In a statement, the National Bar of Christian Lawyers reported 200 cases of "unresolved religious intolerance" in Chiapas, including “threats, intimidation, and robbery or expulsion from their communities, or death,” said Compass Direct News agency, which released the findings.
In one incident on January 31, three evangelicals from San Juan Chamula municipality were reportedly injured after being ambushed and shot while driving home from San Cristobal de llas Casas. Authorities concluded that it was a case of religious persecution, Compass Direct News said.
The same day several evangelical families in the municipality of Huixtan reportedly had water cut off and lost cash benefits of a government program to help small farmers, apparently for religious reasons.
PIPES DESTROYED
Local leaders apparently also took heavy tools to destroy their water pipes, disrupting a worship service of 40 evangelicals. Earlier on January 21, authorities already allegedly forbade them to chop wood.
Mexican media reported similar problems for 10 evangelicals in Los Pozos, who also lost benefits under what is known as the Program of Direct Rural Support, because of their Christian faith. In December, government agents reportedly intervened in the town to keep all evangelicals from being expelled from their properties.
In Chiepetlan, Tlapa de Comonfort municipality, three evangelical families are threatened with expulsion as well as in San Luis Acatlan, where local leaders claim evangelicals do not do their share in community affairs led by traditional Catholics, reported Compass Direct News.
Evangelicals are also forced to help pat for festivals of "traditional Catholics" – a blend of native "traditional" religions and Catholicism – and threatened with expulsion from their homes if they refuse.
COMMUNITY PROJECT
Evangelicals say they cooperate in community projects, "often far beyond what is asked" of them, but refuse to pay for religious festivals they claim involves drunkenness and immoral behavior. Government officials have reportedly tried to calm down tensions, but some evangelicals have already been forced to flee the region.
Fortunato Velasco Perez was forced to flee with the eight members of his family from the town of Campo Grande after he became a Pentecostal Christian and refused to pay for Catholic festivals, said Compass Direct News, citing local sources.
Angry authorities apparently threatened the family and cut off their water and electricity. Two of their children were reportedly imprisoned for three days, Fortunato was nearly hanged, and town leaders ordered them to pay a huge fine. The family left their properties behind and are hiding in a community of evangelicals named Betania, in Teopisca municipality, Compass Direct News reported.
Mexico City’s La Jornada newspaper said earlier that Roman Catholic bishop of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Felipe Arizmendi, appeared to distance himself from traditional-Catholics saying his church had no relationship with the "so-called traditional Catholics, who do not depend on our diocese, do not take into account the Bible nor the laws of this country, but are governed by their own agreements and traditions." (With reports from Mexico. bosnewslife.com ).
