{"id":33307,"date":"2019-02-26T09:15:11","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T09:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=33307"},"modified":"2019-02-26T10:56:03","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T10:56:03","slug":"india-rising-violence-against-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2019\/02\/26\/india-rising-violence-against-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"INDIA: RISING VIOLENCE AGAINST CHRISTIANS"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><blockquote>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Being a Christian today in India means being harassed every day: if you pray in the family you are beaten, if you pray in a domestic church you are beaten, in the streets you are beaten.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">&#8211; \u00a0Shibu Thomas, Founder of Persecution Relief Network<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The situation of Religious Freedom in India has worsened within the past two years according to Aid to the Church in Need\u2019s latest report on Religious Freedom in the World.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In January 2019 alone there were 29 incidents of violence against Indian Christians in 13 Indian states. Among the injured, there are 26 women and 25 children.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe data do not differ much from the trend of 2018, which saw an average of 20 incidents a month, almost a case of violence a day,\u201d said Tehmina Arora, <\/span>human<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> rights lawyer, activist, and consultant of the NGO \u201cAlliance Defending Freedom\u201d (ADF India).<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Arora cites a recent episode: \u201cA prayer meeting in a house in Kotra Tehsil, in the district of Udaipur, in the state of Rajasthan was interrupted by Hindu extremists who threw stones and shouted slogans against Christians, with <\/span>false<span style=\"color: #000000;\"> accusation of conversion. The police took no action or filed an official complaint against the guilty.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">According to the lawyer, \u201cif the political forces do not stop encouraging people to take justice on their own, the culture of mass violence and impunity will become the norm.\u201d The tendency not to file complaints against the perpetrators of violence \u201cdemonstrates the tacit complicity between the perpetrators of violence and the police who obviously enjoy the patronage of local political leaders or officials.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The state of Uttar Pradesh continues to hold the record for the highest number of incidents of violence against Christians. Out of 29 episodes reported in January 2019, nine come from Uttar Pradesh. The modus operandi followed in all nine cases is the same: a crowd accompanied by the police arrives at the place where a prayer meeting is held, and start shouting slogans and beating up the faithful, including women and children. Then the Pastors are arrested or detained by the police with false conversion charges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cSome forces that plan these acts, instigate hatred towards a particular community to create polarization,\u201d said A.C. Michael, Director of ADF India. \u201cEven in the state of Chhattisgarh, the faithful of a village were expelled from their community only because they were followers of the Christian faith.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cArticle 25 of the Constitution [which protects the freedom of belief and the spread of the faith, ed.] Is not applicable for Christians in India. We want to be protected. Now the Christians of the villages live in fear&#8221;, says, Shibu Thomas, Founder of Persecution Relief Network.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>ACN Malta<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being a Christian today in India means being harassed every day: if you pray in the family you are beaten, if you pray in a domestic church you are beaten, in the streets you are beaten.\u201d\u00a0&#8211; \u00a0Shibu Thomas, Founder of Persecution Relief Network The situation of Religious Freedom in India has worsened within the past&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - 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