Nepal

Christians in Nepal have a dilemma. They have nowhere to bury their dead. Most Hindu’s cremate their dead, and Christians are only allowed to bury their dead on designated burial grounds. Except that the government has not designated enough to even begin meeting the need, leaving Christians with a dilemma when it comes to honoring their loved ones with a Christian burial. "Either the government should say that Nepali Christians aren’t Nepali citizens, or it should give them their rights."- Laxmi Pariyar, Christian member of Nepal’s dissolved Constituent Assembly

In 2009 a church in Nepal was bombed by an extremist Hindu group. The pastor of that church has received another threat, “The Hindu extremist said that he would plant a bomb at our church if we did not help his group. But when I asked what type of help he wanted he hung up.” The police are taking this seriously and have already begun an investigation.

A Hind extremist group called the Nepal Defense Army (NDA) has been threatening Christians and their Churches. They claim, “Nepal is a Hindu nation and Christians and Muslims are not welcome.” Churches have had to hire security guards. Police have begun investigations and say they will protect places of worship in Nepal.

Persecution in Nepal has lessened since 2008, but it still remains. Those at the highest risk are former Hindus who have converted to Christianity. With 95% of Christians in Nepal coming out of Hinduism, the question now is how to get the Bible in their hands.

500 people were “ignored” as they gathered for prayer inside Kathmandu’s oldest Protestant church while authorities tore down the exterior walls, causing damage to the interior of the building, to make way for a road expansion.  Several other buildings on the property were destroyed and the police were deployed to keep the peace and stop the Christians from interfering with the road work. One church member said, "The authorities have no respect for religious sensibilities…and ignore the importance of faith for us."

Thanks to the support of Christian rights’ advocates, government officials in Nepal have agreed to build a retaining wall for a church in a remote village. Reconstruction on a road a put the church building in danger of collapsing and the government had plans to do something about it “ later.” The members of the church said, “Some locals started saying that Christians were rich enough to even build a wall of gold and the government had other things to do.” This is why Christians gathered to form a public outcry, resulting in the government  agreeing to put in a retaining wall now instead of later.

Two men in Nepal were arrested for threatening to blow up churches, murder Christians and kidnap Pastors. What a relief to have them in custody. It’s refreshing to see the police take these threats seriously, stopping the individuals before something truly horrible could happen

This is an editorial piece written by a man in Nepal. In it he refers to Christians as “criminals” who have come to Nepal to “suck the blood” of Hindus and Buddhists. He calls for former Buddhists and Hindus, who have become Christians, to reconvert back to their original religion and “chase away the Christian destructive force for the sake of sovereign Nepal.”  While this way of thinking is dangerous in and of itself, and is in part the root of persecution, it is even more dangerous in Nepal since the failure of the Constituent Assembly.

We have been watching Nepal and it’s struggle for a new constitution. Things fell through last week. Danny Punnose summarized the situation well: “the present government is not ruling the government anymore. There will be a caretaker government managing things until November when elections will take place where they're going to re-elect everyone back into the government…” We join the Christians there in wondering what the future will hold. They ask us to pray for them, saying, “we need wisdom…”

The last four years did not produce a ratified constitution for Nepal. It was supposed to ensure the rights of Christians, but now everything is up in the air as now a new “constituent assembly” must be voted in. Nepali authorities and politicians have signed a six-point pledge agreement in support of Christians, but as a Catholic Church representative states, , "People are fed up with politicians and changing governments. Most Christians are unsure whether the government will implement this agreement fairly nor not." From here we wait and see, hoping it won’t take another four years simply to produce another failure.

The date is rapidly approaching when Nepal’s new constitution will come into play.  Tribal groups want the country partitioned on ethnic lines, Hindu’s want it divided on religious lines, and Christians are praying that their rights as minorities will be represented in the implementation of the new constitution. The constitution comes into effect May 28th . The days leading up to this have been full of violence, based on ethnicity and religion,  despite the plea for non-violence from Christian, Hindu and Muslim leaders.

The Apostolic Vicar calls for Nepal's new constitution to give full freedom of religion to its people.