A Global Catastrophe: "260 Million Christians Experience High Levels of Persecution"

by Raymond Ibrahim • February 2, 2020 at 5:00 am

Dictatorial paranoia continues to make North Korea (#1) the worst nation. "If North Korean Christians are discovered, they are deported to labor camps as political criminals or even killed on the spot." — World Watch List 2020, Open Doors.
Otherwise, as has been the case in all statistics and reports on the global persecution of Christians, not only does "Islamic oppression" remain the chief "source of persecution" faced by Christians in seven of the absolute ten worst nations, but 38 of the 50 nations composing the list are either Muslim majority or have a sizeable Muslim population.
The targeting of Christians around the world has become more widespread than ever. Part of this is because "persecution against Christians has taken a technological turn." ....in India (#10) — where "Hindu radicals often attack Christians with little to no consequences" — "the government plans to introduce a national facial recognition system. Similarly, China (#23)...." — World Watch List 2020, Open Doors.
Perhaps the most disturbing trend is that the number of persecuted Christians continues to grow year after year....
Will this trend ever stop and reverse, or will it continue to get worse — and possibly even spill into those nations that, for now, enjoy religious freedom and equality?

Dictatorial paranoia continues to make North Korea the worst nation in the world for Christians, according to the Open Doors World Watch List 2020. "If North Korean Christians are discovered, they are deported to labor camps as political criminals or even killed on the spot." Pictured: Soldiers in Pyongyang, North Korea on December 16, 2019. (Photo by Kim Won Jin/AFP via Getty Images)

The global persecution of Christians has reached unprecedented levels: "260 million Christians experience high levels of persecution" around the world, notes the recently published Open Doors World Watch List 2020, an annual report that ranks the top 50 countries where Christians are most persecuted for their faith.

Additionally, "2,983 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons. On average, that's 8 Christians killed every day for their faith": "9,488 churches or Christian buildings were attacked," and "3,711 Christians were detained without trial, arrested, sentenced and imprisoned." (Note: All quotes in this article are from the World Watch List 2020 report.)

Dictatorial paranoia continues to make North Korea (#1) the worst nation. "If North Korean Christians are discovered, they are deported to labor camps as political criminals or even killed on the spot."

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Tehran's Chinese Dream Can't Replace its Nightmare

by Amir Taheri • February 2, 2020 at 4:00 am

The Chinese found out that producing and exporting goods that people wanted across the globe was easier and more profitable than trying to export a revolution that no one, perhaps apart from a few students in London and Paris, thirsted for.
The Shah had promised that he would turn Iran into "a second Japan". Rafsanjani promised a "second China."
Some of Rafsanjani's close associates now tell me that he was "a bit of a coward" and lost his opportunity to do a Deng Xiaoping by being sucked into corrupt business deals. According to them, Rafsanjani didn't realize that one starts making money for himself, his family and his entourage after one has done a Deng Xiaoping, and not before.
Today, the Tehran "deciders" constitute a small, increasingly isolated minority caught in an imagined past and fearful of the future. Worse still, many "deciders" have already put part of their money abroad, having sent their children to Europe and America. Going through a who-is-who of these "deciders" one is amazed by how many are behaving as carpetbaggers, treating Iran as a land to plunder, sending the proceeds to the West. They cannot produce an Iranian "Deng" because they don't want to create a productive economy; all they are interested in is to get the money and run.

The idea of imitating the Chinese model isn't new in Iran. Pictured: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping on January 23, 2016 in Tehran. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

Could General Qassem Soleimani's dramatic demise provide the shock therapy to persuade those who wield real power in Tehran to admit the failure of a strategy that has led Iran into an impasse? This was the question discussed in a zoom conference with a number of academics from one of Iran's leading universities.

The fact itself that the issue could be debated must be regarded as significant. It indicates the readiness of more and more Iranians to defy the rules of silence imposed by the regime and raise taboo issues more or less openly.

In the course of the discussion one participant drew a parallel between Soleimani's death and that of Marshal Lin Biao, the Chinese Communist defense minister whose demise in an air crash in 1971 opened the way for a radical change of course by Maoist China.

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