Disturbing news about threats to religious freedom

According to this story:

"Massacres and murders in the name of religion declined around the globe in 2003 but in countries including China and North Korea religious persecution is still widespread, an international Catholic charity said on Friday.

'Last year we may have seen a drop in headline-grabbing religious violence, but I wouldn't call it a trend,' said Attilio Tamburini of Aid to the Church in Need (ACS), at a presentation of the group's annual report on religious freedom.

'We also saw a maintaining of the brutal situation of oppression in many countries like China and 2004 could be worse in other countries with fundamentalism on the rise,' said Tamburini, director of the ACS's Italian operations."

Rick