Charity urges Government action as violence against Christians skyrockets

Urgent international action must be taken to protect Christians as attacks including beatings and torture continue to rise exponentially in India, an Irish charity has warned.

Knife attacks, extortion, battery and arson were just some of the crimes highlighted by Church in Chains, who have issued a briefing document to the Government detailing what is a quickly deteriorating situation.

Since 2014 the number of reports of violent incidents against Christians increased by over 33%, from 147 to 441. The statistics were compiled by the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) and the All-India Christian Council, with the EFI estimating the actual number of attacks is much greater.

The charity’s director, David Turner, said the number of reports could be as high as 1,000 by the end of 2017 once figures are compiled, as there were 410 reported violent incidents in the first six months of last year.

Significant

“For the past number of years people outside India have sat on their hands and said we’ll ignore this because we want to have good trade relations and it’s not statistically very significant,” said Mr Turner.

“But that kind of approach has failed and has just emboldened those who are attacking Christians to keep going in their activities.”

The briefing was sent to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Ambassador of India to Ireland, and the Oireachtas has Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence.

It details 57 of what Church in Chains describes as “serious incidents of persecution of Christians” in 2017 from Indian and international publicly available reports, and describes the action taken by India’s police.

In one incident Pastor Amar Stephen from north India was attacked by a Hindu extremist group who are said to have beat him with belts, shoes and sticks before taking him to a police station. The pastor gave a statement to the police who then released him.

Another report describes “five Hindu militants” who used steel rods and a butcher’s knife to attack a father-son pastoral team. The father was left with brain tissue injuries. The police were said to have ignored identification of the attackers.

A third reported attack occurred in Uttar Pradesh in September, and involved Pastor Abhay Sagar (37) who lost hearing in one ear after being tortured by what Church in Chains states were Hindu extremists.

The extremists were said to have prevented medical treatment of the clergyman and pressured police to falsely charge him. Police subsequently charged him with criminal conspiracy and insulting Hindu beliefs, according to the charity.

“The greatest shock for a person in Ireland would be that not only are the police not stopping Christians being attacked, but the perpetrators can feel such impunity that often they beat up the pastor or members of the congregation and bring them to the police station,” said Mr Turner.

“They then tell the police to charge the victims with trying to convert Hindus and sometimes the police go ahead.”

However, he added, the charges are normally dropped “when it goes further up the ladder”.

Briefing

The briefing, entitled ‘Official India: On the Side of the Militants’, links the upsurge in the persecution of Christians with the election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

They are accused of not taking effective action to combat attackers, protect victims and promote religious freedom.

Mr Turner said: “I think it comes down to a basic choice that legislators have to make, is India for all its citizens, or is India – as the Hindu extremist vision is – is it just for Hindus?”

Church in Chains has urged the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, to speak “clearly and consistently in support of full religious freedom for all in India”.

India’s government have acknowledged there is a spike in secular based violence, with detailed data being revealed in their parliament last week.

Over 800 cases of secular violence were recorded in 2017, with 111 people killed and 2,384 injured. In 2016 there were 86 people killed and 2,384 injured in 703 incidents.

Hindus form 80% of India’s population or some 966 million. The 172 million Muslims and 28 million Christians are the two main religious minorities, followed by Sikhs, Buddhists, Zoroastrians (Parsis) and Jains.

“We’d be very hopeful that the foreign affairs committee in the Dáil would see fit to call the Indian ambassador in to answer questions about that,” Mr Turner said.

“If nothing is done by the international community I can see nothing only a further increase in attacks,” he added.