OAXACA, Mexico (BP) – The last Protestants in an indigenous Mexican community where Catholicism is the only religion allowed were forced from their homes Aug. 6, their lone church set ablaze, CSW reported Aug. 22 ahead of Protestant protests in the street.
Members of the Protestant Interdenominational Christian Church (ICIAR) and their supporters were expected to protest in the main square of Mexico City and in the city of Oaxaca Aug. 22, CSW said, calling out serious religious freedom violations in the community of San Isidro Arenal in San Juan Lalana Municipality, Oaxaca State.
There, members of the ICIAR have been subjected to discrimination, violence and arbitrary detention since November 2023 and face imminent forced displacement from their homes due to their religious beliefs, CSW said. Previous protests were held in Oaxaca Aug. 19.
“We stand with those who are raising their voices today across Mexico in support of freedom of religion or belief for all,” CSW’s Head of Advocacy Anna Lee Stangl said in a press release. “It is imperative that the governments of the San Juan Lalana Municipality and Oaxaca State, and at the federal level, take urgent action to uphold the Mexican Constitution and ensure that freedom of religion or belief is a right enjoyed by all, regardless of where they live or their ethno-linguistic identity.”
Oaxaco is just 2 miles from Hidalgo, where Baptist worshipers in several indigenous villages have endured similar persecution, driven from their homes and churches unless they observe Catholic customs and rites, or convert to Catholicism.
In Oaxaca, persecution escalation Aug. 6 when a large mob of 300 men dispossessed the last remaining religious minority families their lands and livestock, destroyed their crops and burned their church, CSW said.
On Aug. 16, when pastors Moisés Sarmiento Alavés and Esdrás Ojeda Jiménez and two other men went to the community to attend a legal proceeding announced by the Oaxaca State Prosecutor’s Office, the proceedings never occurred and the men were instead attacked by a mob.
“They were stripped, beaten, arbitrarily detained for over six hours, and forced to sign a document which they did not have the opportunity to read,” CSW wrote in the press release. “The four men were ultimately freed by the police later that same day.”
Porfirio Flores, an attorney and representative of the Fellowship of Pastors, told CSW that “greater attention must be paid to the issue of religious freedom in Oaxaca. A fundamental change is needed regarding the problems arising from civil and religious charges within internal normative systems, while respecting the secular state.”
The persecution of Protestants in indigenous Catholic communities stems from a 1993 community accord mandating Roman Catholicism as the only religion permitted in San Isidro Arenal, a system allowed under the Law on Uses and Customs. However, religious freedom is guaranteed in Mexico’s constitution.
“The volatile situation in San Isidro Arenal is yet another example of how the government’s failure to intervene at the early stages of cases of religious intolerance and its neglect of education around freedom of religion or belief has led local authorities to believe that they can enforce religious adherence and practice and commit criminal acts against those who believe differently with impunity,” Stangl said. “Concrete steps must be taken now to protect the members of the religious minority in San Isidro Arenal, and those who are responsible for crimes committed against them must be held to account for their actions.”