At least 30 families from the Tuxpan de Bolaños area of Mexico were forced to
leave in January 2016 because their evangelical faith was seen as a threat,
according to World Watch Monitor Open Doors International
leave in January 2016 because their evangelical faith was seen as a threat,
according to World Watch Monitor Open Doors International
Christianity Today
Mexico has been accused of a "policy of denial" over the thousands of evangelicals forced out of homes for their beliefs.
According to the Mexican Commission for the Defence and Promotion of Human Rights, more than 287,000 cases of forced internal displacement took place in the last five years. But the UN-accredited National Human Rights Commission puts the figure at around 35,000.
However, Pedro Faro Navarro, director of the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center, disputes both numbers and accused the government of "making up the figures", according to World Watch Monitor. And he says the government is in denial about the number of people forced to move because they left the traditional Catholic Church for branches of evangelical Protestantism.
"There are some who speak of more than a million people," he said. "For the time being, what we know for definite is that the lowest number is always the official one." Many families have to leave their homes and nobody comes to count them, he added.The problems between evangelical Christians and traditional communities are not uniform, said Faro. Some involve religious differences but others also involve political power struggles. "Each case is different and has to be well analysed," he said, according to the persecution watchdog.
Faro said the government is ignoring the situation because to admit a problem would mean having to confront it. He said the Mexican government would not intervene because it was trying to encourage foreign investment in territories "where there are indigenous villages that are practically for sale".
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