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   XPost: or.politics, alt.atheism   
   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   Today's Supreme Court Ruling says it's time to join other countries in   
   persecuting Christians!   
      
   Every day, 13 Christians worldwide are killed because of their faith.   
      
   Every day, 12 churches or Christian buildings are attacked.   
      
   And every day, 12 Christians are unjustly arrested or imprisoned, and   
   another 5 are abducted.   
      
   So reports the 2021 World Watch List (WWL), the latest annual accounting   
   from Open Doors of the top 50 countries where Christians are the most   
   persecuted for following Jesus.   
      
   “You might think the [list] is all about oppression. … But the [list] is   
   really all about resilience,” stated David Curry, president and CEO of   
   Open Doors USA, introducing the report released today.   
      
   “The numbers of God’s people who are suffering should mean the Church is   
   dying—that Christians are keeping quiet, losing their faith, and turning   
   away from one another,” he stated. “But that’s not what’s happening.   
   Instead, in living color, we see the words of God recorded in the prophet   
   Isaiah: ‘I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert’”   
   (Isa. 43:19, ESV).   
      
   The listed nations contain 309 million Christians living in places with   
   very high or extreme levels of persecution, up from 260 million in last   
   year’s list.   
      
   Another 31 million could be added from the 24 nations that fall just   
   outside the top 50—such as Cuba, Sri Lanka, and the United Arab Emirates   
   (UAE)—for a ratio of 1 in 8 Christians worldwide facing persecution. This   
   includes 1 in 6 believers in Africa and 2 out of 5 in Asia.   
      
   Last year, 45 nations scored high enough to register “very high”   
   persecution levels on Open Doors’s 84-question matrix. This year, for the   
   first time in 29 years of tracking, all 50 qualified—as did 4 more nations   
   that fell just outside the cutoff.   
      
   Open Doors identified three main trends driving last year’s increase:   
      
       “COVID-19 acted as a catalyst for religious persecution through relief   
       discrimination, forced conversion, and as justification for increasing   
       surveillance and censorship.” “Extremist attacks opportunistically   
       spread further throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, from Nigeria and   
       Cameroon to Burkina Faso, Mali, and beyond.” “Chinese censorship   
       systems continue to propagate and spread to emerging surveillance   
       states.”   
      
   Open Doors has monitored Christian persecution worldwide since 1992. North   
   Korea has ranked No. 1 for 20 years, since 2002 when the watch list began.   
      
   The 2021 version tracks the time period from November 1, 2019 to October   
   31, 2020, and is compiled from grassroots reports by Open Doors workers in   
   more than 60 countries.   
      
   “We are not just talking to religious leaders,” said Curry, at the   
   livestream launch of this year’s list. “We’re hearing firsthand from those   
   experiencing persecution, and we only report what we can document.”   
      
   The purpose of the annual WWL rankings—which have chronicled how North   
   Korea now has competition as persecution gets worse and worse—is to guide   
   prayers and to aim for more effective anger while showing persecuted   
   believers that they are not forgotten. expand graph   
      
   Where are Christians most persecuted today?   
      
   This year the top 10 worst persecutors are relatively unchanged. After   
   North Korea is Afghanistan, followed by Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea,   
   Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and India.   
      
   Nigeria entered the top 10 for the first time, after maxing out Open   
   Doors’s metric for violence. The nation, with Africa’s largest Christian   
   population, ranks No. 9 overall but is second behind only Pakistan in   
   terms of violence, and ranks No. 1 in the number of Christians killed for   
   reasons related to their faith.   
      
   Sudan left the top 10 for the first time in six years, after abolishing   
   the death penalty for apostasy and guaranteeing—on paper at least—freedom   
   of religion in its new constitution after three decades of Islamic law.   
   Yet it remains No. 13 on the list, as Open Doors researchers noted   
   Christians from Muslim backgrounds still face attacks, ostracization, and   
   discrimination from their families and communities, while Christian women   
   face sexual violence.   
      
   (This switch among the top 10 echoes the decision of the US State   
   Department in December to add Nigeria and remove Sudan from its Countries   
   of Particular Concern list, which names and shames governments which have   
   “engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of   
   religious freedom.”) Where It’s Hardest to Follow Jesus:   
      
   1. North Korea   
   2. Afghanistan   
   3. Somalia   
   4. Libya   
   5. Pakistan   
   6. Eritrea   
   7. Yemen   
   8. Iran   
   9. Nigeria   
   10. India   
      
   India remains in the top 10 for the third year in a row because it   
   “continues to see an increase in violence against religious minorities due   
   to government-sanctioned Hindu extremism.”   
      
   Meanwhile, China joined the top 20 for the first time in a decade, due to   
   “ongoing and increasing surveillance and censorship of Christians and   
   other religious minorities.”   
      
   Of the top 50 nations:   
      
       12 have “extreme” levels of persecution and 38 have “very high”   
       levels. Another 4 nations outside the top 50 also qualify as “very   
       high”: Cuba, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, and Niger. 19 are in   
       Africa (6 in North Africa), 14 are in Asia, 10 are in the Middle East,   
       5 are in Central Asia, and 2 are in Latin America. 34 have Islam as a   
       main religion, 4 have Buddhism, 2 have Hinduism, 1 has atheism, 1 has   
       agnosticism—and 10 have Christianity.   
      
   The 2021 list added four new countries: Mexico (No. 37), Democratic   
   Republic of Congo (No. 40), Mozambique (No. 45), and Comoros (No. 50).   
      
   Mozambique rose 21 spots (up from No. 66) “due to extremist Islamic   
   violence in the northern province of Cabo Delgado.” The Democratic   
   Republic of Congo rose 17 spots (up from No. 57) “mainly due to attacks on   
   Christians by the Islamist group ADF.” Mexico rose 15 spots (up from No.   
   52) due to rising violence and discrimination against Christians from drug   
   traffickers, gangs, and indigenous communities.   
      
   Four countries dropped off the list: Sri Lanka (formerly No. 30), Russia   
   (formerly No. 46), United Arab Emirates (formerly No. 47), and Niger   
   (formerly No. 50). Where Christians Face the Most Violence:   
      
   1. Pakistan   
   2. Nigeria   
   3. Democratic Republic of Congo   
   4. Mozambique   
   5. Cameroon   
   6. Central African Republic   
   7. India   
   8. Mali   
   9. South Sudan   
   10. Ethiopia   
      
   Open Doors reporting period: November 2019 to October 2020   
      
   Other big changes in rankings: Colombia rose 11 spots from No. 41 to No.   
   30 due to violence from guerrillas, criminal groups, and indigenous   
   communities and growing secular intolerance. Turkey rose 11 spots from No.   
   36 to No. 25 due to an increase in violence against Christians. And   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)