Thank you for inviting me to join you today. It's an honour to be here.
Last year, Freedom House recorded the 13th consecutive year of decline in global freedom and shrinking of civil society space. Connected to this trend, we also witnessed the deterioration of religious freedom. Over 80% of the world's populations live in a society with substantial restrictions on religious practices.
I direct our emergency assistance program. Through this program, we provide small grants to human rights defenders and civil society organizations under threat, as well as to victims of persecution based on belief.
We have supported 1,145 cases of persecution based on religion or belief since 2011. Of these cases, 58% or 662 individuals have been Christians.
Over the past 12 months alone, Christians have comprised 67% of the survivors that we have assisted, totalling 270 people. Over half of them were from Egypt or Pakistan. This is in line with data from multiple reports that Christians remain one of the most persecuted religious groups in the world.
The persecution of Christians takes many forms, including the destruction of churches, forcible conversion to Islam in Muslim-majority areas, being jailed under blasphemy laws or through other legal or extra-legal means, and, in extreme cases, mass killings. Nearly half of the cases we support involve physical attacks, such as sexual violence, murder and kidnapping, and attacks on property.
Non-state actors are the primary source of threats in around 60% of our cases, while state actors are the primary persecutor in around a quarter of our cases. Overall, state security forces, non-state armed groups, non-Christian neighbours and, in the cases of conversions, even family members have been implicated in severe violations of the basic freedom of Christians. The severe and ongoing nature of the repression often leads to Christians having to flee from their homes and from their communities. In many cases, we are supporting relocation.
I will first outline some of the broader trends we see in different political and cultural settings and provide case studies to illustrate the impact. These are case studies of situations in which we have provided support. I will not be providing names because of confidentiality. In some cases, we have provided funding to help these survivors relocate to safer areas, access medical treatment or receive legal support. I will conclude with recommendations to help in addressing these abuses.
Under Communist governments and other authoritarian regimes, Christians' freedom of worship is often restricted through onerous registration laws for religious organizations, state co-optation of Christian groups and mass state surveillance of churches.
For example, last year, a Protestant leader in Vietnam was detained by the authorities numerous times due to his church's independence from the regime. His church was targeted under the guise of state unification policies, which seek to place all religious groups under strict government control. Fearing imprisonment, he was forced to flee his village and find a new home.
Our 2017 report, “The Battle for China's Spirit”, documents the persecution of Christians and other believers in China. As I'm sure you'll hear from one of the other witnesses when the teleconference comes on, the report found a high level of persecution for Protestants and a moderate level of persecution for Catholics, a trend that has appeared to intensify in recent months with China's attempts to “contain the overheated growth of Christianity”—that was a quote from a Chinese official.
Since early 2014, Protestants in China have been particularly affected by the removal of crosses and church demolition campaigns, punishment of religious leaders and the arrest of human rights lawyers defending cases for Christians. In some recent cases, Protestant preachers have been detained and sentenced to prison because their activities are conducted through unregistered social organizations.
Meanwhile, in countries facing armed insurgencies and violent extremism, Christians are frequently assaulted by militants on multiple sides of the conflict, often with the tacit acceptance of the state. Last year, extremist attacks in the Minya area of Egypt killed and severely injured dozens of Christians and decimated several churches. The limited government response to the attacks means that Christians in this region of the country continue to face insecurity and routine violations of their religious freedom.
The recent church bombings in Sri Lanka are another instance of terrorist violence against Christians for openly practising their faith. The attacks in Sri Lanka also highlight how violence can exacerbate tensions with other groups, as many Muslims are now fleeing the area.
In many of the same countries racked by overall extremist violence, we also find cases of kidnappings and forced conversions of Christians, especially targeting women and girls. For example, in Nigeria last year Muslim radicals abducted a teenage girl, forced her to convert to Islam and married her to an older Muslim man. When the girl's father began working with a lawyer to recover his daughter, local extremists assaulted him and other members of his family, forcing them into hiding.
Blasphemy laws are another tool of repression against religious minorities, including Christians. The Canadian government generously provided assistance in the high-profile case of Asia Bibi, which brought international attention to this type of persecution. We frequently see these pernicious laws being abused to settle personal vendettas against Christians. In Pakistan, for example, a Christian family was charged with blasphemy and sentenced to prison, following a dispute with a local Muslim vendor. After four years of prison, when the family members were finally released they continued to be targeted by extremists who refused to believe in their innocence.
Even in some democracies Christian leaders face an environment of insecurity and attacks on their places of worship. In India, as Hindu nationalism continues to rise, Christian pastors have become key targets for Hindu extremist groups. Anti-conversion laws and direct violence are often used to pressure Christians to remain silent about their faith and to falsely accuse pastors of conversion to shut down their ministries. In one case a Christian pastor was falsely charged with forced conversions, simply for holding normal prayer services. He had to fight the legal charges against him and his church was shut down by Hindu extremists.
When Christians seek, through the legal system, restitution for persecution, they often encounter a criminal justice system that is biased against them and supports impunity for perpetrators of religiously motivated violence. For example, last year in a rural area of Egypt, when survivors of an anti-Christian attack went to the police, authorities ordered them to participate in a reconciliation session with their attackers, during which they were forced to agree to not pray in church and to give up their claims for compensation.
Finally, I would like to touch on the heightened threats faced by human rights defenders and lawyers who protect the freedom of Christians. In some countries, regardless of the faith background, advocates who defend the basic rights of Christians are viewed as traitors to their nation and are targeted both by their government's security services and extremists in their country. For example, in the case of Asia Bibi, her lawyer, a Muslim, received death threats from militant groups due to his work combatting the blasphemy charges, forcing him to flee the country. More recently in Sudan, human rights lawyers who defended Christians in court were detained and tortured following the outbreak of anti-government protests last December.
With this widespread persecution in mind, there are several concrete steps that the Canadian Parliament and the Canadian government can take.
First—and I know this has been done already but I'm encouraging the continuation of it—take strong and immediate action against violators of religious freedom through the use of the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the Magnitsky act. Targeted sanctions against foreign officials who have committed gross violations of religious freedom is an important mechanism in holding state actors accountable. This act is a tool that we recommend Canada increasingly use to help limit impunity and also to continue to demonstrate Canada's strong commitment to protecting religious minority groups.
Second, engage in public and private diplomatic efforts to increase state capacity to respond to instances of religious persecution inside the country. By working with countries to bolster their own response mechanisms to religious freedom violations, Canada can increase state accountability and the rule of law, and improve protections for all minority faith groups, including non-believers.
Direct more funding to support victims of religious persecution and organizations that work on religious freedom issues. Supporting courageous grassroots activists and civil society organizations can lead to long-term reform, especially through support for organizations focused on areas such as interfaith mediation and legal advocacy. To be very clear, in this recommendation I am not advocating calling for more funding for Freedom House in particular. There are many excellent organizations dedicated to improving protections for freedom of religion or belief.
Fourth, Canadian MPs can consider adopting a religious prisoner as a form of advocacy. In the U.S., members of Congress who support the cases of individual prisoners of conscience bring attention to their plight, potentially resulting in releases or reduced prison terms.
Finally, the Canadian government should consider adopting its own list of countries of particular concern, CPCs, to highlight the most egregious violators of religious freedom. In the U.S., the CPC list has been an important tool for bringing attention to countries and implementing targeted sanctions in places where the rights of religious communities are most frequently abused.
Thank you very much.