Persecution of Christians in the World Today

In 2023, Open Doors reported on an ongoing Global Genocide - the terrible and unparalleled Persecution of 360 Million Christians, which deserves to be called a Second or Ongoing Holocaust. ^[1][2][3] "More than 360m Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith.

In Open Doors’ World Watch List top 50 alone, 312m Christians face very high or extreme levels." This demands urgent attention from all Christians and humanitarians concerned with Human Rights everywhere. Those who claim: "If I lived in the days of the Holocaust, I would do everything in my power to prevent it" have the opportunity now to do so with this Second Holocaust. It is a Moral Obligation for all Good People everywhere to help end this Violence.

Vatican News reported: "The report, which was presented on Wednesday at the Italian Parliament in Rome, ranks the fifty countries where Christians face the worst persecution."^[4].

A closer analysis shows this horrible persecution comes from 4 main sources: 1. Militant Atheism (e.g. China and North Korea), 2. Radical Islamism (e.g. Pakistan and Iran), 3. Hindutva Nationalism (e.g. India), 4. Pharisaic Judaism (e.g. Israel). (5) Buddhists (e.g. Myanmar).

While Western Atheists often falsely claim Christians persecute them, reality shows it is Militant Atheists persecuting Christians today. Meanwhile, Christian and Christian-majority Western Countries continue to score the highest in terms of Religious Freedom for all, including even Atheists.^[5]

Atheistic North Korea

"North Korea first in the list According to the data reported, more than 360 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith. Similar numbers were recorded last year. However, the score of the indicators in the fifty countries at risk is growing.

North Korea appears again as the most hostile place for Christians to live, due to the new “Law against Reactionary Thinking" introduced in 2021, which has led to an increase in arrests. Christians have no freedom of worship, and if discovered practicing their faith, face labour camps, if not death. Even owning a Bible is a serious crime and will be severely punished."^[6]

Atheistic China

How many Christians are there in China?

There are around 96.7 million Christians in China – a huge number, but only seven per cent of China’s total population of more than 1.4 billion.

How are Christians persecuted in China?

Tightening restrictions and increasing surveillance are putting Christians in China under intensifying pressure, as the Communist Party seeks to limits all threats to its power.

New restrictions on internet and social media – together with the 2018 regulations on religion, which includes a ban on under 18s attending church – are severely limiting Christian freedom.

Under the draconian measures introduced in March 2022, churches that want to share sermons or Bibles studies online require a permit – but this is only available to the five state-approved religious institutions, such as the Three Self Patriotic Movement. The restrictions extend to social media, meaning that mentioning anything connected with Christianity could get people into considerable trouble.

Given the surveillance used by the authorities – which is among the most oppressive and sophisticated in the world – Christians have little room for manoeuvre, both online and offline.

Meanwhile, if a convert from Islam or Tibetan Buddhism is discovered by their family or community, they are usually threatened and physically harmed – all to win them back to their original faith."^[7]

CCP's Persecution of Christians under Commie Xi

"The Chinese Communist Party escalated its persecution of Christians throughout 2022 as the country clamped down on churches and online religious content while demanding allegiance to Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a watchdog group.

A report released last week by the U.S.-based non-governmental organization ChinaAid warned that the Chinese government is using charges of "fraud" to financially suffocate the house church movement, which consists of Christian congregations that have not registered with China's official Protestant church.

Authorities are using the traditional Christian practice of giving tithes and offerings to trump up charges against house churches under the "Measures for the Financial Management of Religious Activity Venues," which were updated last June, according to the report. The report noted that multiple house church pastors and elders have been jailed and potentially face years in prison." ^[8]

Christians have faced increasing levels of persecution in the Muslim world.^[9] Muslim-majority nations in which Christian populations have been subjected to acute discrimination, persecution, repression, violence and in some cases death, mass murder or ethnic cleansing include; Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Qatar, Kuwait, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Maldives.^[10]

Background: Armenian Genocide

To understand current events, we must understand the wickedness of Islamist persecutors of Christians during the Armenian Genocide.

"That was only the beginning. As I have written elsewhere, when reports of the leadership’s slaughter spread across Turkey, terror gripped Armenian cities, towns and villages, which in 1915 were home to approximately 2,100,000 souls. According to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, by 1922, only 387,800 Armenians remained alive.

"After killing the most highly educated and influential men in the community, the Turks began house-to-house searches. . . ."

