While churches continue to be attacked in the United States, hate crimes were also reported to have increased as well in Europe by 70% over the last two years beginning 2019 according to the Observatory on Intolerance Against Christians in Europe report released this month.
The Christian Post said the Observatory on Intolerance Against Christians in Europe, a Vienna-based organization that tracks hate crimes against Christians, raised that there is an increase in hate crimes alongside a decrease in religious freedom in the continent between 2019 and 2020.
The 71-paged report entitled, "Under Pressure: Human Rights Of Christians In Europe," investigated the effect of declining religious freedom to Christians in the countries of France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom for the said period. The five countries have been particularly chosen since these have been identified as locations where "Christians have been most infringed during 2019/2020."
"Anti-Christian hate crimes in Europe increased by 70% between 2019 and 2020. These have a higher frequency in France and Germany, although they tend to be more severe in Spain and France, due to a reactionary form of secularism," the report said in its Key Findings.
The report highlighted that there are "two main threatening dynamics" affecting the lives of Christians: secular intolerance and Islamic oppression.
Secular intolerance occurs due to "sensationalist and religious-illiterate media that stigmatizes and marginalizes religious voices in the public debate." This encompass "four areas of life where Christians are most affected," which are education, politics, workplace, and church life.
On the other hand, Christian converts with a Muslim background are mostly affected by Islamic oppression in the five countries. Yet state authorities are said to ignore the dangers faced by Christian converts.
"Islamic oppression mainly occurs in concentrated hotspot areas, in which Christian converts are
the group that is mostly affected along with other residential Christians," the report revealed.
Among other areas, Church life is mostly affected by hate crimes, the report said.
"We found that the area of church life is the most visibly affected due to an increasing number of hate crimes in most countries, but education, the workplace and politics are following shortly after," it added.
The Key Findings of the report also highlighted that "all of the five observed countries have problems concerning the protection of Freedom of Speech" and that "the right to conscientious objection has been threatened mainly in three countries," namely Sweden, France, and Spain. The report explained that there is no conscience clause in Sweden while there are threats to alter the existing conscience clause in the latter two countries that is expected to completely exclude Christians in certain professions.
In the educational sector, Parental Rights are violated by regulations on sex and relationship education alongside crippling self-censorship among students borne from violations of their freedom of expression. While religious illiteracy actually extend to state authorities, which the Observatory on Intolerance Against Christians in Europe pointed out is a must to address.
"It was also uncovered that there is a high rate of religious illiteracy among state authorities, public officials and journalists. The improvement of religious literacy will be a crucial element to improve the dialogue and to tackle discrimination and intolerance against Christians," the organization stressed.
"Religion is a social reality that cannot be ignored by academia, media or politics. Religion plays a vital role in a stable and healthy society," it concluded.
