A cross atop a Catholic church in Tianjin, China, is seen silhouetted against the sun. (CNS photo/Kim Kyung-Hoon, Reuters)
CNA Staff, Jan 13, 2021 / 01:27 pm (CNA).- For the twentieth year in a row, North Korea tops the list of countries where Christians face oppression, according to a group that reports on global Christian persecution.
The advocacy group Open Doors released its annual World Watch List on Tuesday, documenting the countries where Christians face the most threats for their faith. North Korea again tops the list, and Nigeria has worsened to the point of entering the top 10 countries for persecution of Christians.
Overall, 340 million Christians worldwide face persecution, according to Open Doors, an increase of 30 million from last year.
The worst country, North Korea, lacks religious freedom, the report said. Here, “being discovered to be a Christian is a death sentence.”
Of the estimated 400,000 Christians in North Korea, around 50-75,000 of them are imprisoned in labor camps; for those Christians not killed by the state upon their discovery, they and their families face “horrendous” conditions in the labor camps, Open Doors said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the suffering of Christians in camps, the group says, as “North Koreans call it [the virus] the ‘ghost disease’ – because people are so malnourished already that they die very quickly.”
The World Watch List covers persecution during the time period from Nov. 1, 2019 through Oct. 31, 2020, and examines restriction on the practice of the Christian faith in a number of areas: private life, family life, community life, national life, church life, and violence.
Afghanistan and Somalia rank closely behind North Korea on the worst countries for Christians, according to Open Doors.
As in North Korea, Christians in Afghanistan and Somalia must keep their faith a secret as their lives are in danger if they convert from Islam to Christianity—and they even suffer at the hands of Muslim family members. In Somalia, there are only a few hundred Christians in a population of 16 million, Open Doors states.
The list of the 10 worst countries is similar to last year’s, with Sudan being removed and Nigeria added to this year’s list.
Violence in Nigeria against Christians has reached the level of genocide, according to some Christian leaders, as Christians are threatened by Fulani militants, the militant group Boko Haram, and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). An average of 10 Christians per day are killed in Nigeria, and attacks on villages and atrocities committed against women and children are often committed with impunity.
Iraq and Syria are both listed as having “extreme” levels of Christian persecution, and are numbers 11 and 12 on the list, respectively.
The pandemic has only worsened a tightening grip on Christian religious practice worldwide, Open Doors noted, and for the first time in the 29-year history of the report, all of the 50 worst countries for Christians had “very high” or “extreme” levels of persecution.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has turned a bad situation into an unbearable one,” David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, stated. “This public health crisis created an opportunity to expand faith-based discrimination and violence in regions where religious persecution had already reached alarming rates.”
In addition to Nigeria’s rise to the top 10 list, China re-entered the top 20 worst countries for Christians for the first time in a decade, Open Doors noted, with government surveillance of Christians a problem–even documenting their phone messages.
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Janada Marcus, 22, was forced to flee Boko Haram with her family twice before the terrorists attacked them again, killing her father and kidnapping her. / Credit: Aid to the Church in Need
A photo of Deborah Emmanuel’s photo on her Facebook page. Emmanuel, a Christian student in Nigeria, was killed by an Islamic mob on her college campus on May 12, 2022. / CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 23, 2022 / 14:01 pm (CNA).
Deborah Emmanuel, the Nigerian Christian student who was murdered by a Muslim mob last month, spent her final hours with a close friend who has shared exclusive details of the brutal killing with CNA.
CNA is using the pseudonym “Mary” for the woman’s protection. A Christian herself, she nearly was killed by the same mob.
Significantly, Mary’s account contradicts the claim of authorities that they attempted to rescue Emmanuel from the mob but were “overwhelmed.”
On the contrary, the police “could have stopped the murder if they had really tried,” Mary told CNA.
Emmanuel’s so-called “blasphemy murder” took place on May 12 on the campus of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto, Sokoto State, a major city located in the northwest corner of Nigeria. The city is home to the Muslim Sultan who serves as the top religious authority for Nigeria’s 100 million Muslim believers.
Prior to the attack, Emmanuel, a home economics major who attended Evangelical Church Winning All, was bullied by fanatical Muslim students at the teacher’s college for audio statements she made on WhatsApp, a messaging platform. She credited Jesus Christ for her success on a recent exam, and when threatened and told to apologize she refused, invoking the Holy Spirit, saying “Holy Ghost fire! Nothing will happen to me,” according to WhatsApp messages reviewed by CNA.
In the aftermath of these heated exchanges, a Muslim mob attacked Emmanuel on the college’s campus. After an hours’ long siege, the mob beat and stoned her to death, then set her body on fire with burning tires, according to graphic video footage posted online. The rioters also rampaged in a Catholic Church compound in Sokoto, according to reports. The riots spread to other Christian-owned properties over two days.
