Christian Persecution in the Maldives

ChristianPersecution Around the World Today

           The persecution rate of Christian today is very high. Today, over 75% of all people in the world are living in countries with religious restrictions; most of these people are Christians. Christians face severe persecution in over sixty countries right now. Currently, some of the countries with the most Christian persecution are: North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, the Maldives, Mali, Iran, Yemen, Eritrea and Syria.

Christians are persecuted for many reasons, with one of them being because of the governments. The governments of some countries try to rule every aspect of people lives. To do this, they control their peoples religion, and for this reason they persecute people of other religions because they fear that they will change the loyalty of the people. Christians are also persecuted because of a lack of human rights. Because Christians in certain countries do not have rights like freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, whenever they try to speak out or form assemblies, they are persecuted by the government or law following citizens. Also Christians are persecuted in countries where they are a religious minority.

History of Christian Persecution in the Maldives   

           For a long time, Christians have been persecuted in the Maldives and continue to be so. Christianity is an extreme minority religion in the Maldives mainly because the national religion is Islam. Christianity Makes up only 0.2% of the total population. The president of the Maldives has even said that no religion other than Islam is allowed to be practiced. It is illegal to practice any form of Christianity and the owning of Christian writings can get you arrested. Only Muslims are allowed to be citizens, although foreigners are allowed to practice their own religion privately. Christian Missionaries are not allowed into the country. It is illegal to preach anything but Islam, and teaching anything other than The Maldives officially pre-approved version of Islam may result in a sentence of up to five years in jail. Christianity was introduced to the country in 1833 by Christian missionaries sent by Clement Bonnand, who was the Vicar Apostolic of Pondicherry at the time. In 1833, he was authorized by the Holy See to send missionaries to the Maldive Islands due to the fact that Christianity had not be spread there yet.  Christianity in the Maldives has a long and sad history.An important even for the Maldives happened in 1998, when some foreign Christians who were suspected of missionary work were expelled from the country. Multiple local Christians were also arrested. In 2008, they adopted a new constitution that stated that non-Muslims are not allowed to become citizens.