Persecution Ahead for Christians, UK Watchdog Reports

UK based persecution watchdog Release International reports that an estimated 250 million Christians worldwide will face persecution in 2007.

New research found that governments in even moderate Muslim countries often fail to safeguard the rights of their Christian minorities, which results in Christians suffering from kidnapping, forced conversion, imprisonment, church destruction, torture, rape and execution.

One of the world's worst abusers of religious freedom is Saudi Arabia, ranked number two on Open Doors World Watch List of country allowing persecution. Saudi Arabia forbids all other religions. A Muslim found "guilty" of converting to Christianity could face the death sentence for apostasy. And anyone who leads a Muslim to Christ faces jail, expulsion or execution.

"There's a conspiracy of silence around Saudi," says Release International's CEO Andy Dipper, "probably because the West wants their oil and their money. But this is a government that hands out the death sentence for its own citizens who want nothing more than the freedom to choose their own faith. And while Saudi bans all Christian literature, it spends billions of dollars each year propagating Islam around the world."

Dipper says, "A rising number of extremists interpret the call to jihad as a call to violence. They seem to regard it as their religious duty to force Christians and non-Muslims to convert to Islam. Those who refuse must be driven out or killed."