PRESS STATEMENT
November 17 2007
Four cases of Christian persecution a week in 2007, and counting
Cases of Persecution of Christians in India recorded in 2007 (from 1st January to November 16th 2007) -- 190
Persecution Cases recorded in 2006 - 178
Persecution Cases Recorded in 2005 - 165
The victims include members of almost every Church denomination in the country, Catholics, Protestants, and Evangelicals. They include Catholic Fathers, catholic Nuns, Priests, independent Pastors, wives of Pastors, believers, Seminarians and Bible School students, and ordinary folks. Violence includes attempted murder, armed assault, sexual molestation, illegal confinement and grievous injury.
These figures do not include cases that have not come to the notice of the All India Christian Council, the All India Catholic Union, the GCIC, the Evangelical Fellowship of India and the Christian Legal Association. There are other cases which have come to my notice, but where the Church groups involved or the pastors have chosen not to file cases with the police, or have sought anonymity for fear of violence against the families of innocent people, particularly in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.
This, of course, does not include widespread incidents which we do not want to include as “violence” but which certainly are indices of religious intolerance, bigotry, social discrimination and ostracisation -- as in many parts of the states in the lower Himalayan ranges [Himachal, Uttarakhand, part of Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim], Orissa and other tribal areas. These cases include refusal to give share of the community profits in forest produced to those who have converted to Christianity, denial of civic and social benefits to Christians, particularly Dalits, in many parts of the country, denial of official permission to hold community meetings, official and informal ban on Bible sale and tract distribution in places where religious tracts and books of other majority faiths are freely distributed.
This list also does not include anti Christian Hate crimes. Nor does it include violence in which Christians are the victim together with others, such as the police actions in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and other places, the displacement of Tribals because of government action, the suicides of farmers in Andhra and Maharashtra because of crop failures and the debt trap.
The Christian community acknowledges a debt of gratitude to the secular people of India, their brothers and sisters. Those in authority, including leaders of political parties, perhaps are not as concerned with a micro community that hardly figures on their political radar because it does not matter electorally in most states, barring perhaps Tamil Nadu and Kerala and the micro states of Goa, Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram where it impacts on a handful of Lok Sabha and Assembly seats.
In fact, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata party and its mother organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, continue an almost daily harangue against the Church while militant frontal organisations such as the Bajrang Dal, the Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and others peak the hate campaign at a feverish pitch.
The Evangelical Fellowship of India has called for a National Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on Sunday, November 18, 2007
[I acknowledge the significant help of CLA and the All India Christian Council and AICU leaders in various states in documenting and investigation of cases of persecution]
Dr. John Dayal
Member: National Integration Council
Government of India
National President: All India Catholic Union (Founded 1919)
Secretary General: All India Christian Council (Founded 1999)
President: United Christian Action, Delhi (Founded 1992)
505 Link, 18 IP Extension, Delhi 110092 India
Email: johndayal@vsnl.com
http://groups.google.com/group/JohnDayal
Phone: 91-11-22722262 Mobile 09811021072
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment