Many flavours of hatred
Christians persecuted in Australia !
An Australian media outlet has published a shocking catalogue of violence, hate speech, discrimination and attempts to silence those opposed to the redefinition of marriage, most of whom it says are Christians.1
On 22 September Mercatornet stated: “Everyone should be concerned over the growing discrimination, persecution and vilification of Christians which is occurring in Australia. Not only is the government failing to protect the human rights of Christians, but often it seems to be enabling discrimination and persecution through legislation and comments made by parliamentarians.”
They drew attention to a wide range of news reports of attempts to silence Christians campaigning to protect traditional marriage in Australia’s current referendum. We do not have space to list all of these appalling acts of intimidation here, but just some of the threats and actual acts of violence include:
■ A meeting at a hotel of four Christian groups had to be cancelled due to physical threats by LGBT activists.
■ A group of protesters vandalized the office of a senator who supported traditional marriage and menaced his children’s school.
■ Violent protesters disrupted a Liberal party function because a well-known sports star opposed to the redefinition of marriage was a guest; the protestors sprayed attendees with glitter and confetti.
■ A mother who produced a video exposing what was taught to her children in “Safe Schools” (a highly controversial school programme on “homophobia”) but remaining anonymous for fear of violence, was “outed” by Jo Hirst, who wrote material used in the programme.
■ The headquarters of the Australian Christian Lobbyhas been targeted several times. Last December it was rammed by a vehicle filled with explosives driven by an LGBT activist who said he wanted to destroy ACL while he committed suicide. More recently an LGBT activist encouraged supporters of same-sex marriage to post noxious substances to it. Subsequently police were called after two suspicious packages containing white powder were posted to it. The building has also been pelted with eggs.
■ A doctor who appeared in the first advertisement for the “No” campaign in the forthcoming referendum (on redefining marriage to include same-sex marriage) received repeated threats of violence at her clinic as well as an online petition calling for removal of her medical registration.
■ Four weeks ago, LGBT activist and TV starBenjamin Lawmused online about raping MPs opposed to same-sex marriage. It generated almost 300 likes and many replies, including one that read, “Start with (Andrew) Hastie,” the Liberal and Christian MP for Canning in Western Australia. Mr Law then tweeted a response indicating he would like to do this.
These events in Australia follow the pattern of threats and actual acts of violence suffered by politicians, church leaders and ordinary Christians who voiced disagreement with the UK’s proposal to redefine marriage in 2012-13. However, disturbingly the level of violence, hatred and abuse directed against Christians in Australia seems not only to be significantly greater than the UK, but rapidly escalating as well.
Losing their rights
Christians in the Maldiveshave few rights, but until now at least the courts would protect those rights. Now, however, the government is increasingly controlling the courts and simply ignoring the law, leaving Christians in an even more vulnerable state.2 The Maldivian government has just suspended one-third of all lawyers in the islands after they tried to submit a petition to the Supreme Court calling for the rule of law to be respected.
Despite being a popular tourist destination, the Maldives is one of the most difficult places in the world to be a Christian. The 2008 Maldivian constitution bans Muslims from becoming Christians, which leaves open the question as to whether someone who becomes a Christian could be stripped of their citizenship.
In 1998, the government arrested 50 Maldivians suspected of having become Christians, and is thought to have tortured them. Any Maldivian even found to have a Bible in their house faces a prison sentence.There were signs of hope in 2008, with the election of President Mohammed Nasheed, of the Maldivian Democratic Party, who called for a “tolerant” form of Islam. However, he was forced out of office in 2012. He was recently granted political asylum in the UK, after being sentenced to 13 years in prison for “terrorism” in a trial that the UN said was politically motivated.
Last year, the government passed a Defamation and Freedom of Speech Act, which criminalised any comments against “any tenet of Islam,” in effect an Islamic blasphemy law.
Latest development suggests that Christians in the Maldives are now being oppressed by restrictions on freedom of religion, and the Government disregarding laws that guarantee freedom of religion. They suffer because of laws preventing them openly living as Christians, and now the government is simply ignoring even the few legal freedoms they do have.