A relative of Emmanuel’s, who said he was standing approximately 60 feet from the mob, also told CNA he believes the police could have saved her. He, too, asked that his identity be withheld for his safety.
Unarmed campus security personnel made a futile attempt to rescue Emmanuel, according to a campus security report shared with CNA. But Emmanuel’s relative said there were dozens of armed police officers on the scene who didn’t fire their weapons.
The commissioner of police in the state also said officers did not fire their weapons. However, he maintained that only 15 of his officers were at the scene, according to a report in The Epoch Times.
Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Diocese of Sokoto has strongly condemned the attack and called on Emmanuel’s killers to be brought to justice..
“This matter must be treated as a criminal act,” he said. You can read his full statement here.
A plea for help
On the day of Emmanuel’s death, Mary received a frantic phone call from her around 9 a.m, asking for help. By that time, women who lived in her dormitory had begun slapping Emmanuel, Mary told CNA.
Mary arrived at the campus to see her friend surrounded by a mob and being led by a campus staffer to a gatehouse building for her protection. The Muslim students had bloodied her face and head with blows from rods and were joined by male students who believed their duty was to execute a blasphemer on the spot, Mary said.
“Allahu Akbar!” meaning “God is Great” was bellowed for hours, she said.
Mary initially stayed outside the building and tried to intercede for her friend, but she said it wasn’t long before the mob turned on her, too. Within moments Mary was trying to ward off punches and blows from sticks as she backed away from the gatehouse and toward the gate of the college 40 feet away.
Mary said a college lecturer rescued her and brought her to join Emmanuel inside the gatehouse by 10 a.m.
At 10:25 a.m., the relative said, six officers of the Department of State Security (DSS) — the equivalent to the FBI in the U.S. — arrived, firing their rifles in the air but with no effect. Five minutes later, he said, a group of Sokoto police came on the scene and fired tear gas, temporarily scattering the mob.
The above map is based on eyewitness accounts of the murder of Nigerian Christian student Deborah Emmanuel on her college’s campus on May 12, 2022. Graphic by Alexander Hunter
For about 10 minutes police had an opportunity to disperse the mob and force their way to the gatehouse to extract Mary and Emmanuel, Emmanuel’s relative believes. But that did not happen.
By 11 a.m., the mob had returned to the building, holding cloths against their faces to ward off the tear gas. The mob tried hurling stones at Mary through the windows of the locked gatehouse, but Mary barricaded herself behind a table.
The mob then threw gasoline on the women through the front windows and attempted to burn them alive, Mary said.
“Deborah was soaked with gasoline, but when lighted plastic was pitched in through the windows, I quickly stamped the flames out,” Mary said.
No escape
All of this transpired as police and DSS officers watched from a safe distance, according to Emmanuel’s relative.
The traumatized women said little to each other, but Emmanuel was still hoping to do her examination that day, Mary said. At one point, she recalled, Emmanuel asked, “What time is it? I have an examination at noon.” Mary said she looked at her cell phone and told her it was 1 p.m.
After another excruciating hour of siege, the mob pushed down a single Sokoto policeman guarding the door, broke the padlock on the door, and rushed in to find Mary and Emmanuel hiding behind furniture, Mary and the relative related. Two rioters placed a chain around Mary’s neck and pulled it hard, trying to strangle her, she recounted.
“Let this girl go! She is not an offender,” Mary recalled one of the rioters shouting. But as they released her, a young man in the mob grabbed Emmanuel and took her to the front steps of the gatehouse. There she was bludgeoned with steel pipes and wooden rods and stoned, the relative said.
Two DSS officers attempted to rescue Emmanuel but were hit by stones and pushed aside, the relative said. The police officers remained in position and did not come to her aid, he alleged.
Mary collapsed inside the gatehouse gasping from the strangulation. Approximately 40 minutes later, she said, she was roused by one of the mob to leave the building, which was on fire.
As she walked through the smoke, Mary saw the gatehouse burning and Emmanuel’s lifeless body in flames.
The face of Christian persecution
In the aftermath of Emmanuel’s murder, human rights advocates and others have leveled sharp criticism at Nigeria’s government leaders for not doing enough to stem the rising tide of violence directed at Christians and other non-Muslims.
Relatives of Deborah Emmanuel at her burial in Niger State, Nigeria. Courtesy of the Emmanuel family
Anti-Christian hatred was evident in days of rioting in Sokoto following the arrest of two suspects in Emmanuel’s murder. The rioters reportedly were incensed that there were any arrests at all.
