A report by the Gatestone Institute International Policy Council earlier this month warns that attacks against Christians in Europe reached record highs in 2019, as hostility and vandalism against churches, Christian schools and monuments plaguing the continent.
Gatestone released its research of anti-Christian violence after having reviewed hundreds of news reports, parliamentary inquiries and police records, finding that roughly 3,000 acts of vandalism, looting and defacement occurred in 2019, incidents routinely ignored by the media.
“Violence against Christian sites is most widespread in France, where churches, schools, cemeteries and monuments are being vandalized, desecrated and burned at an average rate of three per day, according to government statistics. In Germany, attacks against Christian churches are occurring at an average rate of two per day, according to police blotters,” the group stated in the report.
Those committing the crimes are rarely apprehended and the information about their identities are covered up by authorities and the media, the group asserts. One method is to blame perpetrators with “mental disorders”, allowing the vandalism, though demonstrably anti-Christian, to avoid being formally classified as “hate crimes.”
The hostile acts that have been documented include instances of arson, defecation, desecration, looting, mockery, profanation, satanism, theft, urination and vandalism, and often the suspects are never caught.
The violence is carried out by different groups depending on the country.
“In France and Germany, the spike in anti-Christian attacks dovetails with the recent mass immigration from the Muslim world. The lack of official statistics on perpetrators and motives makes it impossible to know precisely how many attacks can be attributed to Muslim anti-Christianism or the jihadist cause,” the Gatestone Institute underlined.
