Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: Gaza Christians sense pressure to convert to Islam [View all]Unless one of the "kidnapped" "conversos" escapes and tells a different story or unless Christian families have some real evidence for what they say - it's not right to treat this as any different from cults in the US who induce people to come and live with them who end up converted to their religious views. Unsavory, but I think generally those who need a religion to feel complete in their life (I'm not disparaging them) will be attracted to the appeal of any number of religious narratives, especially if there are some personal reasons to want to break with their existing community.
OTOH initial news stories about anything that happens in the world and even in democracies often turn out to be quite wrong. But that's especially true under totalitarian regimes that control news sources and where those stories exonerate the regime of suspected wrongdoing. Maybe we'll hear more in the coming days.