Christians decry plan in India for death penalty for conversions

Anto Akkara

Mar 14, 2025 

Activists display a long list of atrocities against minorities on the first 300 days of the Narendra Modi government on March 19, 2015. (Anto Akkara via CNA)


Activists in India are decrying remarks from the leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in which the politician threatened to prescribe the death penalty for religious conversions in Madhya Pradesh state.

“A provision for capital punishment will be made in the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act for religious conversion,” declared Mohan Yadav, BJP chief minister of the state, at an International Women’s Day program on March 8.

Yadav said the state government “wouldn’t spare those behind illegal conversions.”

“Proposing the death penalty for religious conversion of girls is not only bizarre but deserves to be condemned by all who cherish the rights and freedoms enshrined and guaranteed in the constitution,” outspoken Jesuit peace activist Father Cedric Prakash told CNA on March 13.

Asserting that Article 25 of Indian Constitution “unequivocally states that every citizen has the right to freely preach, practice, and propagate one’s religion,” Prakash said the chief minister’s remarks were “demeaning a citizen’s fundamental right,” which he said “speaks volumes of the abysmal depth to which fascism has taken the country.”

The United Christian Forum (UCF) has listed 834 crimes against Christians in India in 2024, shooting up from 127 in 2014 when the Hindu nationalist BJP captured power at the national level.

The majority of the incidents have been assaults and arrests of Christians on conversion charges that critics have deemed fraudulent.

There is “a very clear political agenda behind the conversion rhetoric,” Prakash said.

“It polarizes the people — we against them; majority vs. minority,” he said. “It helps create fear among the majority [Hindus] that the minorities of the country — namely Muslims and Christians — will take over the reins of power in the country.”

While Hindus account for nearly 80% of India’s 1.44 billion people, Muslims account for 14% and Christians 2.3%.

Other minorities like Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists account for the remaining population.

John Dayal, a Catholic columnist and social activist, told CNA that the call for the death penalty for conversions “exposes the cavalier, and cynical, manner in which [Hindu nationalists] have crafted this political strategy to criminalize Christian presence and community growth in the state.”

Madhya Pradesh state has reported several incidents of harassment of Christian institutions and arrest of clergy, pastors, and lay Christians. Christians are below one-half of 1% of the state’s 89 million people.

“The Christian community, and civil society too, must challenge anti-conversion laws in India as a travesty to human rights and a fraud on the constitution of democratic India,” Dayal said.

A.C. Michael, the Catholic coordinator of UCF, told CNA the threat to introduce the death penalty for conversions is “mere propaganda to boost Hindu nationalist forces.”

“As a matter of fact, the very anti-conversion law being framed under the garb of ‘freedom of religion’ is itself an anti-constitution law. We are hopeful it will not stand scrutiny in court of law when challenged,” Michael said.

He noted that the Supreme Court of India itself last year said the law may run afoul of the national constitution.

Though a dozen of India’s 28 states have enacted anti-conversion laws, Michael pointed out: “There has been hardly any conviction for forceful conversions despite hundreds being arrested regularly on conversion charges, mostly in BJP-ruled states.”

Church officials did not respond to requests for comment on the chief minister’s remarks.

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Retired Police Officer arrested for sharing Christian Gospel in New Jersey Mall

America : Ret Police Officer arrested for sharing Christian Gospel in New Jersey Mall (Nov 14, 2013)



SignsofThyComing

Published on Nov 14, 2013 SOURCE: http://www.foxnews.com\

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Death for Preaching Christ in ‘Liberated’ Libya

February 22, 2013 By Raymond Ibrahim

Four foreign Christians—including one who holds American-Swedish citizenship—were arrested days ago in Libya. According to the Guardian, their crime is arousing “suspicion of being missionaries and distributing Christian literature, a charge that could carry the death penalty.”

