Security guards at refugee camps in Hamburg have reportedly told the Christian residents to keep their faith a secret, claiming they cannot protect them if their secret is revealed.
A Christian refugee family of four was attacked by Muslims in their shared refugee accommodations for not participating in Ramadan. The family members were taken to a hospital in Seligenstadt due to their injuries. The mother and two sons were attacked with chairs and one of the sons was struck in the arms with a sharp object. The father suffered from arrhythmia due to the attack. During the attack the radical Muslims stated "Let us kill the unbelieving Christians, punish!" ("Lasst uns die ungläubigen Christen abschlachten, bestrafen!"). Police were able to intervene and the Christian family has been moved to a different refugee accommodation.
In the early hours of Friday, June 10th to Saturday, June 11, two clearly intentional fires were discovered in two different churches in Narón. Each resulted in significant damage to the religious buildings. Incendiary devices were found in both churches. The fires were investigated by agents of the state security forces, as well as the local Narón police.
The Holy See’s Permanent Representative to UN offices in Vienna, Msgr. Janusz Urbanczyk, has urged the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe to pay greater attention to discrimination against Europe’s Christians.
The All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief released a 35-page report in which it said the questions used to assess conversion asylum claims demonstrated a "lack of understanding and misperceptions of religion."
A Christian union has been banned from holding meetings on college premises, as a result of the government’s counter-terrorism strategy "Prevent".
A group of 30 thirty people, led by a self-proclaimed imam, attacked a Syrian Christian and his roommate at the Rottach-Egern refugee accommodation.
German police report that unknown perpetrators stole a small piece of fabric with a drop of the Pope's blood.
Christian refugees in various accommodation centers in Austria endured abuse at the hands of Muslim fellow refugees, including being forced to wake early in the morning to pray, being told they were impure, having belongings stolen, and instances of physical violence.
Katarzyna Jachimowicz, a Polish family physician working in Norway, became the first medical professional in the country fired because she exercised her conscience rights by refusing to administer abortifacients.
In Mont-Sainte-Geneviève, two fires significantly damaged an historic church. The first started in the sacristy. The fire fighters had just left the scene after managing to control that fire when another much bigger fire in the church roof was reported.
The case concerned the inability of Mersin and Izmir Jehovah's Witnesses in Turkey to obtain an appropriate place to engage in worship due to restrictive laws. The ECtHR held that such restrictions amounted to a direct interference with their freedom of religion.
In a press release Father Benoît Delabre reported that on May 15th the altar in the Church of St. Madeleine-de-l'Île was set on fire in Martigues, about 800 kilometers south of Paris. On the same day, another unknown person desecrated the tabernacle which contained the consecrated hosts in the church at Jonquières in the same region. Additionally, Father Delabre himself was attacked a week later by a man he caught at the church door who appeared to be “trying to steal something.”
Archbishop Anthony Fisher warned that religious liberty is at stake in Australia's national elections because of the Green's proposed $32 million "Safe Schools" Program which would charge parents, schools, and churches with discrimination if they fail to conform.
A 27-year old Muslim man was found guilty and given a life sentence for the murder of a 70-year-old woman in Bad Friedrichshall on May 19, 2016. After strangling the woman with a telephone cord, Abubaker C. left writing on the wall "It's payback time" and put a cross in the woman's hands. He then stole valuables and fled. The prosecution argued that the murderer's motive was both theft and to kill a "disbeliever".
In 2011, after initially agreeing to euthanasia for a 74-year-old cancer patient, a Catholic nursing home denied the physician access to the patient. The patient had to be taken home where she could receive the doctor.
An Assemblies of God church in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azurin was the victim of arson. Bibles and other books inside the church were stacked up and burnt, according to Pastor Alain Denizou.
Legislation puts an end to a program that helped churches keep track of their local memberships using data provided by the municipal administration.
According to the NGO "Christian Solidarity International" (CSI), Christian refugees are being repeatedly discriminated against in Austrian refugee centers.
In April 2016, members of the Green Party in Austria submitted a Parliamentary Question to evaluate possible actions to stop “pro-life” workshops in religious education.
Catholic School Notre-Dame de l’Abbaye in Nantes was vandalized twice in two weeks.
Twice in four weeks, an unknown perpetrator broke the arms off the Jesus figure displayed above hotels along a route frequently used by walkers and cyclists.
On April 16th, many Catholics discovered that their parish website’s home page was replaced with messages in English denouncing "terrorism against Muslims” in Burma by Buddhists, and in Palestine by "Zionists" or in Mali by the "French forces." The messages were set against a black background and topped with a Tunisian flag.
Piers Morgan will not face sanctions after asking a Christian who opposed same-sex marriage whether he was a "homophobe".
Pro-Abortion activists held a demonstration on April 10 in front of the Polish Embassy in Budapest to protest the tightening of Poland's abortion law.
In the region of Diyarbakir, the Turkish government seized huge sections of property, including six churches. One of these is a 1,700 year old Syriac Orthodox Church.
A Christian magistrate Richard Page has been removed from office by the Lord Chancellor after sharing his personal conviction in a media interview that there is not enough evidence to show that placing children in the care of same-sex couples is in their best interest.
