In Depth:  Open Doors

The Nigerian Government has revealed that a further 11 of the Chibok women, abducted in 2004 by militant group Boko Haram, have gained their freedom since June.

The announcement says that the women are currently staying at an Interim Care Centre in Maiduguri. The women are accompanied by at least 21 children they have given birth to while in captivity – the women having been made pregnant by their captors.

A devout Muslim in Kazakhstan – where rioting (photo) recently erupted – considered Christians ‘betrayers of the real faith’ until last year.

‘By betrayers, I meant Christians with a Muslim background,’ he says.

The 50 countries where Christians are most oppressed all have ‘very high’ levels of persecution of believers for the first time, Open Doors says in a new report.

The organisation says that never before in its annual ‘World Watch List’ have all of the 50 top nations been categorised with such a level of severity. Twelve countries are categorised as having ‘extreme’ levels of persecution, up from 11 the year before. And there are another 24 countries scoring ‘very high’ or ‘high’ levels of persecution that don’t even make it into the top 50.

‘Let the world see that I love the Lord Jesus. He said whoever is ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of him in front of my Father. So why would I be ashamed of Him? He is my refuge and the shelter of my children!’ (Nisreen, Qamishli, Syria)

These are the powerful words of Nisreen, a believer from a Muslim background. She is clearly filled with the love of Christ and Jesus has clearly been calling her since she was young: ‘The love of Christ was planted in me since I was little,’ she says. ‘I used to see how Christians’ behaviour is better than ours. I’ve always liked Christians and I used to say to my parents: “There is something connecting me and Christians”.’

More than nine-hundred Christian families in Nepal have received life-saving food and aid.

The assistance was provided through Christian charity Open Doors, which has worked with local partners.

John* arrived at the airport late in the evening. There was only one more hurdle to get through before he was safely with the secret Christians who were following Jesus in this Middle Eastern country.

He went to the customs line and he hoped the customs officers wouldn’t ask to see inside John’s suitcase; he hoped they would just wave him through. A customs official asked John to open his suitcase. ‘The man opened several of my special ‘presents’ and asked me who these presents were for or where I wanted to sell them. I told him that I personally wanted to give these presents to thank the people for my being welcome in the country.’ The ‘presents’ were Bibles as John is a Bible smuggler. And he’d just been caught trying to bring God’s word into a place where it wasn’t welcome. The customs officers confiscated all 50 Bibles. John was taken to a police station where he was held and interrogated through the night. ‘Continuously there was someone questioning me, without a break. Some were in uniform, others not. They asked me about my material, who it was for or to whom I wanted to sell it. I repeated that these were presents.’ The guards knew there were too many Bibles to be gifts.

A Christian who had been arrested around the Korean/China border in 2019 was released from a detention centre in March and reunited with her husband and children.

Eunji*, was a leader of a Bible study for North Korean women refugees when she was arrested. Repatriation back to North Korea would have meant torture or even death for her.

Do you believe that Jesus is the Saviour of your life?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you believe that only through Jesus’ blood, you can enter heaven after death?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you accept that you are sinful, and you can only be saved by Jesus’ name?’ ‘Yes.’

For Bon-Hwa*, the gravity of this moment that she had waited for, and for so long, was more than the young woman could bear. The tears flowed as she wept.

In the annual survey of persecution around the world monitoring how difficult it is to live as a Christian, published on 15 January, among the top 50 alone, 260 million Christians face a level of persecution measured as extreme, very high, or high. Across the top 50, pressure is rising. In 2020, 34 countries registered a ‘very high’ level of persecution. In 2019, the number was 29.

Estimates suggest there are at least a further 50million Christians facing high levels of persecution among the next 23 countries in the list. That makes one in eight Christians who face persecution measured as extreme, very high, or high. The list is based on extensive surveys combined with expert interviews.

Further stories of faith have emerged from the aftermath of the Easter Sri Lanka church attacks.

The children and teachers of Zion Church’s Sunday School were on their way back to the main service for breakfast when a bomb was detonated.

In various parts of Syria the church is not just surviving, it is thriving. Support is being used to strengthen new believers through church retreats like those run by Pastor David …

As she rose up out of the water, she shouted: ‘Glory to Jesus!’ her arms raised high. The people around the pool clapped their hands and shouted for joy too. This lady is the first of 16 to be baptised on a sunny Sunday morning in Lebanon.

