News

One of Syria’s most senior Catholic leaders has pleaded the Western powers for a full scale intervention in the country’s five year conflict, following another attack on rebel-held Aleppo, reports Aid to the Church in Need.

Full-scale intervention by the West is urgently needed “to halt these monstrosities” being perpetrated in Syria and Iraq, according to the bishop whose diocese is at the epicentre of the conflict.

In an impassioned plea Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart described how his archbishopric in Aleppo – already hit more than 20 times by mortar shells – had once again come under fire.

Writing the day after the attack, Archbishop Jeanbart said nobody was hurt in the latest bombardment, which comes on top of blasts which over the past two years have damaged five of the Melkites’ 12 churches in the city.

He stated: “ISIS, which has already killed thousands in the region, is terrifying the faithful in Aleppo.

“After [attacks on] Maloula, Mosul, Idleb and Palmyra, what is the West waiting for before it intervenes?

“What are the great nations waiting for before they put a halt to these monstrosities?

“May all of those who believe in… God and all those with compassion for the innocent raise their voice with us and call on civilized countries to take action to bring about peace.”

Aleppo has seen some of the worst fighting in the conflict that erupted in the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring, with forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and rebel groups battling it out for supremacy and large sections of the city reduced to rubble.

The violence has intensified in the last few weeks with claims that the government has stepped up its bombardment of Aleppo in response to rebel offensives.

Vast numbers of people of all faiths are fleeing the region, with reports from Chaldean Bishop Antoine Audo last month that Aleppo’s 250,000 Christians have dwindled to below 100,000.

In his message, the Archbishop writes: “Let me cry with my people, violated and murdered…

“Allow me to stand by numerous families in Aleppo who are in mourning. Because of this ugly and barbarous war, they have lost so many loved ones, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters and cherished children.”

He stressed the trauma caused by people losing homes, and livelihoods destroyed in the conflict.

“Insecurity,” he writes, “is wearing them down, depressing them, adding more each day to their anxiety and sadness.”

He adds: “Allow me to be bitter when comforting countless parents mortified by the deprivation that robs their children of the basic necessities needed to promote dignity and the ability to grow up healthy.”

Archbishop Jeanbart’s comments come after a trip to the USA a month ago in which he warned that his Church is in a dire situation and appealed for Christians and others in the West to provide urgent assistance.

Farshid Fathi has lost his appeal against an additional one-year prison sentence, reports Middle East Concern, adding that Iranian Christians are disappointed and concerned that the sentence has been upheld,

In February 2012 Farshid was convicted of action against national security, co-operating with foreign organisations and evangelism, and sentenced to a total of six years’ imprisonment. Originally detained in Evin Prison, he was transferred to Rajai Shahr Prison on 19th August 2014.

In November 2014 Stephen Timms MP and Gavin Shuker MP both raised his case in written questions.

On 29th December 2014 Farshid received an additional sentence of one year, following the discovery of alcohol (one report suggests it was communion wine) during a raid on his ward in Evin Prison in April 2014. Security officials attributed the alcohol to Farshid, who strongly denies this claim.

Farshid’s lawyer appealed against the additional sentence, but on 24th May it was reported that the appeal had been rejected and that he and another Christian prisoner (Alireza Sayyedian) had been transferred to Hall 2 of Ward 1 of Rajai Shahr Prison.

According to a relative, conditions in Hall 2 are not good. The two men are now held with prisoners convicted of robbery, violence and drug-related crimes.

World Watch Monitor reports that his sentence also includes 74 lashes. Fathi, who is a 35 year old father of two, was imprisoned without trial in Evin prison. After 15 months of uncertainty he was accused of “action against the regime’s security, being in contact with foreign organisations, and religious propaganda” according to a source. Details of his court trial have not been published.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei had made a speech in October 2010 saying that house churches should be dealt with. A new wave of surveillance and arrests against Christians followed soon after, with leaders of house church groups such as Farshid Fathi especially singled out for longer detentions. Born into a Muslim family, Fathi became a Christian at the age of 17 and at the time of his arrest in 2010 he was working full time as a pastor and leader of house churches.

