Greg DalyA new report into religious persecution worldwide is an important tool for breaking the cycle of violence that threatens to engulf our world, Dromore’s Bishop John McAreavey has said.
Speaking at the Irish launch of Aid to the Church in Need’s Religious Freedom in the World Report – 2016, Bishop McAreavey called on those who read the report to respond to its findings by working to break global patterns of religious persecution.
The report covers 196 countries, highlighting 38 states where there is evidence of ‘significant’ violations of religious freedom, with 23 of these countries being deemed to be in the most serious ‘persecution’ category, the remainder being marked by ‘discrimination’.
Since the charity’s last such report was released in 2014, the religious freedom situation appears to have worsened in 14 of these 38 states, while there are no signs of obvious improvement in a further 21.
The study provides an overview of religious freedom worldwide by assessing the situation of many beleaguered faith communities, including Yazidis, Jews, and Ahmadiyya Muslims as well as Christians. Praising the “impressive” report for its willingness to examine religious persecution in a comprehensive fashion, Dr McAreavey said it was “imbued with a concern and love for the entire human family” rather than being “a selective piece of research concerned only with our own Christian family”.
Extremism
The report found that in 12 of the 23 worst-offending countries, fundamentalist organisations – rather than governments – were the primary instruments of persecution, with the rise of “Islamist hyper-extremism” having had a “toxic impact” on religious liberty around the world. Violent Islamist attacks have taken place in a fifth of the world’s countries since mid-2014, with religious diversity and pluralism being wiped out in the Middle East.
This hyper-extremism, according to the report, is fuelling the refugee crisis, and is posing a threat to the “socio-religious fabric” of the West, giving rise to the growth of right-wing and populist groups, discrimination and violence against minority groups, restrictions on free movement, and a decline in social cohesion.
Describing the report as a call to show solidarity with persecuted Christians worldwide, Dr McAreavey said our work now “must surely be to challenge religious intolerance and persecution as a fundamental breach of human rights.”