Lebanon: Christian presence weakened through Muslim land ownership

The number of young Christians in Lebanon is decreasing considerably, according to the vice-president of the Maronite League, Hiam Boustany, speaking at a conference convened by "the Movement for the Earth", as reported by Agenzia Fides on 27 September 2016. In total, 34% of the Lebanese population is registered as Christian. However, when taking the population range 0-25 years, only 25% is Christian. The meeting focused on "the changes in ownership of land once owned by Christians to Muslim owners, confirming that this phenomenon is directly related to the weakening of the Christian presence". Especially rural areas and the coastal region of Zgharta and Kura are affected. The conference issued the warning to "avoid abuses and illegal real estate transactions that jeopardize the demographic balance on which the fragile Lebanese institutional system is also founded". Henriette Kats, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, can see this development happening on a broader scale in other areas of the Middle East: "A similar trend has been going on for decades in several predominantly Christian areas and towns in the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, where the unwritten rule that Christian owned land and houses should only be sold to Christians was broken when the government ordered property to be sold to Yezidis or Muslims. The unwritten agreement was an attempt to protect the Christian minority. Though the phenomenon in Lebanon does not seem to be related to government requirements, it carries the same risk of majority Christian areas gradually becoming Muslim, leaving less space for Christians to stay in a country where - only 70 years ago - Christians were a majority."