Afghan’s Christians Have Gone Underground - Foreign Affairs - Nairaland
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| Afghan’s Christians Have Gone Underground by Akell(m): 8:03pm On Aug 19, 2021 |
The minuscule community of Christian believers in Afghanistan has gone underground in fear of their lives after the hard-line Islamic Taliban returned to power this week in Kabul, an expert on persecution in the region said this week. However, estimates suggest there are between 3,000 and 12,000 Christian believers in a nation whose population hovers around 38 million. Definitive numbers are difficult to come by, since publicly identifying as a Christian can subject an Afghan believer to beatings and death. The return of the Taliban has sparked fears the Islamist insurgency will reimpose the strict Shariah-based law it followed when it ran the country in the years before the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. Non-Islamic faiths could be one of the first things targeted by the new regime as it consolidates power. “There’s a lot of fear and uncertainty given the Taliban takeover of the country,” Will Stark, South Asia regional manager for International Christian Concern, an organization headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, said in an interview. “For Afghan Christians, that’s particularly scary or concerning for them, given their status as mostly converts from Islam.” Mr. Stark said the only recognized religious minorities even before the U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed were Hindus and Sikhs, permitted to “live as second-class citizens.” Christianity did not have official status, he noted. “Even under the previous government, conversion from Islam was considered very shameful and could have fairly dire consequences for individuals who became Christians,” Mr. Stark said. He added that “Taliban ideology is much more fundamentalist and extreme” on the question of what the Islamists view as “apostasy” from the nation’s official faith. “There’s a real concern amongst Afghan Christians that targeted killings will start happening because of their status as Christians,” Mr. Stark said. “I’ve heard reports from people I know on the ground, that they’re receiving phone calls from unknown [telephone] numbers in which they’re being told, ‘We know who you are, and we are going to come for you.’ And that’s a direct threat and likely coming from Taliban fighters or maybe the Taliban itself, that they will be targeted, because of their faith identity.” He said undercover Christian believers in the nation — no longer able to flee to neighboring Uzbekistan or Tajikistan — are given stark instructions on how to avoid getting on the Taliban’s radar. “From what I understand, the folks who are not known [as Christians] are being advised to essentially lay low shelter in place, if you can change your phone number, change your address, go somewhere else, and just kind of lay low for a while if you can,” Mr. Stark reported. “Individuals who had things like Bibles or Christian literature have been told to bury it, dispose of it, and get rid of it. Because if you’re found with that, there is a concern that that could lead to, you know, them being killed for being in possession of a Bible.” https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/aug/19/taliban-intensifying-search-afghans-who-helped-us-/
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| Re: Afghan’s Christians Have Gone Underground by Bisiebae(f): 7:11am On Aug 20, 2021 |
Hmmm, I don't know these Islamic sect have to be so intolerant of other people's religious. Religion is a human right. |
| Re: Afghan’s Christians Have Gone Underground by falseprophet: 2:18pm On Aug 20, 2021 |
How many are they? |
| Re: Afghan’s Christians Have Gone Underground by obonujoker(m): 3:22am On Aug 21, 2021 |
One of the disadvantages and wrong notions of the pretribulation doctrine |
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