by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Eight Protestant families were denied access to drinking water by community leaders in Mexico in January for not signing a document renouncing their faith, and 4 more Protestants expelled from their village for refusing to participate in local Roman Catholic festivals in July, as the government denies that any religious persecution is taking place.
Government secretary of Hidalgo state Vargas Aguilar, where both incidents took place, chalked up the events, in which Protestants were punished for not engaging in the community culture of Roman Catholicism against their conscience or else forced to outright recant, to “social problems generated by the diversity of uses and customs within the population."
One Protestant woman who spoke with CSW in a December 12 interview said village leaders had threatened anyone who visited her during her recovery from a medical operation with the same punishment of losing their water supply.
“Nobody has visited me...I feel rejected, like I am worth nothing,” she said.
The Mexican constitution allows for freedom of religion, but often smaller indigenous villages are governed by community writ that trumps the law of the land.