World Watch Monitor has previously reported that the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office has previously labelled Fathi’s prison conditions as “harsh”. He suffered a fractured foot and toe after being beaten up by security officials during the raid in which the alcohol was found and attributed to him.

Estimates from evidence provided by the American Center for Law and Justice, Article 18 and Middle East Concern, suggest that in May 2015 there were 90 people detained in Iranian prisons on account of their Christian faith and practice.

On Monday 1 June the House of Commons debate on the Queen’s Speech included a focus on issues of foreign policy. Here are some extracts:

Rehman Chishti:

In tackling extremism, one has to create a tolerant world, but in 130 countries there is persecution of people based on their faith. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we have to do much more to protect religious freedom, whether it is reforming blasphemy laws in Pakistan affecting Christian and other minority communities or in respect of Burma and the Rohingya community? Does he agree that that should be a key pillar of our foreign policy?

Hilary Benn

Each of these conflicts has its own causes but, as well as being about who has power in a country, one of the threads that runs through many of the conflicts is the uneasy relationship between the secular and the religious. We should understand that all too well in this country, given our history of power struggles, religious intolerance and persecution, but we have now reached a state in which we have shown that it is possible both to uphold universal human rights and to enable people to be absolutely free to practise their religion. That is one of the reasons why Britain is admired by many countries across the world for its genuine freedom, but we cannot be complacent here and we have to be on our guard against the rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia as we stand up against religious and other persecution across the world, whether it be of Christians, of those who are lesbian, gay, transgender or bisexual, or of the Rohingya who have been affected by the recent crisis in Burma.

Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Naomi Long, who was the first Member elected to the House as a member of the Alliance party. Anyone who knows her will recognise that not only her tenaciousness but her talent did much for Belfast East. I have been contacted continually by people who recognised her ability and encourage me to take forward the great work she did on freedom of religion for persecuted Christians throughout the world. I pledge myself to do that.

Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)

I would also like to make a point about religious liberty, which was referred to earlier in the debate. It is of huge importance around the world. In parts of the world we see Christians and other religious minorities suffering persecution, and in many parts it is getting worse. Too often people think that religious freedom means a person’s right to practise the religion they were born into, but it is more than that; article 18 of the United Nations universal declaration of human rights is very clear that it includes the right to convert, and the right to believe in something or in nothing. It is vital that we see those human rights as part of our vision of Britain in the world. I know that the debate on human rights and on what the Government will do is fairly open at the moment, but if this nation chooses to withdraw from international treaties, think of the message that will send. Think of what that would say to countries such as Pakistan, where so many people are already suffering under the blasphemy laws. I think that those are major issues. They are to do with communities such as mine, but they are also to do with this country and with the global community.

Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)

With the horrific increase across the world in the persecution of people for their religious beliefs, Britain must champion religious freedom. I hope the Government will consider adopting the Labour manifesto commitment to creating a specific role, and have a person, in the FCO to take forward the religious freedom agenda across the world.

Mr Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)

From the Mediterranean to the Yellow sea, freedoms that we take for granted are under threat: freedom of religion and belief, freedom to love, and freedom of speech. Those freedoms require not our tacit acceptance but shoring up.

On Thursday 28 May the House of Lords debate on the Queen’s Speech included a focus on issues of foreign policy. Here are some extracts:

Bishop of Coventry

Tackling the international challenges identified in the gracious Speech demands determined campaigns to build peace and stability on many levels. I will mention only two. First, there is freedom of religion and belief—one of the most basic of rights, yet one of the least respected. Violence in the name of religion is at a six-year high, with three-quarters of the world’s population living with restrictions on the faith or belief that they can choose or practise openly. The previous Government’s commitment to religious freedom and human rights is worthy of respect, but the leading role in global affairs to which they aspired will require even greater efforts by the new Government. Is the Minister able to confirm whether matters of freedom of religion and belief will be included as a specific priority in the FCO business plan and the criteria used by DfID?

