To a regional meeting of leaders of a Canadian church
By Hon. David Kilgour

The assigned topic is the persecution of Christians internationally and what Canadians might do to reduce it. All human dignity is ultimately indivisible across the world today, so I'll widen the focus to include other spiritual communities. Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892-1984) put this point best when he said about the Nazis: "...Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me."
 
'Countries of Particular Concern'
 
The bi-partisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom was established a decade ago to monitor freedom of thought, conscience and religion as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It  recommended in mid-2009 that the following countries be designated "Countries of Particular Concern": Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Religious persecution means any violation of the internationally recognized right to freedom of religion, as defined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  In Canada, we have the right to exercise religious freedom regardless of our beliefs. Our Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that everyone enjoys freedom of conscience and religion.  This freedom to worship, or to choose not to worship, is part of Canada’s appeal to immigrants from many lands who come here to pursue more fulfilled lives. 

Religious freedom is a universal value; most of the world’s nations have signed  international agreements committing them to respect individual freedom of thought, conscience and belief.  In too many, however, nationals continue to suffer for their beliefs or practice of their faiths;  their governments refuse to recognize or protect this basic right.
 
Persecution

Most of the persecution of spiritual communities during the 1900s and early years of the present century was committed by  regimes which detested all religions, primarily because practitioners’ deepest loyalties lay elsewhere.  Totalitarians around the world continue to persecute  them with varying degrees of severity. 
Here are three sharply differing  situations:
 
China
 
One of  many cases to come out of China,  whose party-state remains one of the world's worst violators of religious and other basic  rights, is that of Liu Zhenying,  better known in Canada as Brother Yun.  His experiences as a follower of Jesus in his homeland, some of you have probably read about in his autobiography,  The Heavenly Man, published in 2002. He and the book have impacted many, including those who attended the more than one thousand meetings he has held  in numerous parts of the world. His latest book, Living Water, came out last year.
 
Consider too the experience of another Christian, Gao Zhisheng, who has been persecuted mostly because of standing up for another large spiritual community,  Falun Gong (some of whose own horrifying experiences over ten years can be accessed at www.david-kilgour.com.).  He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. In 2001, he was named one of China's top ten lawyers despite not attending  law school because of the cost. His family was so poor that they lived in a cave when he was born. As a lawyer, he donated a third of his time to victims of human rights violations, representing miners, evicted tenants and others.

First the regime removed Gao's permit to practise law. This was followed by an attempt on his life, having police attack his wife and 14-year-old daughter and denying the family any income. It worsened when Gao launched nationwide hunger strikes and called for justice and human dignity. In 2006, he was sentenced to three years in prison for 'inciting subversion of state power'; international pressure appears to have caused a suspension of the sentence for five years.
 
The Canadian Friends of Gao wrote Prime Minister Harper earlier this year asking him to intervene for his release.   The  letter ended: "Well-wishers of China had long hoped that the country’s economic growth would be accompanied by increased respect for human rights and the rule of law. The reality has been quite the contrary; instead of honouring the obligations prescribed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which China is a signatory, blatant human rights violations persist. Having courageously sought justice for vulnerable groups such as the poor, the disabled, and the persecuted, Gao's story is a light shining in the darkness, and a reminder that all of us must stand up for what we believe and affirm. "
 
Sudan
 
In Sudan, the Bashir regime has probably slaughtered more than 400,000 African Darfuris and expelled six times as many--an estimated 2.5 milllion, after having killed an estimated two million and expelled even more in the predominantly Christian and animist South Sudan.  Do try to read Tears of the Desert for Dr. Halima Bashir`s horrifying account of her years as a medical doctor in a Darfur village.
 
It’s a genocide by Arab Muslims against African Muslims, and earlier in the South against Christians and animists.  Eric Reeves, a leading observer of Darfur, notes there are currently about 3.5 million people affected by its conflict, with about 10,000 dying per month from various unnatural causes.  The personal testimony and pleas of Mia Farrow and others to protect the people of Darfur is deeply compelling.