Apparently the four Christians had “contracted a local printer to produce pamphlets explaining Christianity.” Proselytizing to Muslims—that is, preaching to them another religion—was banned even under the late Col. Muammar Gaddafi.


Libyans—strongly supported by U.S. President Obama in the name of “freedom”—got rid of Gaddafi but kept the distinctly anti-freedom law.

Discussing this case, Libyan security official Hussein Bin Hmeid, trying to justify the Islamic ban on free speech, observes: “Proselytizing is forbidden in Libya. We are a 100% Muslim country and this kind of action affects our national security.” Indeed, Muslim governments—most notably Iran’s—constantly suppress any talk of Christianity, claiming it threatens “our national security.” Such is the tribal mentality of Islam which everywhere declares: If you’re not one of us, you must be an enemy trying to subvert our way of life.

Is the flipside of this prevalent mentality also true—that if Muslims are not one of us, they must be trying to subvert our way of life?

Nor should the arrested Christians expect much sympathy from more “moderate” Libyans. According to Benghazi lawyer and “human rights activist” Bilal Bettamer, Christians should not offend Muslims by trying to share their faith: “It is disrespectful. If we had Christianity we could have dialogue, but you can’t just spread Christianity. The maximum penalty is the death penalty. It’s a dangerous thing to do.”

Indeed, like “blasphemy”—whether in the guise of Muhammad cartoons or movies—proselytizing to Muslims is one of the many forms of free speech to be specifically banned by Islamic Sharia. According to Muslim tradition, this ban goes back to the second “righteous” caliph, the 7th century Omar. After conquering a group of Christians, he stipulated any number of humiliating conditions for them to live by, including:

Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of the Muslims….

Not to display any signs of polytheism, nor make our religion appealing, nor call or proselytize anyone to it.

As Muslims continue turning to Islam—all to Western praise and encouragement—expect the things of Islam to continue returning in big ways.


The Guardian report adds: “Libya, a conservative Muslim country, has no known Christian minority, and churches, the preserve of foreign residents, have seen few of the attacks seen in Egypt and Tunisia, where there have been church burnings.”

The Guardian reporter may have wanted to point out that, less than two months ago, on Sunday, December 30, an explosion rocked a Coptic Christian church near the western city of Misrata, in the very place where U.S. backed rebels hold a major checkpoint. The explosion killed two people and wounded two others.

And even though it is true that there are few church attacks in Libya, that is simply because there are few churches to attack in the first place—not because of some Libyan “tolerance” to churches. After all, one never hears of church attacks in Saudi Arabia. Yet that is not because Saudis are “tolerant,” but rather because they have nipped the church problem in the bud by not allowing a single church to exist on Saudi soil. Hence, no churches for Muslim mobs to attack, bomb or burn. Conversely, where there is a large Christian population, such as in Nigeria, which is roughly half Christian, Muslims are bombing churches on practically a weekly basis.

Finally, there is the rewriting of history that is foisted by Muslims everywhere, not to mention ignorant Westerners, as exemplified in this report. All of those quoted—including the writer—seem to think that Libya was born a Muslim country. Hence, in the words of Libyan “human rights” activist Bilal Bettamer, “you can’t just spread Christianity.”

What, then, do we do with real history? The fact is, although Libya is today practically entirely Muslim, it certainly wasn’t always so. In fact, before the 7thcentury Islamic invasions, Libya was predominantly Christian. The fact that Libya’s immediate neighbors to the west and east, Algeria and Egypt, were backbones of early Christianity—giving the world giants of theology like St. Augustine and St. Athanasius, to name but a few—certainly suggests that Libya was mostly a Christian nation, excluding some Berber tribes.

Yet Islam came and killed and converted them all to itself. And now, to keep them in line, it will kill any who try to proclaim a different message, especially the message of their conquered forefathers.

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Christianity 'close to extinction' in Middle East

Christianity faces being wiped out of the “biblical heartlands” in the Middle East because of mounting persecution of worshippers, according to a new report.