It will be vital in the coming months to ensure that domestic debates about the role of human rights in this country do not impinge in any way on our advocacy of religious freedom worldwide, so I would be glad of the Minister’s assurance that Her Majesty’s Government will continue to speak out promptly, clearly and loudly against any acts of violence committed in the name of religion, as well as related incitement to violence and discrimination in law and in practice….

Commitment to human rights, including the right to religious freedom, builds stable societies.

Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)

France is the key ally of the United States in west Africa and has intervened massively in Mali and the Central African Republic. Where has the United Kingdom been in the fight against Boko Haram in Commonwealth Nigeria?

Baroness Cox (CB):

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment in the gracious Speech to play a leading role in global affairs, international security, and economic and humanitarian challenges. I will highlight two relevant areas of concern, namely Burma and Sudan, which are relatively off the radar screen.

First, on Burma, I am happy to report some improvements in regions of Chin State, which I visited in February. Relations between the army, police and civilians have significantly improved, and human rights abuses, including forced labour, have ceased. There is also welcome investment by the Government in infrastructure. It is important to encourage reforms where they occur. However, the Government’s continuing assaults on the Rohingya people continue unabated, forcing thousands to flee their land, with many stranded at sea in terrible conditions. As this tragedy has received some media coverage, and as time is limited, I will focus on people whom we visited just last month, whose plight is desperate but not widely reported: the Shan and Kachin people.

Military offensives by the Burmese army continue; in eastern Burma, large-scale military offences in the Kokang region of Shan and Kachin states have occurred almost daily. The Burmese army uses ceasefires to gain ground and enhance its military capability. Meanwhile, expropriation of land and natural resources with derisory or no compensation is associated with large-scale development projects including the building of mines, which displaces thousands of civilians, and dams, which flood thousands of homes. Land grabbing and forced relocations have uprooted people with minimal or no compensation.

The deliberate targeting of civilian sites in Sudan has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, with humanitarian access blocked by the Government in Khartoum. As of April 2015, an estimated 3.7 million people in Sudan faced acute food insecurity. Moreover, severe human rights violations, including torture, arbitrary detention, and attacks on peaceful protesters, opposition members, the media and civil society, continue elsewhere in Sudan.

Baroness Helic (Con) (Maiden Speech):

If we cannot protect multi-ethnic societies in Europe, we will have little chance of ensuring the protection of minorities in the Middle East and beyond.

Lord Williams of Baglan (CB):

We also see in the most gracious Speech mercantilist attitudes coming to the fore, as in the comment that the Government look forward to an enhanced relationship with India and China. What about Japan? Japan is a democracy. There is no mention of that, or of the fact that it is actually the second largest foreign investor in the UK. India, of course, is a great democracy that we admire greatly, and a member of the Commonwealth. China, we need to remind ourselves sometimes, remains a one-party state, governed by the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of China. The economic realities on the ground may be far distant from any concept of Marxist socialism, but the politics remain that of a Marxist party. There is no freedom of expression in China. There is no freedom of religion. Religion is “tolerated”, but it is policed by state entities governed by the Communist Party.

Lord Avebury (LD):

The Daesh is,“the negation of God erected into a system of government”. We need to wake up to the scale of this challenge and develop a robust answer to it, with the authority of the UN Security Council and the approval of the highest levels of religious authority in all the branches of peaceful Islam.

Baroness Berridge (Con):

However, even before Daesh, according to academics such as Monica Toft and Jonathan Fox, of the 16 ongoing civil wars in 2010, 50% had a religious basis. Other academic studies claimed that, when religion is a factor in a civil war, it is more brutal for combatants and civilians, lasts longer and is more likely to recur. So Foreign and Commonwealth Office training courses by the Woolf Institute on religion and expert teaching on ethno-religious violence to the stabilisation unit are most welcome.

