world, in some
cases persecution is the result of a consistent blind eye being turned
by authorities to crimes against those of a faith ‘different’ to the majority.
It is not organised by a government, but through inaction they permit
such things to continue.
In that meeting, one of the people delivering a presentation sat for
most of the meeting with her head in her hands, looking downwards
and averting her eyes from the rest of the room. She was terrified of
being photographed, fearing that she would be unable to continue her
work with Christians overseas if she were recognised. I knew of such things
in the past, of course: Christians who smuggled Bibles into the old
Soviet Union, fearing beatings or being sent to a remote gulag in Siberia
from which they might never return. That the same could be the case
today, relating to a country I would not have expected (and which I
won’t name here), says so much. That’s what is most shocking:
beyond the figures and statistics, beyond the stories of lives
changed, destroyed or ended by persecution: today – in the
21st century – persecution of Christians (and possibly other
religions but I don’t have the figures for this) is increasing
rather than decreasing. We feel we live in a civilised world, one in
which basic truths of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ actually mean something.
years ago, North Korea was the only country where ‘extreme’
of Christians was commonplace. Today, 11 countries meet that description.
Those 11 countries don’t share much in common: in practice, if not
constitutionally, they are atheist, Islamic, and Hindu, but they do
share one thing: a mindset of exclusivity. To me, it’s a poignant
reminder of what loving your nation, or religious beliefs, should be
all about. I am a Christian myself, but I don’t hate atheists or Muslims.
I care about the persecution of Christians, but that doesn’t mean I
don’t care about persecution of Yazidis or the Rohingya for example.
I love my country, but I don’t hate anybody else’s. I’m proudly
pro-Brexit, but if you disagree, we should do so amicably.
And as a Northerner, I don’t hate Southerners. That kind of yah-boo
dislike of the ‘other side’ should be confined to the football pitch
where it belongs, where people can yell at the referee and the
opposition to their hearts’ content without any actual harm being
done to anyone.
Murder, enslavement, torture, beating, execution and imprisonment
of Christians worldwide must stop.
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