According to a shocking report, hate crimes perpetrated against Christians in Europe tripled last year, surging 226 percent. The watchdog group, the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe), released its 2024 annual report, which observed a horrific increase in violent attacks against followers of Christ, among vandalism and arson of churches.
The annual report stated, “Combining police statistics and civil society data, 2,444 anti-Christian hate crimes were identified in 35 European countries, including 232 personal attacks on Christians.” It added, “The most affected countries in 2023 are France, the United Kingdom and Germany, with anti-Christian hate crimes doubling in Germany compared to last year.”
Particularly as the mass migration of Muslims has increased in many European nations, anti-Christian attacks have spiked in correlation. The OIDAC Europe report determined that in cases where a motive could be discerned, the majority of attacks were perpetrated by radical islamists, followed by anti-religious, radical left, and other motives.
The report noted a variety of other forms of discrimination against Christians in Europe such as workplace discrimination, where the expression of Christian faith is met with hostility, and pressure on Christian politicians to choose between expressing their faith and their political careers. The OIDAC Europe describes this as a “chilling effect” that coerces Christians to hide their faith.
Furthermore, there have been egregious restrictions on religious freedom in certain public spaces. “In 2023-24, several people have been fined and prosecuted for peacefully praying in public streets in so-called ‘buffer zones’ around abortion clinics, including a man convicted in the UK for praying silently in his own mind,” the watchdog group added.
The Christian Tribune has extensively reported on the case of Adam Smith-Connor who was criminally convicted for silently praying to himself outside of a U.K. abortion clinic. “I think this has horrific, frankly, horrific implications for England. The idea that the state has empowered itself to peer into people’s minds and criminalize your very thoughts — that should terrify every freedom-loving Englishman,” Adam Smith-Connor recently said.
“Today, the court has decided that certain thoughts – silent thoughts – can be illegal in the United Kingdom. That cannot be right. All I did was pray to God, in the privacy of my own mind – and yet I stand convicted as a criminal?” he said, speaking about his verdict in court.
Smith-Connor added, “I served for 20 years in the army reserves, including a tour in Afghanistan, to protect the fundamental freedoms that this country is built upon. I continue that spirit of service as a health care professional and church volunteer. It troubles me greatly to see our freedoms eroded to the extent that thoughtcrimes are now being prosecuted in the UK.”
According to the organization, “The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe) is a non governmental organisation with a focus on classifying and providing objective, reliable and comparable data on the phenomena of intolerance and discrimination against Christians at the European level, in order to help politicians, institutions and Christian churches to take effective measures to safeguard religious freedom in Europe.”
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