Tunisia

Forced to hide their faith

Tunisian believers all come from Muslim backgrounds. For Christians in North African country, persecution comes in various forms, including targeted discrimination that is often hidden from public view yet affects believers’ daily lives. Many Christians experience job insecurity, family abandonment, and verbal, mental and physical abuse—making it dangerous to share their faith with family members, neighbors, friends or colleagues. As a result, most converts to Christianity choose to hide their faith and cannot openly worship and live their lives as Christians.

How Christians are suffering

Converts from Islam to Christianity have most to fear from their own family members and society. This is especially true in Tunisia’s southern region, where violent radical Islamic groups are particularly active. These groups will target any Christian, whether foreign of national, if the opportunity arises.

Christian converts, especially women, are not likely to be treated equally in court, especially in an issue involving family law. They are also vulnerable to abuse, because their families can, in some cases, act against them with impunity, especially in rural areas. Women who convert from Islam suffer unprotected in North Africa. In the Muslim culture, a woman born into a Muslim family who becomes a follower of Jesus is thought to bring shame on her whole family because she isn’t following the path of her ancestors. There are cases of converts being locked up in their houses by their own families.

Examples

Church facilities and buildings are monitored, under the guise of security reasons but also for the purpose of the government’s surveillance.

During the reporting period, some foreign Christians were detained and interrogated for possessing Christian literature. They were accused of proselytization.

Several Christians, especially female converts, had to relocate inside the country due to pressure and threats from their families. Reportedly, several Christian converts were physically and/or sexually abused.

Population and number of Christian statistics: Johnson T M and Zurlo G A, eds., World Christian Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, accessed April 2019).