ICC Note: America needs to do more to address the persecution of Christians, was the takeaway from a panel on the issue. The Center for American Progress organized the event that brought together a panel of researchers to address the issue, that in the words of Paul Marshall “is getting much worse.” The reality is that a wide-range of actors, including government and non-government organizations need to be active to support churches and address the issues that foster religious persecution.
03/26/2014 Middle East (Washington Times) – The United States can help Christians being persecuted in the Middle East by using foreign aid to modify behaviors in countries where persecution is rampant, educating U.S. diplomats about the issue in their assigned regions and asking for help from Arab-Americans, a panel of religious freedom researchers said Monday.
But in helping fight Christian persecution, the U.S. must not become a crutch or a larger target for those it’s trying to protect, said Marwan Kreidie, a political science professor at Villanova University.
“You don’t want to be ‘the great white hope,’” said Mr. Kreidie, a coordinator for Villanova’s Center for Arab and Islamic Studies. “The future of Middle Eastern Christians should be in the Middle East.”
Mr. Kreidie was one of a three-member panel assembled by the Center for American Progress to discuss Christian persecution overseas and what can be done about it.
According to a 2012 Pew Research Center study, millions of Christians in more than 100 countries are subjected to some form of persecution.
In terms of religious freedom, “I think the world is getting much worse,” said Paul Marshall, a senior fellow with the Center for Religious Freedom.
Monday’s panel discussion focused on:
• Iraq, where Christians are caught in the middle of increasing deadly violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
• Syria, whose civil war has placed Christians between mostly Sunni rebels (some of whom are al Qaeda-inspired militants) and the authoritarian regime of President Bashar Assad, who is an Alawite, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
• Egypt, where Coptic Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population, have been attacked and killed frequently in the wake of the Arab Spring protests.
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