Christian converts face severe restrictions, discrimination, and attacks.
bottom“Teachers always said bad things about the Christians, and all the Muslim students enjoyed mocking us. I couldn’t say anything…Nobody listened to me."
– Shakib, a teenager in Bangladesh.
In Bangladesh, converts to Christianity face the most severe restrictions, discrimination and attacks. Individual communities may be Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or animist, but converts to Christianity face difficulties in any of these places. Religious beliefs are tied to the identity of the community, so turning from the dominant faith to follow Jesus can result in accusations of betrayal.
Bangladeshi converts often gather in small house churches due to the risk of attack. Any churches that work and evangelise among the Muslim majority face persecution, but even historical denominations, like the Roman Catholic Church, are increasingly targeted by death threats and attacks.
Tribal Christians face an increasing double vulnerability since they belong to both an ethnic and religious minority. These believers struggle with people taking their land and face violence. The killings of eight Christians in April 2023 in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region was a rare but not unprecedented occurrence of violence leading to deaths in the country.
Christians among the Muslim-majority Rohingya, who fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar, face harassment and strong pressure from their community. Believers who live in the Rohingya refugee camps can encounter persecution even as they live in displacement.
Throughout Bangladesh, the most vulnerable Christians are those who converted out of their area’s majority religion. Attacks in Bangladesh in the past year were a reminder of the dark reality of ethnoreligious hostilities that Christians face.
In recent years, refugees have fled to Bangladesh from camps in Myanmar where the influence of radical Islamic groups is growing. Among the refugees are a tiny minority of Rohingya converts, who can face pressure for their faith but have no means of escape.
– For healing for victims of attacks, arrests, and abductions.
– For strength and perseverance while Christians endure pressure from their communities.
– That persecutors will experience Jesus personally and give their lives to Him.
Open Doors works through local church partners to strengthen persecuted believers in Bangladesh through biblical training, Bible distribution, literacy programs, and socio-economic development projects, as well as emergency relief aid.