“Deborah Emmanuel, like kidnapping victim Leah Sharibu (who was enslaved by Boko Haram insurgents in 2019), has become the face of Christian persecution in Nigeria,” said Kyle Abts, executive director of the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON). “There has not been an official report from the security forces on the lynching of Ms. Emmanuel. Her killing and subsequent riots show clear government complicity and coverup.”
Tina Ramirez, founder of the international nonprofit Hardwired Global, also believes the Nigerian government has been unwilling to take a strong stand against blasphemy killings.
“The recent attacks on students are reminiscent of the attacks at Nigerian colleges two decades ago that were the precursor to the growth of extremist groups across Nigeria’s North and Middle Belt,” Ramirez wrote in a text to CNA.
Several mobs attacked Christian communities and set fire to several churches Aug. 16, 2023, in the town of Jaranwala, in Pakistan’s Faisalabad district, after two Christians were accused of defiling the Quran. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Aid to … […]
5 Comments
The rights of Christians around the world, including right here in the United States, are under attack, and the liberals, liberal media and liberal theology allow it, ignore it, or sometimes even approve it.
Where socialism, communism, and atheism are the foundations of government, godless tyranny abounds, leading to suffering, death, persecution, and silencing of any who believe in the one true God, especially if they are faithful Christians.
Absolutely true Todd. When will Catholic leaders speak out? What is happening in Nigeria is beyond shocking, but nobody reports on it. We can but pray.
People need to educate themselves to the fact the US over threw the countries of Syria, a democratic government, for a pipeline.. Iran in 1953 for oil, a democratic government. The US instilled the sha, “king” over the people as a puppet of the US. The Sha, instilled by the USA, was the most murderous and torturous leader of the 1970’s. He was ousted by the people of Syria in 1979, and naturally after murdering and torture ran to the US his refuge and protection.. an “assumed” christian nation, as the baath party.
Al Assad of Syria today, murders, tortures is people, as a leader of the baath party, christians. Trumps military actions were to pretect oil interests in Syria, not to protect the people, that flee for their lives..
The US over threw the democratic Catholic, Guatemala in 1954, mastered by the Dulles brothers, one head of the CiA, other secretary of state, for their owning the land for United Fruit… “they were not Catholic.
Inciting the over throw of Iran, Syria, Guatemala, the Dulles brothers own son, came to be, the first Cardinal of US Catholic church… must of prayed alot..
wonder if he was a champion of the poor?
Christains, Catholic “ties” have been very active, “evil” in the over throw of many countries, which would give reason to a disdain to, christains in many places.
Saddam was in full retreat when the US swooped in after 911 and started the Iraq war.. Iraq has no connections to 911, but, Saudi Arabia was home to the majority of operatives… Today the US and Saudi Arabia work in unison to Genocide Yemen, thw worst crime against, the poor, humanity, ever in World history…
The rights of Christians around the world, including right here in the United States, are under attack, and the liberals, liberal media and liberal theology allow it, ignore it, or sometimes even approve it.
Where socialism, communism, and atheism are the foundations of government, godless tyranny abounds, leading to suffering, death, persecution, and silencing of any who believe in the one true God, especially if they are faithful Christians.
Absolutely true Todd. When will Catholic leaders speak out? What is happening in Nigeria is beyond shocking, but nobody reports on it. We can but pray.
People need to educate themselves to the fact the US over threw the countries of Syria, a democratic government, for a pipeline.. Iran in 1953 for oil, a democratic government. The US instilled the sha, “king” over the people as a puppet of the US. The Sha, instilled by the USA, was the most murderous and torturous leader of the 1970’s. He was ousted by the people of Syria in 1979, and naturally after murdering and torture ran to the US his refuge and protection.. an “assumed” christian nation, as the baath party.
Al Assad of Syria today, murders, tortures is people, as a leader of the baath party, christians. Trumps military actions were to pretect oil interests in Syria, not to protect the people, that flee for their lives..
The US over threw the democratic Catholic, Guatemala in 1954, mastered by the Dulles brothers, one head of the CiA, other secretary of state, for their owning the land for United Fruit… “they were not Catholic.
Inciting the over throw of Iran, Syria, Guatemala, the Dulles brothers own son, came to be, the first Cardinal of US Catholic church… must of prayed alot..
wonder if he was a champion of the poor?
Christains, Catholic “ties” have been very active, “evil” in the over throw of many countries, which would give reason to a disdain to, christains in many places.
Saddam was in full retreat when the US swooped in after 911 and started the Iraq war.. Iraq has no connections to 911, but, Saudi Arabia was home to the majority of operatives… Today the US and Saudi Arabia work in unison to Genocide Yemen, thw worst crime against, the poor, humanity, ever in World history…
The Shah was Iranian, not Syrian.
My husband was wondering if the Pope made the agreement with China so that the Catholics would not be treated like the Uighurs.