"The family members who survived — mostly women, children, the ill and the elderly — were forced to embark upon what has been described as a 'concentration camp on foot.' They were told they would be relocated; in reality, they were sent on a death march to nowhere. They were herded like animals, – with whips and cudgels and at gunpoint. . . "

German historian Michael Hesemann has documented that the Armenians were killed for explicitly religious reasons:

"In the end, Armenians weren’t killed because they were Armenian, but because they were Christians. Armenian women were even offered to be spared if they convert to Islam. They were then married into Turkish households or sold on slave markets or taken as sex slaves into brothels for Turkish soldiers, but at least they survived. A whole group of Islamized Crypto-Armenians was created by this offer to embrace Islam. But at least it shows that the Armenians were not killed because they were Armenians, but because they were Christians."^[11]

Islamist Turkey

"World Watch Ranking: 41 Persecution Level Very High

"Women who convert from Islam to Christianity are most vulnerable to persecution. If their faith is discovered they can suffer violence at the hands of their own families, and in the most serious cases they are subjected to sexual violence. This is more common in rural areas.

Historical Christian groups like the Armenian and Assyrian Syriac churches face pressure and hostility in southeastern Turkey. For decades, they have been caught between the rivalries of the Turkish army and Kurdish resistance groups. Most of these Christians do not live in their ancestral region anymore but have moved to western areas of Turkey to escape the conflict.

Inland areas tend to be more conservative and strictly Islamic. Socially, they can be hostile towards Christians." ^[12]

Islamist Azerbaijan

On Aug 9, 2023, Catholic News Agency reported: "More than 120,000 Christian Armenians are currently trapped, without food or medicine, behind a blockade of the Nagorno-Karabakh region maintained by the Muslim-majority nation of Azerbaijan.

Former ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom Sam Brownback, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Armenia, said Azerbaijan is “strangling” the Christians in the region and that the blockade is the regime’s latest attempt at “religious cleansing.”

“They’re working to make it unlivable so that the region’s Armenian-Christian population is forced to leave, that’s what’s happening on the ground,” Brownback said in June."^[13]

Islamist Pakistan

"Just 48 hours later, “we have once again been confronted with open hatred and uncontrollable rage shown towards the Christian community,” he said.

The incident happened Wednesday morning, when hundreds of Muslims attacked a Christian community in Jaranwala, an industrial district of Faisalabad in Pakistan, after apparently being prompted to do so by a nearby mosque loudspeaker. The crowd looted homes and burned or damaged around 22 churches after a Quran allegedly was desecrated by a young Christian man." ^[14]

Liberal Muslim Dubai rightly condemns Pakistan Violence against Churches

In a positive development, Liberal Muslim Dubai moves in the right direction by condemning the violence: "The United Arab Emirates has strongly condemned the burning of a number of churches and dozens of homes by extremists in Pakistan, and denounced the coinciding violence that has taken place, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of UAE said in a press statement on Saturday, as quoted by news agency ANI.

As per a press release, the ministry affirmed the UAE’s permanent rejection of all practices aimed at undermining security and stability in contravention of human and moral values and principles, stressing that hate speech and extremism contradict international efforts to spread the values of tolerance, coexistence and peace among peoples." ^[15]

The Surprising Country Persecuting Christians the Most: Nigeria

CBN News reported on Nigeria's Persecution of Christians. ^[16] Open Doors has reported: "During the same period, more than 4,700 Christians in Nigeria were also abducted because they follow Jesus, and at least 1,000 believers were raped, sexually assaulted or sexually harassed for their faith. Christians were forced to flee and go into hiding—more than 10,000 in Nigeria during this reporting period." ^[17]

Siege on Manipur: Hindu Nationalists' War for Ethnic Supremacy

The Wire reported: "Across India, experiments to forge the 'Hindu national community' are predicated on the breakage of minoritised Muslims and Christians, and Adivasis and Dalits. What's happening in Manipur is part of a plan operationalised by the Hindu Right decades ago.

Nazi imagination and practices of grotesque brutality are formative to Hindu nationalism. “Volksgemeinschaft” or national community was, for Nazis, the ideal society to be achieved through mass movement, statecraft, thieving, violence, race experiments, and Holocaust. The “Other” was its target.

Golwalkar, an early ideologue of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), professed deep admiration for the Nazis. An inspiration to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Golwalkar, noted: “To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here.” Golwalkar continued that non-Hindus in India “may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges… not even citizen’s rights”.