Within the Queen’s Speech, whether it is defeating terrorism in Middle East, national reconciliation in Iraq or the political settlement in Syria, religion needs to be understood as part of the problem, maybe, but also the solution. Erdogan’s desire to be executive president in Turkey, which, if it happens, will subordinate the parliamentary process there, cannot be fully understood unless one remembers that the last caliphate was not in Iraq—it was Ottoman. Regional peace needs the HDP Kurdish party on 7 June to break through the 10% threshold to get parliamentary representation to thwart the supermajority that Erdogan is in danger of achieving.

Over the last Parliament, there was the same realisation in relation to human rights abuses, which were due not to politics, resource battles or ethnicity, but to religious identity. Whether it involved Shias in Pakistan, Yazidis in Iraq, Baha’is in Iran, or Christians in Syria, the fact you are “the other”, defined by religious difference, was a factor that determined these people’s fate. As the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury last summer seemed to be alone in stating, what we are seeing in Iraq violates people’s freedom of religion and belief, as set out under Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

There was a clear commitment in the Conservative manifesto that: “We will stand up for the freedom of people of all religions—and non-religious people—to practise their beliefs in peace and safety, for example by supporting persecuted Christians in the Middle East”. So I hope that my noble friend the Minister can give some detail as to how the commitment will be worked out in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and DfID under this Government.

Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB):

Last month, jihadist ideology led to the deaths of 147 students and staff in Kenya’s Garissa University College, with Christian students specifically singled out; to the burning alive in a kiln of a Christian couple in Pakistan by a mob of 1,300 people while their young children were forced to watch; to the abduction of young girls in Nigeria by Boko Haram; to the beheading in Libya of 21 Egyptian Copts who were working there; and to the beheading of 30 Ethiopian Christians trying to flee these depravities.

We need also to promote Article 18 obligations. When a country like Saudi Arabia passes legislation defining atheists as terrorists, beheads its citizens, and refuses to protect the right of minorities to follow their beliefs, or to have no belief, is it any wonder that such actions are mimicked by Daesh?

At the heart of all these issues is the challenge of learning to live together and of respecting difference. Our failure to make the battle of ideas a priority was underlined recently in a reply to the Member of Parliament for Westmorland and Lonsdale, Tim Farron, when it was stated by the Foreign Office that just,“one full time Desk Officer” is, “wholly dedicated to Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB)”, and that, “the Head and the Deputy Head of HRDD spend approximately 5% and 20% respectively of their time on FoRB issues”.

Understanding authentic religion and the forces that threaten it is more of a foreign affairs imperative than ever before, and the resources we put into promoting Article 18 should reflect that reality. I hope that freedom of religion and belief will be a specific priority in the FCO business plan and that the Government will make common cause with the Labour Party, which gave a manifesto commitment to appoint a special envoy to promote Article 18.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Anelay of St Johns) (Con):

In the coming years we will continue to champion freedom of religion or belief at the Foreign Office, including support—I can say to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark—for persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Where freedom of religion or belief is protected, extremist ideologies should not be able to take root.

The full debate

Last November we reported the Oslo launch of the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief (here). Today Norwegian Parliamentarians are launching their national network/committee, following in the footsteps of similar initiatives in Brazil, Pakistan and Canada.

Every party in the Norwegian parliament is now on board and are reported to have welcomed this initiative with open arms. Norwegian Parliamentarian Abid Raja says “We hope that this group will become a part of an ever increasing coalition of parliaments and parliamentarians standing together to respect, protect, fulfill and promote Freedom of Religion or Belief for all.”

After a flurry of diplomatic activity, the government of Burma has said that it will send representatives to a regional meeting in Bangkok on 29 May aimed at resolving the continuing humanitarian crisis of migrants stranded at sea in Southeast Asia and addressing the larger issue of human trafficking.

Burma, which has previously refused to attend any conference that specifically mentions the plight of ethnic Rohingya migrants fleeing the western part of the country, softened its stance after officials held separate talks last Thursday with the visiting foreign ministers of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Last week Malaysia and Indonesia announced that they would temporarily shelter an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh languishing aboard rickety wooden boats in the Andaman Sea and Strait of Malacca, until they are either resettled in a third country or repatriated within a year.

