A human rights charity has revealed in a new report that the global persecution of Christians has “significantly worsened” over the course of the last 12 months. The organization, Aid to the Church in Need, stated that Christians are now living under an increased threat of both violence, discrimination, and other forms of human rights abuse. The group analyzed a total of 18 countries of concern between the summer of 2022 through summer 2024. Some of the key findings the report shared includes a major shift in the epicenter of violence against Christians from militant Islamists from the Middle East region to Africa.
According to the Christian Post, the report says that believers in Jesus located in Africa are being “terrorized” by acts that are described as “extreme violence” for holding fast to the faith of Christ in locations such as Burkina Faso, Nigeria, and Mozambique.
Authoritarian regimes like China, Eritrea, India and Iran have become more repressive, resulting in the increased targeting of Christians as enemies of the state or their local community. Christian children, especially girls, are living at increased risk of abduction, sexual violence, forced marriage and forced conversion. In some places, Christians are being caught up in the weaponization of legislation to criminalize acts deemed disrespectful to the state religion.
Christians are being imprisoned in a number of countries for their faith, including Eritrea, where around 400 have been imprisoned without trial. In Iran, Christians detained for their faith rose from 59 in 2021 to 166 in 2023. Estimates for the number of Christians imprisoned in China range from the low thousands to around 10,000.
India has seen an increase in recorded attacks and other forms of persecution against members of Christ’s Church, going up from 599 back in 2022 to 720 the following year. The military in Myanmar has been accused of obliterating over 200 places used for Christian worship. A total of 85 were actual churches.
Some of these countries have witnessed a mass exodus of Christians following years of heavy persecution and oppression. In the country of Syria, only a quarter of a million Christians still remain. Before the civil war that ripped through the country, there were 1.5 million. Let’s take a peak at Iraq. The Christian population in that part of the world shrank from a million two decades ago to only 200,000 or less today.
The report, which was launched in the U.K. Parliament this week, reads, “Mass migration of Christian communities, triggered by militant Islamist attacks, has destabilized and disenfranchised them, raising questions about the long-term survival of the Church in key regions.” It also states: “Authoritarian regimes, including those in China, Eritrea, India and Iran, ramped up repressive measures against Christians, either in the name of religious nationalism or state secularism/communism.
“The restrictions included tougher sentencing for alleged insults against state ideology, confiscation of places of worship, increased arrests of clergy and laity as well as longer periods of detention,” the report concluded.
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