Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 20, 2024 / 07:00 am
A recently released report from a European watchdog group has found nearly 2,500 documented instances of hate crimes against Christians living in Europe. Approximately 1,000 of these attacks took place in France.
According to the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) report, which drew on both police and civil society data, 2,444 anti-Christian hate crimes and acts of discrimination and intolerance occurred across 35 European countries from 2023 to 2024.
Of these, 232 constituted personal attacks of harassment, threats, and physical assaults against Christians.
Most affected countries: France, England, and Germany
Nearly 1,000 of the anti-Christian hate crimes reported in Europe in 2023 took place in France, with 90% of the attacks waged against churches or cemeteries. The report also found there were about 84 personal attacks against individuals.
Apart from physical assaults, the report cited data from the French Religious Heritage Observatory, which recorded eight confirmed cases of arson against churches in France in 2023 and 14 attacks in the first 10 months of 2024. Several reported cases were on account of “Molotov cocktails,” a makeshift handheld firebomb.
Religious communities also reported incidents of harassment. Two nuns cited in the report, for example, announced in 2023 that they would be leaving the northwestern city of Nantes on account of “constant hostility and insecurity.” The nuns reportedly experienced “beatings, spitting, and insults.”
The United Kingdom followed close behind France, according to the report, with 702 reported anti-Christian hate crimes, a 15% increase since 2023.
The report also included as anti-Christian acts incidents of Christians being prosecuted for praying silently in the country’s so-called “buffer zones,” such as the case of Adam Smith-Connor, who was convicted for praying in front of an abortion clinic.
The report stated that in Germany, the third most affected country, official government statistics reported 277 “politically motivated hate crimes” against Christians in 2023, a 105% increase from the previous year when there were 103 reported attacks.
OIDAC Europe independently estimated that “at least 2,000 cases of property damage to Christian places of worship in 2023” took place.
Motives and perpetrators of anti-Christian hate crimes
OIDAC Europe found that of the 69 documented cases where the motives and background of perpetrators could be accurately accounted for, 21 of them were provoked by a radical Islamist agenda, 14 were of a generally anti-religious nature, 13 were tied to far-left political motives, and 12 were “linked to the war in Ukraine.”
The report also noted that numbers in this respect remained unchanged compared with 2022, “except for cases with an Islamist background, which increased from 11 to 21.”
Pushed to the silent margins
In addition to overt attacks, the OIDAC report highlighted an increased phenomenon of discrimination in the workplace and public life, leading to a rise in self-censorship among those who practice their faith.
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According to a U.K.-based study from June cited in the report, 56% of 1,562 respondents stated they “had experienced hostility and ridicule when discussing their religious beliefs,” an overall 61% rise among those under 35. In addition, 18% of those who participated in the study reported experiencing discrimination, particularly among those in younger age groups.
More than 280 participants in the same survey stated “they felt that they had been disadvantaged because of their religion.”
“I was bullied at my workplace, made to feel less than, despite being very successful at my job in other settings, until I left,” one female respondent in her late 40s stated in the survey, while another respondent, a man in his mid- to late-50s, said: “Any mention of faith in a CV precludes one from an interview. My yearly assessment was lowered because I spoke of Christ.”
The report explained that the majority of discrimination occurs due to the “expression of religious beliefs about societal issues.” However, in the U.K., these instances have extended to private conversations and posts on private social media accounts, according to the report.
A case involving a mother of two children, Kristie Higgs, was cited in the report. Higgs was fired from her job as a pastoral assistant after sharing, in a private Facebook post, “concerns about the promotion of transgenderism in sex education lessons at her son’s primary school.”
“I am not alone to be treated this way — many of the others here to support me today have faced similar consequences,” Higgs stated after her hearing at the Court of Appeals in October.
“This is not just about me,” she added. “It cannot be right that so many Christians are losing their jobs or facing discipline for sharing biblical truth, our Christian beliefs.”
Government interference with the Catholic Church
Two instances of government interference in Catholic religious autonomy were cited.
One instance occurred in France, in which a secular civil court “ruled against the Vatican’s internal canonical procedures” in a case regarding a French nun who was dismissed from her order. The Vatican sent a letter to the French embassy in response to the ruling, which it called “a serious violation of the fundamental rights of religious freedom and freedom of association of the Catholic faithful.”
In Belgium, the report also noted, two bishops were convicted and ordered to pay financial compensation after they refused to admit a woman to a diaconate training program, despite human rights law, which protects the rights of religious institutions such as the Catholic Church, to decide on matters such as the ordination of clergy without state-level interference.
Recommendations
“As freedom of thought, conscience, and religion is a cornerstone for free and democratic societies, we hope that states will not compromise on the protection of these fundamental rights, and thus ensure an open and peaceful climate in our societies,” the report stated in its conclusion.
OIDAC’s report includes various recommendations to governments of European countries, human rights institutions, the European Union, members of the media, and other “opinion leaders” as well as to Christian churches and individuals.
The watchdog organization’s recommendations include a call for safeguarding freedom of expression, more robust reporting on intolerance and discrimination against Christians, the abandonment of anti-Christian “hate speech” in the public sphere, and for people of faith to engage in public-facing discourse as a means of “dialogue between religion and secular society.”
