Protestants under attack in Mexican community
WND Staff
December 28, 2019
(Image courtesy Pixabay)
A Mexican community is threatening Protestants there with being ejected from the town they live in unless they financially contribute to a Roman Catholic festival and that church's bells, according to an advocacy organization that works on behalf of Christians worldwide.
And yet, reports Christian Solidarity Worldwide,local government officials deny there is any problem.
CSW reported that a government secretary in Hidalgo state publicly announced "there are no cases of religious intolerance in the Huasteca region, despite evidence from Protestant Christians who were forcibly displaced in July and others who are currently under threat."
It was last July, CSW explained, that Protestant families in the village of la Mesa Limantitla were ordered to leave unless they made "financial contributions to local Roman Catholic festivals and participate in other activities which conflicted with their religious beliefs."
TRENDING:Warren's pandering Kwanzaa comment shredded by African woman
Earlier, eight Protestant families were forced to sign a document renouncing their faith and were warned that if they began attending Protestant services again their access to water, electricity, drainage services and social benefit programs would be blocked, the organization reported.
Anna-Lee Stangl, head of advocacy for CSW, said, "We are deeply troubled by the approach of the regional and state religious affairs officials in Hidalgo, who, by pressuring members of religious minorities to sign agreements that would obligate them to participate in the activities of a religion to which they do not belong, are complicit in serious violations of freedom of religion or belief and are promoting a resolution that contravenes Mexico’s own laws protecting fundamental human rights.
"We call on Gov. Fayad Meneses to take swift action to address the threats against religious minorities in his state, especially in the Huasteca region, and to ensure that officials in his administration uphold the law."
The report said La Huasteca is a geographical and cultural region which includes parts of the states of Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Puebla, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro and Guanajuato.
One of the affected families told CSW, "They took all of the government benefit programs from us, they took everything from us. They get their benefits and they don't let us know and they deliver them, but not to us. That is how we are left, with nothing. Right now we are suffering."
Meanwhile, Simon Vargas Aguilar, a government secretary of the state of Hidalgo, said publicly that there are no cases "of religious intolerance" in the region.
Aguilar specifically claimed the issue in the village of la Mesa Limantitla was "cultural" and not "religious." He claimed the problems stem from "social problems generated by the diversity of uses and customs within the population."
But Christian Solidarity Worldwide said, contrary to those claims, that "violations of freedom of religion or belief, including cutting access to water and electricity, blocking religious minority children from attending school, arbitrary detention and forced displacement are common in the Huasteca region of Hidalgo."