Marzieh Amirizadeh spent 259 days in Tehran's notorious Evin
prison – witnessing firsthand the horrifying reality of a "global
humanitarian crisis" largely ignored by the media and the world's
democratic nations.
"One of the worst things (I saw) was the execution of two of my
fellow prisoners," recalls Amirizadeh, 32, who was accused by the
Iranian state with being an "anti-government activist," a charge that
masks the real reason behind the imprisonment - her faith in Jesus
Christ.
"I had never experienced such a thing. One of
those killed was my roommate. We had spent a lot of time together. And
one day they took her to be executed. For a week I was in shock that
killing a human being was so easy.
"After these executions the spirit of sorrow and death hung over the
prison. There was deadly silence everywhere. We all felt this. The
sadness was overwhelming. We stared at each other but had no power to speak. It
was horrifying and tangible."
Amirizadeh's experience is part of what experts say is a growing
"humanitarian catastrophe" that dwarfs recent ones in Libya, Sudan,
Somalia, Haiti and other nations. More than 100 million Christians
worldwide suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith
in Jesus, with millions more facing discrimination and alienation.
A recent report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found more
than 2.2 billion people – nearly a third of the world's population –
live in countries where social hostilities or government restrictions
on religion rose substantially from 2006 to 2009.
"The report's conclusions are both troubling and scandalous," says
Thomas Farr, a visiting associate professor at the School of Foreign
Service at Georgetown University and the former director of the Office
of International Religious Freedom in the U.S. State Department.
"Troubling because it confirms that the problem is getting worse;
Scandalous because neither the media nor the governments of the
world's democratic nations are up in arms about the problem. The
restrictions on religious liberty indicated in the report, including
violent religious persecution, constitute a global humanitarian crisis
and a threat to international security."
The report, the second Pew has released, found that among the
world's 25 most populous countries – accounting for 75 percent
of the world's population - restrictions on religion
substantially increased in eight nations. In China, Nigeria, Russia,
Thailand, the United Kingdom and Vietnam, the increases were due
primarily to rising levels of social hostilities involving religion.
In Egypt and France, the increases were mainly the result of
government restrictions. Restrictions on religion were particularly
common in the 59 countries that prohibit blasphemy, apostasy or
defamation of religion. While such laws are sometimes promoted as a
way to protect religion, in practice they often serve to punish
religious minorities such as Christians whose beliefs are deemed
unorthodox or heretical.
"Christians are harassed in the largest number of countries," says
Brian Grim, a senior researcher at Pew.
The Middle East and North Africa had the largest proportion of
countries in which government restrictions on religion increased.
Egypt, in particular, ranked very high – in the top 5 percent of all
countries in 2009 – on both government restrictions and social
hostilities involving religion.
"There are a few patterns we can point to," Grim says. "One is that
in the Middle East and North Africa where government restrictions on
religion are already high, and the highest of the five regions of the
world we looked at, we saw substantial increases of up to 30 percent."
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, persecution
of Christians has intensified with church burnings and slaughters in
Iraq, Egypt, Iran and
other nations, Farr says.
Eight of the top 10 countries on the Open Doors 2011
World Watch List of the worst persecutors of Christians have Islamic
governments while 38 of the top 50 are Muslim-dominated societies. A
study by Open Doors found about 2,000
Christians – the most of any nation – were killed in Nigeria in 2010
in religious riots involving Islamic extremists.
Iraq came in second as the country with the largest number of martyrs
in 2010 with 90 Christians murdered. The worst atrocity occurred Oct.
31 in Baghdad when Islamic extremists held hostage and then killed at
least 58 Syrian Catholics as they met for a Sunday evening mass in
the Cathedral of our Lady of Deliverance. Tens of thousands of
Christians are fleeing Iraq. The number of Christians
in Iraq has dropped in half to 334,000 since the fall of Saddam
Hussein's regime in 2003.
"Christians are caught in the crosshairs," says Jerry Dykstra,
spokesman for Open Doors USA. "We thought in Iraq that Christians
would have more freedom, but that is not the case at all. In fact,
more Christians are fleeing Iraq than ever before."
