ICC Note:

India has made little progress in protecting the religious liberty rights of its minority communities, including Christians, even after an open letter signed by 34 members of the U.S. Congress expressed grave concerns over rising religious intolerance last month. Since the beginning of 2016, ICC has recorded over 35 attacks on Christians and their places of worship in India. According to the Catholic Secular Forum, 2015 was the worst year in India’s independent history for Christians because they were attacked 365 times. Will India start taking the necessary steps to protect Christians and other religious minorities? 

3/15/2016 India (One News Now) – A Christian human rights organization continues to express frustration with the government of India for not speaking out on specific attacks on Christians by Hindu radicals.

In one of the latest incidents, a mob of about 25 Hindu radicals attacked a Pentecostal church on Sunday, March 6, in Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh state. William Stark with International Christian Concern says the mob attacked the 60 Christians gathered there for worship.

“They destroyed all the musical instruments, they destroyed some Bibles and also I heard reports of them publically stripping some of the Christian women who had been attending the meeting there,” he says.

He tells OneNewsNow that nine people have been arrested for this attack, but at the federal level officials have failed to specifically condemn such crimes.

“Really, how hard would it be for the Indian government to specifically condemn an attack on a church and uphold the rights of their citizens?” Stark wonders. “That’s all we’re asking them to do – uphold the rights of their citizens; and it just seems that it’s really hard for them to do that at the moment.”

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