Around 245 million Christians around the world are currently at the risk of persecution, with Asia being the area where this situation is of the gravest concern, Christian monitoring body Open Doors said on Wednesday in the new edition of its World Watch List
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th January, 2019) Around 245 million Christians around the world are currently at the risk of persecution, with Asia being the area where this situation is of the gravest concern, Christian monitoring body Open Doors said on Wednesday in the new edition of its World Watch List.
"The situation in Asia continues to escalate, as China climbs the World Watch List from 43 to 27 and India enters the top ten for the first time in the history of the World Watch List ... North Korea tops the World Watch List for the 18th year in a row," the report read.
North Korea is followed by Afghanistan and Somalia. A total of 50 countries are included on the list, which ranks countries by the severity of persecution that Christians face.
"Three major trends have shaped persecution against Christians this year: authoritarian states are clamping down and using legal regulations to control religion, ultra-nationalists are depicting Christians as 'alien' or 'western' and trying to drive them out, radical islam has moved from the middle East to sub-Saharan Africa," the report added.
"This year many countries rose on the World Watch List, not because they turned more violent, but because of increased social, legal and structural oppression," the charity said, citing China and Vietnam as examples of countries where new religion-related regulations came into force in 2018 and triggered an increase in oppression.
According to Open Doors, Chinese security forces continue to monitor and attack churches because Chinese President Xi Jinping believes that the Church could be used as a tool to build a socialist society.
Open Doors slammed India, which appeared in the top 10 for the first time, as a "poster boy of ultra-nationalism," claiming that the government, promoting a "Hindu message" that "to be Indian one must be Hindu," was attacking Christian-led schools and hospitals.
Russia made the list for the first time since 2011 due to persecution that Christians face in the predominantly Muslim republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. Morocco, where Christians keep being accused of "being disloyal to the king," returned to the list for the first time since 2014.
Meanwhile, Iraq was not included in the top 10 for the first time since 2010.
