The State Department recently released its International Religious Freedom Report for 2017. A wide range of U.S. government agencies and offices use the reports for such efforts as shaping policy and conducting diplomacy. The Secretary of State also uses the reports to help determine which countries have engaged in or tolerated “particularly severe violations” of religious freedom in order to designate “countries of particular concern.”

A major concern addressed in this year’s report is that “international religious freedom is worsening in both the depth and breadth of violations.” Here are five facts from the report about the persecution of Christians:

1. North Korea, where religious freedom is nonexistent, continues to rank as the one of the world’s most repressive regimes. The United Nations estimates that less than two percent of North Koreans are Christian, or somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 people. As the report notes, the North Korean government relentlessly persecutes and punishes religious believers through arrest, torture, imprisonment, and sometimes execution. Once Christians are imprisoned, they are typically sent to political prison camps where they are “treated with extraordinary cruelty.”
2. The government of China, a country that has about 70 million Christians, has circulated revised regulations governing religion, including new penalties for “illegal” religious activities and an increase on the crackdown on Christian house churches. The report also notes that the Chinese government is continuing its campaign, launched in 2014, to remove crosses and demolish churches. Over the past three years Chinese authorities have removed crosses or demolished churches at more than 1,500 locations in Zhejiang Province alone.
3. In Eritrea, Pentecostals and Evangelicals comprise the majority of religious prisoners. Persons detained for religious activities, in both short-term and long-term detentions, are not formally charged, permitted access to legal counsel, accorded due process, or allowed family visits. Prisoners are not permitted to pray aloud, sing, or preach, and religious books are banned. Evangelicals and Pentecostals released from prison report being pressured to recant their faith, forced to sign statements that they would no longer gather to worship, and warned not to reengage in religious activities.
4. Iran continues to arbitrarily arrest and detain Christians. Since 2010, more than 600 Christians throughout the country have been held as religious prisoners. In 2016 there were numerous incidents of Iranian authorities raiding church services, threatening church members, and arresting and imprisoning worshipers and church leaders, particularly Evangelicals. As of December 2016, approximately 90 Christians were in prison, detained, or awaiting trial because of their religious beliefs and activities.

5. As the report notes, the Russian government views independent religious activity as a major threat to social and political stability, an approach inherited from the Soviet period. It maintains and frequently updates laws that restrict religious freedom, including a 1997 religion law and a much-amended 2002 law on combating extremism. The Russian religion law sets strict registration requirements on religious groups and empowers state officials to impede their activity. It also effects religious liberty in parts of the Ukraine controlled by Russian-occupied separatist para-states. In December 2016, Ministry of State Security of one such groups denounced the Baptist community as a “non-traditional religious organization” engaged in “destructive activity.”

From: The Weekly <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: Fri, May 12, 2017

Pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ in these five countries which are among the worst abusers of Christians. Pray they will be strong and faithful to the Lord who called them and that these regimes will change their attitudes and pass laws protecting religious believers that live under their rule