National Post (National Edition)
CHRISTIANS BEHIND BARS BECAUSE OF THEIR FAITH.
PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS OF IRAN, CHINA SUFFER FOR THEIR FAITH AT CHRISTMAS
With Christmas just a week away, Shima and Shokoufeh Zanganeh, two sisters from the city of Ahvaz in southwestern Iran, remain in prison. Arrested Sept. 2 for the crime of converting to Christianity, they are expected to spend Christmas Day in the city’s Sepidar prison. Jamshid Derakhshan, arrested Nov. 30 on his way to a prayer meeting in a house church in the city of Hashtgerd, west of the capital, Tehran, is also expected to spend Christmas behind bars.
According to the British charity Open Doors UK, the Zanganeh sisters and Derakhshan are victims of an alarming crackdown on Christians in Iran.
During the first week of December, at least 114 Christians are known to have been arrested in Iran on charges of either proselytizing or converting to Christianity, which can be punished with a 10-year jail term.
While Christianity is officially tolerated in Iran, the Islamic courts avail themselves of several criminal provisions to persecute Christians, including “propagating against the Islamic Republic in favour of Christianity” and “orienting toward the land of Christianity,” or more ominously, “enmity against God” and “insulting the Prophet,” crimes that can carry the death sentence.
“Sharing the gospel with a Muslim, owning a Bible in the Farsi language or leading a secret church meeting for believers from Muslim backgrounds are all punishable offences,” according to a statement released by Open Doors this week. There are only about 350,000 Christians left in Iran, less than one per cent of the population. Most are believers from Muslim backgrounds. Because it is a crime in Iran to leave Islam for another religion, most Iranian Christians have to practice their faith in secret.
While the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was overseeing this month’s roundup of Christians in Iran, authorities in the People’s Republic of China, not content with having imprisoned perhaps a million Uighurs in the western region of Xinjiang for the crime of being Muslim, are observing the lead-up to Christmas by rounding up Protestants.
In Chengdu, police burst into the Early Rain Covenant Church as congregants gathered for evening services on Sunday, Dec. 9. Wang Yi, one of China’s best-known pastors, was arrested and taken into custody along with more than 100 members of his congregation. The church was ransacked. “Lord, help us to have the Christian’s conscience and courage to resist this Orwellian nonsense,” the church said in a statement issued during the arrests.
Like Iran, China officially tolerates Christianity, although only licensed churches are permitted to operate. Like the other “underground” churches that serve at least half of China’s 60 million Protestants, the Early Rain church has resisted registration with the government, which would place the church under strict Communist party supervision and control.
With the rise of Xi Jinping, China’s iron-fisted president, Christians throughout the country are facing ever greater persecution. Bitter Winter, an online monitor of religious harassment in China, reports that police performance in the northeastern province of Liaoning is now evaluated on how many people of faith they detain. Specific scores are assigned for the number of arrests and the religion of the believers arrested. Top marks are awarded for the arrests of Falun Gong practitioners and members of the Christian sect Eastern Lightning, also known as the Church of Almighty God.
Collaboration with the authorities is an issue that has deeply divided China’s Roman Catholics, and the Vatican’s policy of reconciliation with its previously excommunicated “patriotic” bishops took another major turn last week. After convincing two bishops from the “underground” Catholic Church to step aside, Pope Francis gave his blessing to their replacement by two regime-appointed bishops from the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
Official registration with the regime in Beijing won’t keep your church from harm, however. Congregants of the Dongcun Church in Henan province, after complying with a variety of arcane regulations and carefully following the Communist party’s various instructions and orders, watched helplessly as their brand-new church was demolished in September. Church leaders had been charged with failing to fly the Chinese flag and sing the national anthem.
For Canada’s Christians, and for those of us who have lost the gift of faith, and those of us of other faiths, Christmas remains to varying degrees an important time of year, an event that is deeply embedded in our culture. If nothing else, it’s an opportunity to take a bit of time off work, to buy presents for our loved ones, and just be resigned to the delightfully useless, melancholy happiness of it all.
There will be, of course, the usual, boring arguments about whether Christmas has become too commercialized, or whether it is improper to utter the words “Merry Christmas” to one another, and whether it is fair that neo-christian symbols like Christmas trees should be given prominence of place in what is otherwise a secular, multi-faith society.
It would be better, while we keep in our thoughts the persecuted, innocently devout people of the world’s torture states, that we count our many blessings that we live in a free country where Christmas can be taken as a foolish excuse to be especially kind to one another, and be content that we can make fools of ourselves in any way we damn well like.