Religious violence world-wide

I celebrated Easter with a heavy heart. Religious tensions are growing world-wide and our coreligionists in particular are under attack at an increasing rate. In Iraq bombings and sectarian strife are a daily occurrence, but lately there were personal attacks on known Christian families. A bomb was placed next to the house of Ramzy Balbole, a painter. His wife and three children got seriously injured as a result, their three year old eventually succumbing to his injuries in the hospital. In the past few years several Chaldo-Assyrian priests were murdered and, although during Hussein's time only 5% of the population was Christian, today they make up 40% of the refugees now living in the neighbouring countries.

This past month over 500 people, mostly women and children, were killed near the city of Jos in Nigeria, although truth be told, there were prior clashes in which 150 Muslim villager got killed, so this was a revenge attack.

It is estimated that in Sudan over 1.5 million Christians have been killed in the civil wars since 1984 by the Janjaweed (the Arab Muslim militia). Also, over 200 000 people were taken into slavery, mostly of the Dinka people, about 75% of whom are Christian.

Last August in Pakistan six people, one man, four women and a child, were burnt alive in Gojra by Muslim militant. They were Christian and they were accused of desecrating the Qur'an.

The number of attacks on Coptic Christians (the earliest of Christian sects) has been increasing in Egypt in the last few decades. One year ago two men were shot dead and several injured in Southern Egypt during an Easter vigil. In September a Muslim man beheaded a Christian man in Bagour and injured two others in other villages.

This year, in January, three Muslim men in a car opened fire on a crowd of celebrating Copts near a church, killing 8 people. Unknown number of girls have been kidnapped, raped, and/or forced to convert, or marry Muslim men with the resulting children automatically considered Muslims.

In Saudi Arabia, if anyone is known to have converted to Christianity, they can be executed -- by law.

Sometimes I can't help remembering the Communist teachings of my childhood that said that "religions are the root of all evil". Could they have been right...?