Unreported!
As world news focuses on the plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, several people have asked us whether Christians are also persecuted in Myanmar.
The answer is yes – they suffer appalling persecution and violence at the hands of the military, but unlike the Rohingya they are largely ignored by the world’s press. However, a new threat is now emerging as jihadists head to the region to “support” Rohingya Muslims.3
Several months ago, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom commissioned a report on the persecution of Christians in Myanmar. Entitled Hidden Plight: Christian Minorities in Burma, it makes shocking reading. There is large-scale violence and intimidation of Christians by the army. To quote just one short section of that report: “The military routinely occupies churches and summons entire congregations for interrogation. Tatmadaw (Burmese Army) troops have desecrated, damaged, and destroyed churches. The military continues to perpetrate grave human rights violations with near-total impunity, including sexual violence in church compounds and the torture of pastors, church workers, and ordinary civilians. To date, approximately 120,000 people have been forced to flee.”
The military use Buddhism as a means of legitimising their oppressive rule, claiming to be defending Buddhism and the Barmar (Burmese) majority against Muslims and Christians, who are predominantly from ethnic minority groups. As well as direct attacks by the Burmese military, they have empowered a group called The Committee for the Protection of Race and Religion(better known as Ma Ba Tha), and other ultranationalistic monks, to incite violence and attacks on Christian pastors.
The predominantly Christian people groups are the Karen people who mainly live in the east near the border with Thailand, the Kachin and Naga who mainly live in the north, and the Chin, who mainly live in the south-west, particularly Chin State.
Jihadists on the march?
However, now a new threat to Christians is emerging as a direct result of the Rohingya crisis. Last October, Islamic militants from a newly formed insurgency group called Harakah al Yaqinlaunched a series of attacks on police posts in Rakhine state. Harakah al Yaqin was created by a group of Rohingya emigres based in Saudi Arabia and therefore represents a dangerous new development. The army responded in its characteristic heavy-handed fashion causing tens of thousands of Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh. Then on 25 August, Harakah al Yaqin coordinated attacks on an army base and 30 police posts in the north of Myanmar’s Rakhine state. In response the Myanmar army launched what they termed “clearance operations” against Rohingya, a euphemism for the terrible atrocities now being perpetrated against Rohingya civilians.
Now Al Qaeda is urging jihadists to flock to the region to fight for the Rohingya Muslims. This is not an idle suggestion. It is, in fact, almost exactly what happened a few months ago in the southern Philippines when Islamic State (IS)-linked jihadists from across SouthEast Asia quietly infiltrated Marawi city and then seized control of it, killing a number of Christians; despite an ongoing battle with the Philippines military, the jihadists remain in control of Marawi. In January, Malaysian authorities claimed to have arrested an IS-linked jihadist heading for Myanmar to fight in the Rohingya area. As IS loses military control in Syria and Iraq, Al Qaeda sees itself as having an opportunity to regain its claim to lead the global jihadi movement. That is why a few days ago Al Qaeda issued a statement telling jihadists in neighbouring Bangladesh and India, as well as Pakistan and the Philippines, that they have a “sharia obligation” to go to Myanmar and fight for the Rohingya.
How does this affect Christians in Myanmar, who are already suffering appalling persecution and violence from the state? The attacks which the Islamic militants from Harakah al Yaqin carried out three weeks ago were in the North of Rakine state. This is right next to Chin state, which is the only state in Myanmar that is majority Christian. In fact, one of those attacks, at the town of Maungdaw, was only about 30 miles away. If, as now seems likely, foreign jihadists arrive and turn a local Muslim insurgency into an Al Qaeda-linked jihadi struggle, as IS have just done in the Philippines, there is a very real danger that jihadists will attack Chin state.
If they do, that will put the Christians there in an impossible situation, suffering terrible violence at the hands of the Myanmar army AND being attacked by jihadists. In other words, there is the very real prospect of Christians in this part of Myanmar facing a humanitarian catastrophe that is even worse than the horrific levels of violence currently being suffered by Rohingya Muslims.
1 https://tinyurl.com/y97m3v7w