Antony Blinken, the US Deputy Secretary of State, said Rohingya Muslims fleeing the predominantly Buddhist nation are risking perilous journeys and putting their lives in the hands of human traffickers because “they are in despair and don’t see a future” at home.

“The root of the problem for those leaving Burma is the political and social situation on the ground,” Mr Blinken said. “Even as we tackle the immediate humanitarian emergency – that is literally to save and rescue people, bring them back to land, get them the care that they need and treat them appropriately – we also have to get at the underlying conditions.”

The discovery of mass graves in Malaysia has raised fears that the Burmese Rohingya minority is being trafficked by force. More

It is seven years this month since seven Bahá’í leaders in Iran were arrested and imprisoned. The Bahá’í Community of the UK are calling for the anniversary to be marked by action in the UK, through people writing to their newly-elected MP, requesting that they urge the Foreign Secretary to write to President Rouhani of Iran and press him to take immediate steps to effect the immediate and unconditional release of these seven prisoners of conscience.

Mahvash Sabet, Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm are seven members of the Iranian Bahá’í community who have served as an informal leadership body.

The group were detained for 20 months without charge before a trial in 2010 that was notable for its failure to adhere to due process as laid out in Iranian law and in international law. They were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. This is thought to be the longest sentence given to any current prisoners of conscience in Iran.

More

Humanitarian aid group the Free Burma Rangers reports that on 19 January in Kawng Hka Village in Northern Shan State, two Kachin girls – Maran Lu Ra (20) and Tangbau Hkawn Nan Tsin (21) – were savagely raped and then clubbed to death by Burmese soldiers. The girls, missionaries sent out by the Kachin Baptist Convention (KBC), had been asleep in the KBC church compound when they were attacked. Church members reported the crime but no action was taken.

On 21 March Burmese soldiers shot and killed civilians Dau Ma La (52) and his 103-year-old mother, Da Shi Hka, in Mansi Township and looted their property.

On 9 May Burmese soldiers shot Min Htet (40), a civilian farmer and father of two from the Mung Hkawng IDP Camp. Min, who had been outside the camp tending to his pigs, survived the shooting only to be knifed repeatedly by soldiers in the eyes and face before beating him to death. Though Hpaure Htu (30) was also shot she managed to escape. On 6 May the Kachin Army clashed with Burmese troops near Mansi Township. A ‘little bit of fighting’ continued into the next day. Then on 8 May, while President Thein Sein was meeting with ethnic leaders to negotiate a national ceasefire, two fighter jets were bombing the Kachin into submission.

One commentator offers this  analysis: “The Kachin are a Christian people living in Burma’s mountainous far north where the Irrawaddy River has its source. Not only does the regime covet Kachin State’s jade, gold and timber, it also wants to dam the Irrawaddy. If it is ever completed, the Myitsone Dam Project will be managed by the state-owned Chinese Power Investment Corporation (CPI) and will be generating hydroelectric power for China. Whilst the dam will cause the Kachin to lose vast swathes of land and more than 60 villages, the Burmese regime stands to make a great deal of money from it. Therefore what the regime really wants is Kachin State without the Kachin. In its war against the Christian Kachin, the Burmese army (officially known as the Tatmadaw) routinely targets harmless, defenceless Kachin civilians. Gross insecurity has driven more than 100,000 traumatised Kachin from their homes into IDP (internally displaced persons) camps sustained mostly by the Church. Peace is illusive. ‘When the Burmese army talks about a cease-fire, they mean stopping shooting for a short while,’ says Manam Tu Shan, a 67-year-old Kachin church deacon in Laiza. ‘But what we mean by a cease-fire is living peacefully and being able to practise our traditions without the Burmese interfering.'”

A new Amnesty International briefing published this week highlights that Christian migrants and refugees in Libya are at particular risk of abuse from armed groups aiming to impose their own interpretation of Islamic law.

Refugees and migrants across Libya face rape, torture and abductions for ransom by traffickers and smugglers, as well as systematic exploitation by their employers, religious persecution and other abuses by armed groups and criminal gangs.

