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Christians make exodus from Middle East
Religious Intolerance; Retreating In Both Numbers, Influence: Report
 
Charles Lewis
National Post

Saturday, July 07, 2007

The deterioration of religious rights in the Muslim world is accelerating, increasing the exodus of Christians and other minorities and severely eroding formerly robust Christian communities in the Middle East, says a report from the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom.

"Middle Eastern Christians are facing a profound and unprecedented crisis as they retreat from the region in both numbers and influence," says the 800-page report, World Trends in Religious Freedom, which will be released Monday in Washington.

"That native Christian communities, some two millennia old, and numbering between 12 [million] and 15 million, have been in decline over many years is no longer in dispute," the report says.

"What is now a serious cause for concern is the accelerating rate of this decline, swiftly rendering these communities relics of their former selves, many on the brink of extinction in the very cradle of their faith."

The report, the first in seven years, goes beyond just the plight of Christians in the Muslim world, says Paul Marshall, its general editor.

It also found increased intolerance in Muslim countries outside the Middle East and the growth of "secular paranoia" in Western Europe.

"France and Belgium created parliamentary commissions, published reports about cults, listed almost 200 suspicious religious movements, created government agencies to fight cults, collaborated with private anti-cult movements, and promulgated laws targeting so-called cults," the report says.

Mr. Marshall, now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute, is a former professor at the University of Toronto and the author of several books on religious issues.

The overall tenor of the report, which looked at half the world's nations, has left him "pessimistic." He said things have either gotten worse or have remained the same since the last report.

The report assigned a tolerance level, from one (the highest) to seven, for each country based on government policies and the general social climate.

It relied on anecdotal evidence and the expertise of the report's authors.

Mr. Marshall said the Middle East continues to be especially troubling. There has been an acceleration of intolerance over the past 20 years "with a very dramatic increase over the past four years, especially in Iraq and in Palestinian areas."

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, millions of people have left. "Most of these are Muslim, but disproportionately they are the religious minorities and 90% are Christian."

A similar trend is being seen in the Palestinian territories with the rise of the hardline Islamist Hamas and in secularist Turkey.

In April, youths killed three evangelical Christians in eastern Turkey, telling investigators "they committed the crime in defence of Islam," the Christian Science Monitor reported. Last year, a Protestant church leader in Adana was badly beaten and a Roman Catholic priest was killed in Trabzon.

Even before the latest incidents, many Turkish Christians were choosing to leave.

"You see this trend with traditional Christian communities in Turkey," Mr. Marshall said.

"I was in southeastern Turkey, walking through abandoned Christian villages. They're just empty: shells with goats wandering through them. Many went to Europe [in the 1990s] as guest workers. But it wasn't just because of the economy."

An equally alarming development is that Muslim countries outside the Middle East -- particularly Indonesia, Bangladesh and Nigeria -- are becoming more intolerant. Governments are finding it more difficult to control radical Islamic elements, which in turn has led to more "harassment and threats, church burnings, physical attack and death against other Muslims, the Christian population and other minorities."

Mr. Marshall said while there have been improvements in Eastern Europe, the report shows that some Western European nations are becoming more aggressive against smaller religions and cults.

The numbers of Jehovah's Witnesses and Pentecostals in Europe are increasing, as is membership in the Church of Scientology and the Unification Church (Moonies).

"Often the state's view, semiofficially, [is that] religion is irrational anyway and these guys are really weird and irrational so they're looked on as inherently dangerous."

Mr. Marshall speculates that the expansion of the European Union, the growth of more pan-European institutions "that feel more distant" and the fact immigration has changed the face of Europe, especially Muslim immigration, are exacerbating other fears.

On a world scale Europe is a good place, Mr. Marshall said.

"But we're seeing these worrisome trends," he said.

"Will they continue? I don't know. But for now, the trend lines are negative. The tensions will continue to increase."

Christians make exodus from Middle East (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=71d7973f-7eed-4c2b-ad2b-0588ffa9ad20)