Open House: MPs can take action on behalf of persecuted Christians

On Sunday June 19, the French elected the 577 deputies who will sit in the National Assembly for the next five years. The opportunity for the Portes Ouvertes organization to recall that MPs can “improve the situation of persecuted Christians around the world”. 

While the 577 deputies who are to represent the French in the National Assembly for the next five years were elected on Sunday, during the second round of legislative elections, the Portes Ouvertes organization looks back on five years of advocacy to the National Assembly.

"It is important that elected officials, who vote for laws and represent the people, are informed of the persecution of Christians in the world", indicates the organization which adds that "those who are sensitive to this subject can take action to improve the situation on the ground”.

Open Doors reports that over the past five years, 88 MPs have come "at least once" to attend the presentation of the Global Christian Persecution Index, a benchmark document published by the organization each year.

46 individual meetings were also organized with MPs by the organization over the same period. According to Portes Ouvertes, "these are special times to introduce them to the story of Portes Ouvertes, or a specific case of persecution."

Also, 34 deputies signed “a petition, a request for a resolution, or open letters to the Minister of Foreign Affairs or to the Ambassador of a country”. These actions, which can really bring about concrete change in situations, aim to raise awareness and mobilize the political world on this subject.

Finally, the NGO for the defense of Christians indicates that 48 questions were asked by deputies to the French government on the subject of the persecution of Christians, on the basis of information provided by the organization. Portes Ouvertes specifies that a deputy “even showed the book of the Index during an oral question in the hemicycle”.

Last February, duringa episode from our series of immersive reports, we went to meet members of the organization came to Paris to present their Global Index of Christian Persecution 2022 to the Senate and the National Assembly.

As a reminder, the 2022 Index reveals that 360 million Christians experienced persecution or discrimination between October 1, 2020 and September 30, 2021. This represents 1 in 7 Christians in the world.

Camille Westphal Perrier

Image credit: Shutterstock.com / Thomas Dutour