A roll-call of religious martyrs.

Rome -- More than 900 Christians died for their faith during 2002, including 127 in Colombia alone, according to a report by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). A further 100,000 were arrested and more than 600 injured.

The organisation presented its fifth annual report on religious liberty in Rome on 26 June. The 455-page report, which provides a country-by-country analysis of religious liberty around the globe, disclosed that last year 938 Christians were killed, 629 injured, and 100,345 arrested.

Countries where religious liberty was most at risk were Nigeria, Sudan, China, and Cuba. In Europe, Belarus was highlighted because of its restrictive laws on religious liberty, as was Romania, where Eastern-rite Catholic communities have been deprived of their churches since 1948 when they were confiscated by the Communist regime.

The report dedicates 30 pages to Russia, emphasizing that "respect for religious liberty has met with new difficulties, especially for the Catholic Church." The Russian administration has engaged in hostile gestures, including the expulsion of some priests, in response to "alleged Catholic expansionism."

In the Americas, the report notes that relations between Church and State in Mexico are increasingly serene, but not so in Venezuela where "the Church has been the object of controls and threats on the part of the police" and "insults at the highest institutional level." In an address on 24 February 2002, President Hugo Chavez described the Catholic Church as the cancer of his revolution.

Cuba is a cause for particular concern after 86 Christians were imprisoned last year on the sole ground of having witnessed to their faith.

The report finds that there has been some progress on religious liberty in Asia, but overall it remains the continent with the greatest number of countries where this right is questioned. In India, Hindu radical nationalism promotes "anti-conversion" laws that worry Christians. Problems also persist in Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Laos. In North Korea 100,000 Christians are detained in concentration camps.

ACN also found that most Muslim countries practise discrimination against non-Muslims. Particularly in Sudan and Nigeria there has been a radicalisation of intransigent Muslim positions, as shown by the approval of Sharia law. (Tablet, July 5, 03)