ANTI-CHRISTIAN hate crimes involving targeted abuse and violence are increasing across Europe, but especially in the UK, France, and Germany, two new reports say.
“Graffiti and vandalism against places of worship, the desecration of cemeteries, and arson attacks against churches are some of the more common types of crimes motivated by bias against Christians,” the human-rights office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) explained.
“These incidents are influenced by a number of factors, including minority or majority status in a given territory, the level of recognition of particular religious groups, and political and media focus at a particular moment.”
The report, published for the UN International Day for Tolerance on Saturday, says that 41 of the OSCE’s 48 member-states have submitted hate-crime information for 2023, as have international organisations and civil-society groups. The information relates to 9891 violent incidents.
It says that prosecutions were impeded by “incomplete or inadequate legislation”, often leaving victims “without support or access to their rights”, and prompting “misinformed policy and legal responses”.
“Many countries would benefit from reviewing their existing legal framework”, the report says, “to ensure that bias motivations can be effectively acknowledged and appropriate penalties imposed on perpetrators.”
In a separate report, the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians (OIDAC) says that it monitored a record 2444 anti-Christian hate crimes last year in 35 European countries; and thousands of violent incidents were also recorded against Jews and Muslims.
France was worst affected, with 950 reported crimes, followed by England and Wales, with 702, and Germany, with 277.
Among 232 direct acts of violence, the report lists the killing of a Roman Catholic altar server and a Franciscan friar in Spain, and the car-ramming of a religious procession and the axe murder of a parish priest in Poland.
Increasing acts of bullying and discrimination against expressions of “traditional religious beliefs” are also having a “chilling effect”, the report says, especially among younger Christians and politicians.
Recent survey evidence suggested that only 36 per cent of Christians under the age of 35 felt able to “express their Christian views” at work in Britain, where new legislation had banned silent prayer outside abortion clinics.
“It is very worrying that the peaceful expression of personal religious beliefs on matters relating to marriage and family has meant the potential end of a political career or employment, even the beginning of a court case,” OIDAC’s director, Anja Hoffman, said.
“These trends should alert us all to step up efforts to protect freedom of religion or belief, without fear of reprisal and censorship.”
Questions about the police’s methods of investigation in Britain were raised last Friday by The Times, which said that “hate incidents” were being logged against parish priests, doctors, and other “people in authority”, using the concept of non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), first coined in 2014.
The newspaper said that accusations of “hostility or prejudice” could be brought on the basis of victim and bystander “perceptions”, and would show up subsequently on criminal-record checks without any right of appeal.
It said that 13,200 NCHIs had been recorded by 45 police forces over the year to last June, including that of a Humberside parish priest who had remarked that homosexuality was sinful.