Tag: hate crimes

Christianity: The #1 Target of Hate Crimes

Raymond Ibrahim – December 10, 2021

Hate crimes against Christianity and its followers in Europe — formerly and for centuries the guardian and disseminator of Christ’s teachings — are at an all-time high.  According to a recent report, at least a quarter of all hate crimes registered in Europe in 2020 were anti-Christian in nature — representing a 70-percent increase in comparison to 2019.  Christianity is, furthermore, the religion most targeted in hate crimes, with Judaism at a close second.

Worse, the true number of hate crimes against Christians is likely even higher.  As the Nov. 16, 2021 report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) explains (boldface in original):

24 states report data on hate crimes committed due to racism or xenophobia, 20 on LGBT groups, 16 states on anti-Semitism, and 14 on incidents against Muslims, but only 11 countries report data on hate crimes against Christians, and this obviously distorts the statistics significantly. Furthermore, of the 136 civil society organisations that provided descriptive data, only 8 organisations (!) consistently reported incidents against Christians. Both of these findings put the reality of the situation into a different perspective, which indicates that the actual number of hate crimes against Christians is probably way higher.  When comparing the numbers of incidents from last year to the number of this year, we can see an increase of almost 70%. What is also striking, is the fact that of the 4,008 descriptive cases [of 2020], 980 are hate crimes against Christians, almost 25%, more than against any other religious group.

Indeed, whereas 980 hate crimes were anti-Christian in nature, 850 were anti-Semitic and only 254 anti-Islamic.  But as the report explained, the true numbers are probably significantly higher — for whereas the majority of racial, anti-Islamic, or anti-homosexual attacks are reported as such, a great number of anti-Christian attacks are not.  Even so and despite this discrepancy, attacks on Christians are still greater than against any other religious group.

Discussing these findings, Madeleine Enzlberger, head of Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe, said, “The media and politicians do not see the rise in hatred of Christians in Europe as a growing social problem.  The OSCE report shows only part of this problem, yet it sends a very clear signal against indifference and the almost fashionable bashing of Christians.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com

US Hate Crimes On the Rise — Including on Houses of Worship

Brian Freeman – October 2021

Hate crimes in 2021 are on pace to surpass even the spike in 2020 in the United States — and many of them are linked to religious bigotry, Axios reported on Tuesday.

The number of hate crimes reported in 2020 was the highest since 2001, when the U.S. experienced a surge of Islamophobia after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to updated FBI statistics released yesterday.

Houses of worship of various faiths are also suffering from high amounts of vandalism, arson, and other property damage: There have been 100 acts of hate recorded against Catholic sites in the U.S. since May of 2020, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said last week.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland testified before Congress on Monday that the Justice Department has charged at least 17 people with federal hate crimes and added that the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is also expediting its review of federal hate crimes, Axios reported.

Many incidents have apparently been influenced by news and political events worldwide.

https://www.newsmax.com

The Arson Campaign Against Canada’s Churches

Lloyd Billingsley – August 6, 2021

In recent weeks, more than 40 Christian churches have been torched in Canada, supposedly a response to abuse of indigenous people in residential schools. The arson campaign has drawn a variety of responses, including “Not much difference between Islamophobia and Christophobia,” from Vancouver Sun columnist Douglas Todd.

He defines Islamophobia as “dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force.” Christophobia is “Intense dislike or fear of Christianity; hostility or prejudice towards Christians.” From these definitions Todd extrapolates symmetry of action.

“In Canada there is now no shortage of shocking displays of both Islamophobia and Christophobia,” Todd explains. “There have been assaults on Muslims, some deadly. There has been arson attack after attack on churches.” In reality, it’s not quite so simple.

Islamophobia is an incantation to ward off any discussion of subjects such as Islamic jihad, hatred of Jews, and Muslim violence against non-Muslims. What Todd calls “Christophobia” is nothing more than hatred of Christians, next to anti-Americanism surely Canada’s strongest hatred, particularly among the ruling class.

In the Vancouver suburb of Surrey, “a Coptic Orthodox Church, frequented mostly by immigrants from Egypt, was destroyed by fire.” The Copts are an ancient Christian community that, as Raymond Ibrahim notes, suffers horrible persecution in Egypt, and in the Sinai Copts cry, “They are burning us alive!”

Coptic Christians flee this hatred, now going on in Canada. Since the Copts have nothing whatsoever to do with Canada’s residential schools, a different dynamic must be motivating the arson against the Surrey Coptic Orthodox Church. Todd does not explore all the possibilities but does note that police are “silent about these being hate crimes.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com