After an attack that left a man dead, it was reported in September that his family saw a staggering miracle take place.

An extremist group kidnapped Tilak, a church leader from rural India, after his Hindu neighbours had complained to them that he was brainwashing the villagers and polluting their minds with the Christian faith. 40 families had been led to Jesus by Tilak. When he refused to deny his faith in Christ, they beat him and tortured him. Finally, he collapsed. He had no pulse. Tilak was gone.

Samiha was sat in the women’s section of St Peter’s church in Cairo when the 2017 bomb attack took place.

Upon waking, she found her face wrapped by medical cloths. The doctor asked her: ‘Is your name Samiha Atopi and are you married to Qalini?’ She hadn’t been identified, and had just been given the number 99 before then. No one had recognised her, due to her facial injuries.

Open Doors highlighted in April the story of a Yemeni woman who converted from Islam to Christianity.

Yemen is a tribal country, where leaving Islam is seen as a betrayal of that tribe, punishable by death. Nadeen (name changed) was born and raised in Yemen, and became a Christian in her late 20s before the civil war broke out in 2015.

Hundreds of Christians celebrated Palm Sunday in Qaraqosh and Karamles, places that were recently liberated from the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS).

Qaraqosh was Iraq’s largest Christian town until its 50,000 inhabitants were forced to flee in August 2014. The displaced Christians haven’t been able to move back to Qaraqosh since the liberation of the town, as there is continuing insecurity in the region and houses and infrastructure have been destroyed.

Rifts between the Meitei people and hill tribes, because of political issues, have been longstanding, but in a disagreement on 15 December over the formation of a new district in Lokchow, near Tengnoupal, three security personnel were killed by a Naga insurgency group and Meitei Hindus called a strike across Manipur.

On 17 December, locals attacked a church which is attended by a large Naga congregation, the Manipur Baptist Church Centre (MBCC). It was pelted with stones, glass was broken, and the gate was damaged. A poster was left, warning: ‘No one is allowed to worship and celebrate Christmas without prior permission.’

On 2 December, Lao National Day, authorities came to a village in Luang Prabang, called all Christians for a meeting and told them to leave the village.

The seven Christian families were asked for their family documents (land title, family book and village identification cards), and asked to leave, as ‘they may further create problems in the community due to their Christian beliefs’.

A report describing the poor treatment of Christian refugees in a reception centre in Rothenburg preceeded huge changes by the centre, making it an example for other refugee centres to follow, it was reported in November.

Showing there needed to be no more ‘integration strategies which happened at the expense of Christians’, a list of recommendations were made including: increasing the numbers of non-Muslim staff; training of staff about inter-religious clashes and their history; the education of asylum seekers about the nature of religious freedom.

Anti-persecution charity Open Doors has launched a global campaign to support persecuted Christians in Iraq, Syria and other Middle Eastern countries.

The petition asks for equal rights for Christians and other minorities, dignified living conditions and a role in the reconciliation and rebuilding of society, and will be presented to the UN in June 2017. The aim is to mobilise people from across the globe in safe countries, as well as those where there is persecution, to get a million people to sign the petition. In the UK and Ireland, it has already been signed by several thousand people at summer festivals.

Two years after thousands of Christians were forced to flee their homes in the Nineveh plains by the self-proclaimed Islamic State, Iraqi Christians and church leaders spoke in August about their desire to remain in Iraq and play a vital role in rebuilding their nation.

In the report ‘Hope for the Middle East’, the significant contributions that Christians have made to the region in healthcare, business, culture and welfare across the centuries is recounted.

It was reported in July that Open Doors-supported literacy classes are enabling women in Bangladesh to read the Bible for the first time.

Benu Ara never received an education. Married at 12, for 20 years she has suffered from low self-esteem because she was unable to read and write. Then a local literacy teacher invited her to join an Open Doors-supported literacy class.

Pastor Michael Yat and Pastor Peter Yen Reith, members of the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church, were arrested in Sudan at the end of 2014, but released in August 2015.

Open Doors spoke to them about their experiences of persecution, of leading men on death row to Christ, and the difference it made to know people were praying for them.

In a country where Christians often must meet secretly to avoid arrest, a group of women have taken the opposite approach: hiding in plain sight.

They meet to pray and encourage each other in a coffee shop, in one of the largest cities in Central Asia.