RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: Watchdog Group Reports Coronavirus Impacts Are Hitting Persecuted Christians… Hard
At least 25 countries grappling with Coronavirus have a dismal track record for treatment of religious minorities — especially Christians.
“In places like North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan, Christians are already seen as second-class citizens, traitors, and infidels,” Curry added. “Now, as COVID-19 ravages the health and livelihoods of all people in these countries, Christians are especially in need of emergency relief.”
In the countries where Christians are persecuted, they are more likely to experience discrimination when seeking basic provisions, like food and medical care.
Open Doors reports that economic discrimination is the second-most common form of persecution toward men in the Middle East and North Africa, and with significant job losses and the loss of support, many are even more vulnerable than before.
Open Doors is mobilizing existing local emergency relief networks in the countries where it operates, as well as providing Bibles, discipleship training and trauma care to Christians in need. — FoxNews
Of course, the usual ‘Christians aren’t really persecuted’ trolls will want chapter and verse of such ‘alleged’ mistreatement, right?
From the Jerusalem Post (emphasis added):
Lisa Daftari, founder and managing editor at The Foreign Desk multimedia news platform told FoxNews.com, “While Iran’s regime has released thousands of short-sentence prisoners to prevent the spread of coronavirus in its jails and prisons, it has refused to show clemency toward Christian converts. According to Islamic law, it is a crime to convert to Christianity, or more specifically, it is a crime to turn from Islam.”
She added, “The regime has always made an example of its Christian convert detainees to serve as a warning to others. Paradoxically, the harsher the regime has been in recent years, the more the people of Iran have been attracted and found a haven in the Christian religion. We have seen a surge in underground churches and conversion programs.”
“The international community and the media need to keep these stories in the spotlight. For years, we have had success in getting Christians released or their sentences commuted just by continuing to report their cases,” Daftari said.
And Pakistan…
Reports from Pakistan that Christians and other minorities are being denied food aid distributed in response to the coronavirus emergency have been strongly condemned by the director of a Catholic human rights organisation.
Christians in Karachi have gone on record as saying that NGOs operating in the port city providing food to the homeless, were refusing to give food vouchers to members of minority faith groups, reporting that only Muslims were given them.
Father Emmanuel ‘Mani’ Yousaf, director of the National Commission for Justice and Peace, said that Christians and other minorities – especially labourers on daily wages – were just as badly affected by the coronavirus lockdown as the Muslim majority population.
Father Yousaf, whose Catholic organisation provides legal and paralegal support to Christians and others threatened within injustice, said: “Everybody is affected by the virus, irrespective of religious differences.
“Reports of NGOs discriminating on religious grounds are very sad to hear. It shows a very narrow mind set at work. Everybody affected should be helped – everybody.”
Father Yousaf said discrimination in the provision of food aid was a recurring problem in Pakistan.
Other religious minorities are suffering the same misery in Pakistan.
If you want more information on Christians suffering in dangerous parts of the world, or how you could help them, visit OpenDoors.
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