Report
to outline violations of religious liberty
About
10% of Christians Suffer, Official Says
Zenit (28.03.2001) HRWF International Secretariat
(29.03.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Amid ongoing violations of religious liberty in the
world, the Catholic organization Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) plans to
publish a third "Report on Religious Liberty in the World" in May.
Quoting
"missiometrics" professor David B. Barrett, of Regent University in
Virginia Beach, Virginia, ACN's Gyula Orban said that "approximately 10%
of the 2 billion Christians in the world suffer persecution. This means that
some 200 million Christians suffer harsh repercussions because of their
religion."
Achille Tamburrini, ACN's
Italian director and promoter of the publication of this report, explained to
ZENIT that "the objective is to create a permanent observatory on the
state of religious liberty in the world. Our analysis does not only affect
Christians but the whole human community. On several occasions, John Paul II
has reiterated that the right to liberty is not something that affects a
particular confession; it is a natural right that affects all men."
--ZENIT: What criteria do you use to record violations of this
fundamental right?
--Tamburrini: According to our analysis,
the right to religious experience comes before the choice of a religious
confession, because it is a natural right, so there is no political authority
that can prohibit it. The three components of this right, ratified by the
United Nations, are freedom of choice; freedom to practice worship and educate
one's children according to one's religious convictions; freedom to maintain
relations, at the national and international levels, with those who share the
same religious creed. ...
[Violations] range from
phenomena of intolerance to cases of persecution and martyrdom.
--ZENIT: What have been the clearest cases of violation of religious
liberty in the past year?
--Tamburrini: In particular, we have
been witnesses of the growth of persecutions in India, Sudan, Indonesia, East
Timor and Egypt.
--ZENIT:
Sometimes it is said that, with the end of the Communist bloc, Muslim fundamentalism
is the great enemy of religious liberty.
--Tamburrini: In the Muslim realm, a
distinction must be made between countries that have turned their back on
revolutions of a socialist character -- such as Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco --
where there is a certain tolerance, and countries where governments suffer the
pressure of fundamentalist groups.
For example, in Egypt there
are disagreeable incidents, which are not instigated by the government, but the
police are afraid to intervene, lest they suffer fundamentalists'
reprisals.
--ZENIT: So the great danger comes from impassioned Muslims.
--Tamburrini: No. We also have the countries we
group in the red area. Although the Berlin Wall has fallen, there are still 1.4
billion people living under Communist regimes. Here we have China, Myanmar,
Vietnam, Korea and Cuba. There is not much talk about Vietnam, but Catholics
live in a terrible condition. The situation in China has worsened notably.
Beijing has adopted legislation of a broad, anti-religious character, typical
of Communist regimes. The severity of the law depends on how it is implemented.
We have places where
Christians of the clandestine
Church can frequent the parishes, celebrate Mass, and meet; whereas in other
places, only 500 kilometers away, they end up in prison for these reasons.
This
creates a constant state of uncertainty of the law. Christians, like all other
citizens, never know if they can do certain things. Any person can be arrested
and disappear at any moment.
Christians
in Cuba are in the same situation. Over the past year, the situation in the
Caribbean country has become much more rigid, perhaps because the moment for
the transition of power is approaching.
--ZENIT: In
addition to Muslim fundamentalism and Communist regimes, what else does the
forthcoming report include?
--Tamburrini: There continue to be zones of
conflict, especially in Africa, where the problem does not stem from specific,
organized persecutions, but from war situations.
Missionaries in the black
continent are killed especially because they are annoying witnesses. In times
of conflict, humanitarian organizations leave the territory; missionaries,
however, do not abandon their faithful. Thus, sometimes the different factions
at war target Christians in their attacks, because the [latter] report the news
and denounce injustice.
--ZENIT:
What do you hope to accomplish with the report, to denounce injustices?
--Tamburrini: Our first objective is to make
violations of rights known and, in this way, organize a network of assistance.
A denunciation, on its own, is sterile. One of the objectives we are pursuing
is to mobilize Christians and lay people of good will to exert pressure on the
political world. We would like economic agreements with certain countries to
stipulate the condition that human rights will be respected.