ICC Note: When Christians and religious minorities are persecuted for their faith it often exposes other areas of restriction and repression. On the opposite side when religious freedoms are protected, other rights are protected and societies generally are able to flourish. Protecting Christians from persecution is not just about Christians and their rights but is for the good of entire societies.

By MATTHEA BRANDENBURG

04/22/2014 Middle East (Acton Institute) – This past weekend, Christians around the world commemorated the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is interesting to ponder how Easter was celebrated in the Middle East, the birthplace of Christianity and the region in which these very events unfolded. There is one factor, however, that may have made the liturgical festivities less expansive and well-attended than one might imagine: the minimal number of Christians in the region. In the Middle East, the number of Christians has dwindled to less than 10 percent of the region’s population. This diminishing number is not, however, simply a result of natural immigration patterns or conversions to other faiths; it also reflects the determination of intolerant and extremist governments and associated groups to drive them out.

In a Wall Street Journal article titled, “The Middle East War on Christians,” Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, explains that in Iraq alone over the past 10 years, “nearly two-thirds of Iraq’s 1.5 million Christians have been driven from their homes.” Prosor then adds: 

In the rubble of Syrian cities like Aleppo and Damascus, Christians who refused to convert to Islam have been kidnapped, shot and beheaded by Islamist opposition fighters. In Egypt, mobs of Muslim Brotherhood members burn Coptic Christian churches in the same way they once obliterated Jewish synagogues. And in Iraq, terrorists deliberately target Christian worshippers. This past Christmas, 26 people were killed when a bomb ripped through a crowd of worshipers leaving a church in Baghdad’s southern Dora neighborhood. 

Upholding the right to religious freedom not only better recognizes human dignity and enables the exercise of other liberties; in many cases, it also helps to create a more stable national environment. Jordan comes perhaps the closest to being an example of such a country. The situation for Christians in Jordan is not perfect but it is light-years ahead of Iran, a country in which the government severely restricts Christians’ ability to worship and live within its borders. In a recent American Spectator article titled, “Ready to Join the International Community?” Doug Bandow details the persecution faced by religious minorities in the country and argues that a halt to religious repression could earn the country, among other things, increased acceptance in the international community.

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