People from Nigeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Egypt have been abducted, tortured, unlawfully killed and harassed because of their religion. Most recently a total of at least 49 Christians, mostly from Egypt and Ethiopia were beheaded and shot in three mass summary killings claimed by the group calling itself the Islamic State (IS).

Migrants and refugees also face widespread abductions, torture, theft and physical assaults by criminal gangs and human smugglers, often at Libya’s southern borders and along the smuggling routes to the Libyan coast.

Charles, a 30-year-old man from Nigeria, told Amnesty International he decided to flee to Europe by boat last month after he was abducted and physically assaulted a number of times by members of a criminal gang in the coastal city of Zuwara. He had gone there to escape indiscriminate shelling and fighting in Tripoli.

“They would come steal our money and flog us. I can’t complain to the police about the Christian issue because they don’t like us… In October 2014 four men kidnapped me… because they saw I was carrying a bible,” he said.

They took away his money and phone, and held him for two days while they tortured and beat him until he finally managed to escape one night through the window.

 

Among the record numbers of migrants from Africa and Asia who are dying in European waters, many are fleeing war and poverty, but there also is a religious dimension: some of the migrants are Christians, unable to freely practice their faith in their home countries, says a recent report by World Watch Monitor.

At least 1,750 people have died in the Mediterranean Sea already this year, more than 20 times the number at this stage last year.
Thomas Albinson, President of the US-based International Association for Refugees, recently wrote. “Trace the steps of those on the boats, and you will find your way back to wars, failed states, persecution, oppression and hopelessness.”

Enos Nolli, born and raised in Libya, is director of Sicily-based GiM Italia (Generations In Mission), a Christian organisation that, since 2011 has supported more than 6,000 refugees from more than 50 countries, who have survived perilous journeys over land and sea.

“Many escaped from countries at war, others from countries where poverty is very great,” Nolli told World Watch Monitor. “Many others [fled] because they are in danger for political reasons, and others just for being Christian. These [Christians] mainly ran away from Muslim countries and many of them, who we met here in Sicily in the refugee camps where we work, came from Pakistan, Iran, Northern Nigeria, Eritrea, Senegal, Mali, Gambia, Niger, Somalia, Egypt and Libya.”

Here are some of the stories he has heard, collected by GiM from interviews with new arrivals and from one refugee who has settled in Europe. The English quotes here are the product of two translations – from the original language to Italian, and from Italian to English. We give only first names, to help protect their identity.

Manù, country of origin Niger

Manù, 23, said his family threatened to kill him after he converted from Islam to Christianity. “Anyone who changes religion [from Islam] could be killed. I went secretly to meetings at the local evangelical church, which is only attended by foreigners, but soon someone found out. My father was a known and respected imam, and I was warned by my uncle to stop my interest in Christianity.

“After three months trying to convince me, we had a family meeting with my father, his two wives, my 12 brothers and other relatives. Firstly my father offered me a job and some money. Then I was threatened again, but I didn’t change my mind, so all the people there beat me up – even my mother who loved me so much – until I fainted.”

Scared and in pain, Manù fled. “Badly injured, I escaped from my home and at the market I met a tuareg [desert nomad] who, seeing my condition, helped me and took me to Libya without asking for payment. We crossed the desert in five days until we reached the city of Sebha. There I was beaten again by Libyans because I had black skin.”

He eventually found himself on a boat and, after two days at sea, arrived at Lampedusa, an Italian island midway between Sicily and the Libyan coast. Then he was moved to the camp in Mineo. “For a whole week, I could not sleep,” Manù said. “They made me meet a psychologist, but then I asked to speak with a pastor who works with GiM.

“What a joy to to watch a film about Jesus in my own language [Hausa] and to receive an MP3 with a recording of the Bible in Hausa! Now I am peaceful, I can sleep well and I pray for my family that they can know this peace that only Jesus can give! I am learning Italian, I would like to attend a Bible school and become a pastor.”

