The Global War on CHRISTIANS For too long we've ignored this campaign of terror BY RALPH KINNEY BENNETT IN CHINA'S HENAN PROVINCE, ....    In Pakistan, ....    In Bangladesh, ....    You haven't heard of these peo- ple.   They are but drops of water in a vast sea of victims--men, women and children who have been tortured, imprisoned and executed.   Their crime?   They are Christians.    Never before have so many Chris- tians been persecuted for their beliefs. An estimated 200 million to 250 mil- lion Christians are at risk in coun- tries where such incidents occur.    "We are not talking about mere discrimination," says Nina Shea, director of the Puebla Program on Religious Freedom, "but real perse- cution--torture, enslavement, rape, imprisonment, forcible separation of children from parents."    Until recently, such cases were given scant attention by the news media and were largely ignored by most.... But now, two important new books are helping to force the issue into the open: Nina Shea's In the Lion's Den and Their Blood Cries [82]

Out by Paul Marshall, a senior fel- low at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto.    Other examples of persecution:    In China, ....    ...in Cairo, Egypt, ....    Marshall notes that, contrary to perceptions held by.... [ Countries Where Christian Persecution Is Most Severe ] [ Only countries with populations of more than 100,000 Christians are listed ] Source: Open Doors World Watch List    Both authors examine in detail the two most implacable foes of Christianity: Musl_m Militants.   In some Isl_mic countries, such as Jordan, officials are tol- erant of other religions. But in others, Isl_m's Shari'a laws, derived from the Kor_n and some- times part of the legal code, "are used to invoke discrimination, repres- sion and outright persecution against Christians," Marshall says.   No nation illustrates this more brutally than the Sudan.    Since 1989 the Sudanese govern- ment has been engaged in a wholesale war against Christians, who consti- tute roughly.... Marshall reports that the goal of the ruling National Isl_mic Front led by Has. Al-Tur.--who some consider the country's de facto leader-- is to "eradicate non-Isl_mic religion."    In the North, ....    Sudan's Nuba Mountains, ....    American ally Saudi Arabia is another country where, Shea says, "freedom of religion simply does not [83]

exist."   All citizens must be Musl_ms. Expressions of Christianity--wearing a cross, reading a Bible or uttering a non-Musl_m prayer--are prohibited.    [....] Communist Oppressors.   The collapse [CHM: ?] of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European client states shook China's leaders, who noted the ....   According to a Puebla Program report, China's state-run press, referring to..., proclaimed, "If China does not want such a scene to be repeated in its land, it must strangle the baby while it is still in the manger."    This chilling pronouncement ig- nores the fact that Christianity has been rooted in China since.... THE SHEA AND MARSHALL books are helping to rouse a growing chorus to join what had been a handful of voices raised on behalf of persecuted Christians.   Chief among those early voices was a Jewish lawyer, Michael Horowitz, senior fellow at the Hud- son Institute, a think tank based in Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.    "Why a Jew?   Why me?"   Horowitz is quick to answer his own ques- tions: "It may be easier for me to see the eerie parallels between what is happening to Christian commu- nities today and what happened to my people during much of Europe's history," he says.   And he is grateful for the way American Christians joined with the Jewish community in the campaign to free Soviet Jews.    That's why he was shocked by the silence of U.S. Christians in the face of worldwide persecution.   [....]    Shea says, "China is the litmus test. If our government means to take the assault on Christians seriously, it must deal with China."   But she isn't hopeful. Despite several Congressional procla- mations bemoaning the persecution, the China lobby--pushing for increased trade--has thus far proved too powerful.    The White House answered Christian human-rights activists by forming the Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad.   [....] [84]

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