According to a report by Lopez Doriga on 17 March 2018, villagers of the Tojolabal ethnic group of the San Miguel Chiptic - a community in Chiapas based around a syncretistic mixture of indigenous beliefs and Catholicism - destroyed the homes of three families who had become Protestants.
Rossana Ramirez, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, explains: "In Mexico, these sort of incidents are common in the indigenous communities. Conversion represents a serious problem for indigenous identity. The persecution of those becoming Protestants arises from the need to defend the unity of the indigenous community and also the community"s faith as a constitutive element that shapes the identity of the ethnic group and has become part of their culture. The worrying thing is that the authorities are either absent or do not recognize the problem. Despite the complaints regularly made by Protestant families about their treatment, the authorities consider such conflicts to be due to "˜other reasons". In some cases, the authorities collude with the community leaders in order to put pressure on the Protestants to (re)convert to the majority religion of the community. As long as the problem is not recognized as involving religious persecution against a Christian minority, these families remain vulnerable and will not be able to live their faith freely in the community."