Andrè, country of origin Senegal

Andrè, 32, said he fled from home after he witnessed Islamic extremists murder his aunt, uncle, brothers and cousins. “I never knew my parents and I grew up in my uncle’s home, who was a Christian and was like a father to me,” he said. “Many times in the past my uncle had been beaten and threatened with death, but one day he was beaten and killed by Islamic extremists.

“I was at home and I heard my aunt shouting for me to run. I escaped while she was murdered, together with my brothers and cousins. Her screams still thunder in my head and my pain is strong because my aunt and uncle taught me God’s ways.”

Andrè, who had been a preacher, is separated from his wife, an obstetrician, and their two-year-old son, who had taken refuge in the Gambia. He faces an anxious wait while his asylum claim is processed. “I was living through a very sad period, knowing that my child’s health was not so good and I could not do anything,” he said. “Eventually, I arrived in Libya and then by boat to Lampedusa and finally Mineo, where I met GiM.

“The visits and the constant support of GiM were essential for me and now I am encouraging people in the camp to find peace with God they may still have not found. Sometimes I can communicate with my wife, but I would like to have all the family together again, if my asylum request is accepted.

“Recently the Commission granted me three years permission (I was hoping to get five years’ international protection. I moved to Rome but I haven’t found a permanent job yet.”

Seiku, country of origin Gambia

Seiku, 21, said he faced death threats after converting from Islam to Christianity. “I was attracted by the Christian faith and I wanted to know more about it, but my father was a very fanatical Muslim, and he tried to prevent it until he threatened to kill me,” he said. “I was surprised and afraid, and my boss, who tried to encourage me [in the Christian faith], was threatened too. So I had to escape from The Gambia. I crossed Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and then crossed the desert for five days to reach Libya.”

He arrived in Libya without any documents. “I was imprisoned and mistreated for six long months. Then, together with 200 refugees, we were forced to board a boat and after two days on the sea we arrived in Lampedusa.”

Having arrived in Italy, Seiku said he is desperate to reconnect with his family. “I haven’t heard anything about my family for three years. For some months I have been encouraged by GiM to learn to read and write and to speak Italian. Now I am nervously waiting for the decision about my asylum request. GiM gave me an MP3 with a recording of the Gospel in my own language, Mandinga, and this gives me peace. I cannot return to my country,” he told GiM.

Remy, country of origin Togo

Remy, 29, from Togo, said he faced death threats in Mauritania and later was imprisoned in Niger. “I was preaching in Mauritania, a completely Muslim country. About 50 of us used to meet and pray together, but we were always in danger,” he said. “One day someone I worked with was killed and I found a sign on my door saying ‘You will be the next one to die.’

“From Mauritania I fled to Niger, where I preached for two and a half months, before being arrested and imprisoned for many months because they saw me with a Bible in my hands. Once released, I crossed the Sahara to Libya, then [by boat] to Italy.”

Moasala*, country of origin Pakistan

For some, like Moasala, 30, the journey has been mainly overland. “My father is a historian and a Christian. He is known all over the country because he leads a Christian party and he has often fought in favour of ethnic and religious minorities, who are discriminated against and persecuted in Pakistan.

“More than once my father has been arrested and imprisoned, his salary has been withheld, and he has suffered psychological and mental torture. When I was 22, I decided to fight openly by my father’s side. Some strangers beat me and threatened me, telling me that I would soon be like Salman Taseer.” (Taseer is the late governor of Punjab, who was shot by his own bodyguard after he criticised Pakistan’s laws that forbid insulting Islam.)

As with so many others, Moasala fled for his safety.“After receiving other threats, my relatives persuaded me to leave the country, to go on fighting my battle in a safer way. So after crossing Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Greece, I reached Italy, where I spent a period at GiM in Mineo.”

Moasala now lives in Denmark. “Thanks to God, I obtained the international protection and the residence,” he said. “Actually I am spending some time in Denmark, where I have a brother, who has been enjoying international protection for some years. I am worried for my family who are still in Pakistan and I want to go on fighting on behalf of religious freedom, against religious fanaticism so that my country could become a place of peace, respect and justice.”

* Name changed to protect identity.