Violent attacks against Christians spike in Europe; France leading the way with anti-Christian hate crimes: Report
Photo by VALERY HACHE/AFP via Getty Images.
Nevertheless, OIDAC indicated that this reflects a general decrease over 2023 — a year when there were 2,444 reported hate crimes. The decrease is partly the result of a dip in recorded incidents in France but largely the result of “lower figures reported by U.K. police, which noted a change in methodology in its official report,” the report reads.
Of the 516 anti-Christian hate crimes independently recorded by OIDAC last year, the most frequent form of violence was vandalism, at 50% of reported incidents, followed by arson attacks, 15%; desecration, 13%; physical assaults, 7.5%; theft of religious objects, 5.5%; and threats, accounting for 4% of incidents. These figures do not account for burglaries at religious sites, of which there were nearly 900 additional recorded cases.
While reported anti-Christian hate crimes have generally decreased, the number of personal attacks — including assault, harassment, and threats — “rose from 232 in 2023 to 274 in 2024.”
The watchdog indicated on the basis of police and civil society data that the top five European nations most affected by anti-Christian hate crimes last year were, in descending order, France, Britain, Germany, Austria, and Spain.
Among the incidents highlighted in the worst-rated country, France, were the destruction of historic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer by an arsonist on Sept. 2, 2024, and the March 11, 2024, vandalism of a church and desecration of the cemetery in the village Clermont-d’Excideuil, where “Isa will break the cross” and “Submit to Islam” were spray-painted on graves, the war memorial, and the church door.
Since many of the offenders have not been apprehended, the watchdog group could not say definitively what is driving this trend. However, among the 93 cases OIDAC documented wherein the perpetrators’ motives or affiliations could be established, “the most common were linked to radical Islamist ideology (35), radical left-wing ideology (19), radical right-wing ideology (7), and other political motives (11). Additionally, 15 incidents featured satanic symbols or references.”
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