Since their second electoral victory in 2019, the Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party-led national government has prioritised the actualisation of Akhand Bharat (“undivided India”), the mythologised once-future homeland of Hindu nationalists. Across India, experiments to forge the “Hindu national community” are predicated on the breakage of minoritised Muslims and Christians, and Adivasis and Dalits. Across the historically fraught political construct termed the “northeast”, the Hindutva movement attacks Muslim citizenship while igniting the decimation of indigeneity and the Christian community. In Kashmir, it furthers coloniality through land occupation to potentially reconstitute demographics."^[18][19]

And: "Since 2022, racist discourse and monstrous violence by Hindu nationalists have spun out of control. Swarms of Hindu militias are storming village after town, supported by Hindu nationalist leaders and central and state governments, the silence of upper class-caste Hindus, and the complicity of various courts, institutions, and state forces. In 2023, the savagery reached a crescendo. UAPA. Mobs. Bombs. Bulldozers… Haryana. Uttar Pradesh. Delhi. Rajasthan. Jharkhand. Assam. Kashmir. Manipur… precipitating absolute nationalism."

The Cold-Blooded Brutal Murder of wonderful Australian Christian Missionary Graham Staines (may he Rest in Peace)

"Graham Staines was a tragically martyred and murdered Australian Christian Missionary. He and his wife and children, filled with Christian love, were ministering to the lepers and the Poor of India. Whereas a band of extreme fanatical Hindutva Nationalist Thugs, filled with demonic hatred against the children of God, killed this wonderful Christian Missionary, with extreme and almost unheard of violence. Graham Stuart Staines (18 January 1941 – 23 January 1999) was an Australian Christian missionary, who along with his two sons, Philip (aged 10) and Timothy (aged 6), was burnt to death in India by members of a Hindutva Nationalist Terrorist group named the Bajrang Dal.^[20]

In 2003, Bajrang Dal activist Dara Singh was convicted of leading the murderers and was sentenced to life in prison.^[21]

CBN News has repeatedly reported on the Persecution of Christians in Israel. This comes from Pharisaic Judaism and its bigoted teaching against Christians. While Christendom stands with Israel and supports Israel's right to exist contra mundum (against the world), some Jews hate and persecute Christians and spit on Christian Clergy. Thankfully, other more moderate Jews respect Christian Pastors and Priests, but more progress is needed. Christians in Israel should enjoy the same rights and full freedoms Jews enjoy in America or Europe, just like Christians in India should enjoy the same rights and full freedoms Hindus enjoy in America or Europe, and the same with Christians in Pakistan and Muslims in America or Europe. The Golden Rule to treat others as you want to be treated is being violated by these Persecutors.

Videos can be seen here. ^{[22][23][24][25][26][27][28]}

"In Myanmar, 80–90 percent of the population adheres to Buddhism. The country ranks 23rd on Open Doors USA's World Watch List of countries most hostile to Christians ... In Sri Lanka, a campaign of violence is being waged against Christian believers. According to Release International, Christians are targeted by Buddhist monks and the government. Worship services have been disbanded and churches closed. Monks have even prevented Christians from burying their dead in public cemeteries. Release International chief executive Paul Robinson notes, "You don't normally associate Buddhism with violence, but time and again we hear that it is Buddhist monks who are leading the attacks against the churches. And our partners have found the monks are being aided by pro-Buddhist authorities." ^[29]

"The 16th century Vietnamese Emperor Minh Mạng place great restrictions on Catholicism, condemning it as a "heterodox doctrine" simply because Catholics rallied for Duyệt, his rival for his throne. Minh Mạng issued an imperial edict that forced all missionaries to stop proselytizing and, once Duyệt died, ordered his posthumous humiliation, the desecration of his tomb, the execution of 16 Catholic relatives and the arrests of his Catholic colleagues. More than 300,000 Christians died in the various resulting persecutions. The 117 proclaimed saints represent the many unknown martyrs." ^[30] "Bruce Allen says these eight believers recently converted from Buddhism to Christianity. “In this community, even though Bangladesh is the third-largest Muslim majority nation, [the attackers] were an enclave of Buddhists, actually. They are a minority in Bangladesh, but they can get pretty militant. When these former Buddhists were making a declaration of faith in Jesus Christ, that really riled up the other members of their tribal community ... Despite the persecution, Allen says these believers still plan on being baptized.”^[31]