Open Doors USA President and Chief Executive Officer Carl Moeller has
described the attacks against Christians in Iraq as "religicide."
"Christians in Baghdad and Mosul are gripped by terrorism," Moeller
says. "Their families are threatened. Even
young children are being killed. Extremists want to eliminate
Christians from Iraq."
The situation is also dire in Eritrea,
one of the most hostile countries in the world for believers.
Persecution intensified after an Eritrean governor
ordered a purge against Christians at the end of 2010. Hundreds of
Christians are fleeing, but many of the refugees die attempting the
900-mile journey
through Egypt and others are shot to death as they cross the
Egypt-Israel border. Many end up in Egyptian prisons
or are held hostage for $20,000 ransoms by Bedouin Muslim nomads who
frequently work with human traffickers. Hostages who cannot pay the
ransom are killed. There are 500 to 600 Eritrean
prisoners in Egyptian custody, and as many as 200 are currently held
by traffickers. The refugees face sexual abuse, torture, beatings and
enslavement at the hands of both Egyptian authorities and the Bedouin
groups, according to Voice of the Martyrs.
"North Korea and Eritrea are the two places in the world today where
it's the hardest to be a Christian," says David Hegg, pastor at the
3,500-member Grace Baptist Church in Santa Clarita, Calif. and
co-author of the new book, "The Privilege of Persecution: And Other
Things the Global Church Knows That We Don't." "Two years ago in
Eritrea, they rounded up 900 Christians and put them in metal shipping
containers and just left them out in the sun. Most of them died."
The percentage of nations where governments used
violence against religious groups rose from 46 percent in
2008 to 51 percent in 2009, the Pew report found.
In nearly three-quarters of all countries, citizens or groups
committed crimes, malicious acts or violence motivated by religious
hatred or bias. The
percentage of countries that experienced mob violence related to religion
rose from 19 percent in 2008 to 26 percent in 2009.
Religion-related terrorist groups were active in 74 countries. In
Russia, for example, more than 1,100 people died in religion-related
terrorist attacks during the two-year period ending
in 2009 – more than double the number in the previous two years.
The Pew report found social hostilities involving religion
also rose in Asia, particularly China, Thailand and Vietnam. Open
Doors has listed North Korea as the No. 1 persecutor of Christians for
nine years in a row. There are 50,000 to 70,000 Christians held in
labor camps due to their Christian faith.
Chinese Christians have experienced six years of "escalating
persecution" from the government, not only those who attend house churches,
but those at government-sanctioned churches too, says Mark Shan, spokesman for
the China Aid Association.
One of the largest cases of persecution occurred in September 2009
when 400 police and government officials descended upon the Linfen
house church in Shanxi, demolished the building and clashed with
hundreds of the church's 50,000 members. Dozens were severely
beaten and more than 30 were hospitalized. Nearly a dozen church
leaders were sentenced to prison or labor camps.
"The means of persecution includes detention, fines, labor camps and
prison sentences - or mafia methods such as beatings and
disappearances," Shan says. "But the house church movement in China is
getting bigger and stronger through persecutions, and Christianity is
growing rapidly. Christian faith will overcome any restrictions and
hostilities and transform Chinese society. No
one can stop that. We may see that happen in this generation."
Ironically, the increased persecution coincides with an explosion of
Christianity in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and other parts of the
world. In China, an estimated 20 million people attend the officially
recognized Protestant Church. But there are an estimated 80 to 120
million house church believers in China.
Amid the rapid growth of Christianity and persecution of believers
around the globe, many
American Christians are largely unaware of the extent of suffering
their brothers and sisters are enduring, says Thomas Halstead, a
professor and chair of the Department of Biblical Studies at The
Master's College in Santa Clarita.
"I believe that American Christianity is too comfortable, and
concerned about affluence and leisure, rather than the Gospel,"
Halstead says. "Having traveled to a number of other countries, it is
sad to see the general passivity of American Christianity. This
doesn't mean that all American Christians are this way, but it seems
to be the general pattern in America."
This is beginning to change as more Americans learn of the extent of
persecution throughout the world.
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