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AP Photo/Martin Meissner
World News

Christian refugees forced to watch IS beheading videos, claims Open Doors

Open Doors workers in the country claim believers, many of them Muslim-converts, are sometimes a tiny minority and easy targets for insults, being punched, spat at and sexually assaulted.

After surveying 231 people earlier this year, Open Doors Germany said Muslim security staff and translators joined in targeting Christians, some of whom reported being too scared to wear a cross or carry a Bible in public.

Open Doors Germany survey

- 231 questioned

- 82% male

- +50% under 30-years-old

- 69% came from Iran, 13% Afghanistan and 5% Syria.

Thomas Muller from Open Doors Germany told Premier clustering Christians together in the camps and hostels, and having more staff from minority groups (including Christians and Yazidis) might afford them greater protection.

He also explained one example of Christians being targeted for abuse.

Thomas said: "Someone shows a beheading video of I.S. It just lasts ten seconds and then they say 'You're the next'. No one notices it but you are scared to death, of course.

"The clustering of Christian refugees. Until now, we may find five or six Christians in a camp site or in a hostel of about four hundred people. We might hear different stories if it would be possible to have 50 or 100 Christians in a camp of 400.

"This is maybe one of the most uneasy findings of the survey, speaking for me as a German Christian: Christians who had hoped to be able to live their lives in freedom told us, 'And then we came to Germany and found there is no difference to our home countries at all."

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