By Rosalie Thompson

4/25/2016 Washington, D.C. (International Christian Concern) – For Lauro Nunez, life in rural Mexico hasn’t always been easy.  As an impoverished farmer from a small religious village in Las Chachalacas, Oaxaca, the motions of everyday life have always been the same. However, all of that changed five years ago when Lauro decided that a move to Mexico City would provide a better economic opportunity for him and his family.

For years, Lauro had been searching for hope and fulfillment and, to his surprise, it was during his time in the Mexican capital where he found that yearning and desire through Christ’s salvation.

By 2014, not long after his conversion to Christianity, Lauro and his family decided to make a return to Las Chachalacas, his home village. Hoping that life in Las Chachalacas would be the same tranquil life he had once known, Lauro was unaware of the challenges that awaited him and his family.

According to Lauro, upon returning to his village, he was hit with a religious penalty fee for having left his village for more than a year. Though he agreed to pay the fee in order to regain his residency, the villagers were still not content.  Upon learning of his spiritual transformation and conversion to Evangelical Christianity, the villagers imposed another demand on Lauro and his family. Not only was he obligated to pay a fee for his residency, he was also forced to sign a document in which he agreed not to “introduce a new sect or religion” that contradicted the Catholic belief system.

When the villagers discovered his absence from the local Catholic Church on Sunday morning, Lauro found himself summoned before village authorities.

According to Lauro, during the first meeting he was told that attending a non-Catholic Church was prohibited by local and custom laws, and “not the proper citizen thing to do.” Lauro explained to International Christian Concern (ICC) that, during his interrogation, he tried reasoning with local authorities. He stated, “I paid my dues, and even refrained from publicly sharing my Christian beliefs, just as I had been told to do. But the authorities did not care.”  When he was released, he was warned to never go back to the non-Catholic church.

Lauro decided not to give in to their demands. As expected, Lauro was once again summoned by local authorities.

“The second summon, came in July of 2015, which suddenly turned into an arrest and imprisonment for 48 hours,” Lauro Said. “When I was eventually released from prison, I was threatened with more imprisonment and expulsion if I dared to go back to [the] church. Again, I refused to listen.”

A few weeks later, Lauro was once again imprisoned for 48 hours, and each time the pressure and threats to leave his church increased severely.  According to Lauro, the summer of 2015 turned into a cycle of harassment and persecution.  Finally, in November 2015, local officials decided that in order to rid themselves of the “Evangelical threat,” they had to rid themselves of Lauro and his family and expel them from the village.

After his expulsion, Lauro lodged a formal complaint against village officials. He presented his case before the courts of Oaxaca and fought for four months to be justly heard. Finally, in March of 2016, the courts ruled in favor of Lauro, ruling that his expulsion went against Article 24 of the Mexican constitution and informing him that he had “the right” to his return to his village.

On March 28, 2016, with the court’s final decision in his favor, Lauro bravely marched back into his village ready to start his life all over.

Unfortunately, before Lauro could even settle back in with his mother, village officials and community members attacked his mother’s home.

As village officials destroyed his mother’s belongings and cut off her utilities, angry community members began to mercilessly beat Lauro. At one point, his cousin stepped in to defend him as he was forcibly pushed into a corner. “The worst beatings were inflicted on him,” Lauro explained to ICC.  “He defended me, and because of that he was beaten severely.”

When the villagers grew tired of kicking and verbally abusing him, he was thrown in prison as a way to coerce him into renouncing his faith. “For the next 52 hours, I was constantly harassed and told to renounce my faith, but over and over, I refused to give in,” Lauro said. “Finally, village officials came back with an ultimatum that involved my mother.”

According to Lauro, villager officials threatened to expel his Catholic mother from the community and take all of her belongings if he did not sign the document.

Despite the vicious threats, Lauro refused to sign any document that stated the renunciation of his faith. Instead, in order to save his mother from further humiliation and expulsion, he was forced to sign an official document in which he stated that he would not press charges against the community or village officials. “The document stated that I was voluntarily leaving the community with the promise that I would never go back,” Lauro explained.

“And just like that, I promised to leave my home village forever in return for the guarantee that my mother’s dignity and safety would be preserved.”

Unfortunately, Lauro’s story is just one of many examples of Evangelical Christians in Mexico who suffer severe persecution for their faith. The daily persecution that Mexican Christians face has gone unnoticed for many years. However, ICC’s current advocacy efforts seek to bring this injustice to an end, but most importantly, to provide solidarity and comfort to the suffering Mexican Church.