The most common threat to Christians abroad is militant Islam Photo: ALAMY



By Edward Malnick

7:20AM GMT 23 Dec 2012




The study warns that Christians suffer greater hostility across the world than any other religious group.


And it claims politicians have been “blind” to the extent of violence faced by Christians in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.


The most common threat to Christians abroad is militant Islam, it says, claiming that oppression in Muslim countries is often ignored because of a fear that criticism will be seen as “racism”.


It warns that converts from Islam face being killed in Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Iran and risk severe legal penalties in other countries across the Middle East.


The report, by the think tank Civitas, says: “It is generally accepted that many faith-based groups face discrimination or persecution to some degree.

"A far less widely grasped fact is that Christians are targeted more than any other body of believers.”

It cites estimates that 200 million Christians, or 10 per cent of Christians worldwide, are “socially disadvantaged, harassed or actively oppressed for their beliefs.”

“Exposing and combating the problem ought in my view to be political priorities across large areas of the world. That this is not the case tells us much about a questionable hierarchy of victimhood,” says the author, Rupert Shortt, a journalist and visiting fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford.

He adds: “The blind spot displayed by governments and other influential players is causing them to squander a broader opportunity. Religious freedom is the canary in the mine for human rights generally.”

The report, entitled Christianophobia, highlights a fear among oppressive regimes that Christianity is a “Western creed” which can be used to undermine them.

State hostility towards Christianity is particularly rife in China, where more Christians are imprisoned than in any other country in the world, according to the report.

It quotes Ma Hucheng, an advisor to the Chinese government, who claimed in an article last year that the US has backed the growth of the Protestant Church in China as a vehicle for political dissidence.

“Western powers, with America at their head, deliberately export Christianity to China and carry out all kinds of illegal evangelistic activities,” he wrote in the China Social Sciences Press.

“Their basic aim is to use Christianity to change the character of the regime...in China and overturn it,” he added.

The “lion’s share” of persecution faced by Christians arises in countries where Islam is the dominant faith, the report says, quoting estimates that between a half and two-thirds of Christians in the Middle East have left the region or been killed in the past century.

“There is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands,” it claims.

The report shows that “Muslim-majority” states make up 12 of the 20 countries judged to be “unfree” on the grounds of religious tolerance by Freedom House, the human rights think tank.

It catalogues hundreds of attacks on Christians by religious fanatics over recent years, focusing on seven countries: Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, Nigeria, India, Burma and China.

It claims George Bush’s use of the word “crusade” after the September 11 attacks on New York created the impression for Muslims in the Middle East of a “Christian assault on the Muslim world”.

“But however the motivation for violence is measured, the early twenty-first century has seen a steady rise in the strife endured by Christians,” the report says.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq left Iraqi Christians “more vulnerable than ever”, highlighted by the 2006 beheading of a kidnapped Orthodox priest, Fr Boulos Iskander, and the kidnapping of 17 further priests and two bishops between 2006 and 2010.

“In most cases, those responsible declared that they wanted all Christians to be expelled from the country,” the report says.

In Pakistan, the murder last year of Shahbaz Bhatti, the country’s Catholic minister for minorities, “vividly reflected” religious intolerance in Pakistan.

Shortly after his death it emerged that Mr Bhatti had recorded a video in which he declared: “I am living for my community and for suffering people and I will die to defend their rights.

"I prefer to die for my principles and for the justice of my community rather than to compromise. I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ, who has given his own life for us.”

The report also warns that Christians in India have faced years of violence from Hindu extremists. In 2010 scores of attacks on Christians and church property were carried out in Karnataka, a state in south west India.

And while many people are aware of the oppression faced in Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi and other pro-democracy activists, targeted abuse of Christians in the country has been given little exposure, the report says.

In some areas of Burma the government has clamped down on Christian protesters by restricting the building of new churches.

“Openly professing Christians employed in government service find it virtually impossible to get promotion,” it adds.

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