Mexico: Village authorities imprison Protestants

As reported by Diario de Comitan on 17 August 2017, the local authorities put a group of Protestants in Comitan, Chiapas, under‚ pressure‚ in an attempt to force them to into sharing the expenses of having a priest come to the village to hold a Catholic service. They were locked up, tied up, given no water or food and were beaten and threatened with death for a number of days. Rossana Ramirez, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, explains: "It is disturbing that it was the authorities themselves who ordered the Protestants to be held and allowed the abuse to continue for days.‚ If this situation is not resolved soon it could lead to the Protestants fleeing the community. It is also noteworthy that only a few local newspapers reported the incident and no measures have been taken against those responsible. State and federal authorities seem indifferent to such incidents, which means that anti-Protestant attitudes in villages and incidents of this sort are likely to continue unabated."