The earthquake that hit Nepal in April and May of this year spurred politicians to act on the drafting of a new constitution.
An extremist Hindu group in Nepal is warning foreign Christian missionaries to leave the country, blaming Christians for “corrupting the country.”
“Morcha Nepal”-- a radical Hindu group-- distributed leaflets, threatening Christians to leave the country.
“Foreign influence have manipulated government decisions [and] Christians have corrupted the country," the leaflet reads.
"From today, the Morcha declares Nepal a Christian-free Hindu nation. We warn all the Christian religious leaders to leave Nepal, and appeal to all those who converted to Christianity to return home [convert back to Hinduism]," the Hindu group says according to a statement.
Though only 1.4 percent of the 31 million population identifies as Christian and 81.3 percent identifies as Hindu, according to a CIA Factbook statistics, Nepal is officially a secular state. The country’s new constitution also contains a clause that makes it illegal and punishable by law to convert a person from one religion to another.
In response to the ratification of the clause, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said in a statement, "This fails to allow for choosing and changing one's faith to be seen as a positive individual choice or as a matter of individual rights, as required by international treaties which Nepal has signed and ratified.