L’église Saint-Pierre suffered deliberate damage during the afternoon of Easter Monday: five separate fires started inside the building while it was open to the public. The abbot has filed a complaint.
On March 22nd, several statues of St. Joseph, located in the chapel of Notre-Dame-des-Neiges and the church of Saint-Pothin, were destroyed by vandals.
ISIS took responsibility for three coordinated suicide bombings in Brussels: two at Zaventem Airport and one at Maalbeek metro station which killed 32 people from around the world and injured over 300. The Islamic State announced "By the grace of Allah and His gratitude alone, a security detachment from the soldiers of the Caliphate, may Allah dignify it and support it, launched to target Crusader Belgium..."
During the night of March 19, unknown perpetrators entered a small chapel in Obervockling, removed a statue of the Virgin Mary, and set a plastic flower vase, small altar cloths, and some branches on fire inside the chapel.
Firefighters responded quickly to extinguish the fire, which originated with burning furniture in the Cathédrale Saint-Louis during the afternoon of March 18th.
A small chapel dedicated to St. Léger was the victim of vandalism and attempted theft. Unknown perpetrators broke through the iron doors and dismantled the limestone slab floor, with the apparent intent to steal the materials.
The facade of the church of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Valence was tagged with anarchist slogans in black spray paint and covered with red paint. It is the second such incident over the weekend in Valence.
The facade of Notre-Dame church in Valence was splashed with red paint and tagged with anarchist graffiti some time between Saturday, March 12th and Sunday, the 13th. The priest discovered the damage before Mass on Sunday.
In the afternoon of March 11th, a small container holding the consecrated host was stolen from the Franciscan Monastery in Jaén.
The 13th century chapel of Saint-Ambroise of Busserotte-et-Montenaille, in Grancey-le-Château, was found completely ransacked.
At 2:15 in the afternoon of March 9, 2016, three men entered the rectory of the Catholic parish in Laakirchen of the Linz diocese and, armed with a handgun, demanded cash from the priest and a member of his staff.
The parish of San Andrés de Palomar was sprayed with the words "Fuego sálvanos de la Iglesia" (Fire: save us from the Church) accompanied by an anarchist symbol.
The words (translated from Slovenian) "Church get out of my womb" and "RCC (Roman Catholic Church) get out of our vaginas" were sprayed on the wall of the Franciscan church.
The youth organization Arran has taken responsibility for a graffiti attack against a church in the Catalonia region. The wall outside the church was painted lilac and the words "Contra los ataques de la Iglesia. Juntos somos más fuertes" ("Against the attacks of the the Church. Together we are stronger.")
In the night between March 7-8, the Freien Theologischen Hochschule (FTH) building in Gießen was hit with paint bombs. An anonymous claim of responsibility was published on a left-wing internet platform
During the night from March 5-6, unknown perpetrators sprayed the monument to Pope Benedict in front of the St. Oswald church in Traunstein with pink paint. Police are investigating.
Muslim refugees at the regional office complained about having to sit in the waiting room with "impure Christians". Security staff responded by banning the Christians for six months.
Stefan Geib, president of the district court in Saarbrücken, announced the removal of crosses from meeting rooms. They are to be replaced by the state seal.
A peaceful manifestation by 4,500 supporters of Demo für Alle against a proposed education program was disrupted by counter-demonstrators, resulting in clashes with police and 18 people injured, including 3 police.
On February 28th, Slobodan Djoric, the priest of the Church of the Dormitition of the Most Holy Mother of God in Pejčići, reported to the police that the 17th century church had been the victim of theft and vandalism.
The church of Saint-Martin of Dommartin-le-Coq was the victim of a burglary sometime between the 23rd and 27th of February.
A Sheffield University social work postgraduate student, Felix Ngole, was expelled from his course for posting on his Facebook page that homosexual activity is against the teaching of the Bible.
In advance of a planned peaceful demonstration on February 28 in Stuttgart by Christian activists against a new school curriculum emphasizing gender ideology, the radical left group "Antifa" attacked the building owned by a financier of the buses provided for the demonstration.
During the night between February 23-24, burglars entered the church of Saint-Augustin in the Guadeloupe town of Saint-Claude and destroyed the tabernacle, opened the ciborium and removed the consecrated Hosts, and stole the entire sound system.
Seven small religious shrines, little boxes topped by a cross and containing statuettes of saints, have been desecrated for years.
Julien Sanchez, mayor of Beauclaire, was denounced by the League of Human Rights on February 17th for having displayed a creche at the city hall at Christmas time.
A Paris court acquitted members of the radical feminist group Femen who had in November 2012 disrupted Catholic families peacefully protesting in defense of traditional marriage, topless with vulgar anti-church slogans written on their bodies and spraying fire extinguishers at the group.
Six Iranian Christian refugees were told by a security employee of the Tempelhof accommodation that they had an hour to leave because they were trouble-makers. Just days earlier, these six men had been threatened with beatings by 70 radical Muslim refugees for reading the Bible.
The chapel of Saint-Pierre, originally dating from the 5th century and which is being restored, was vandalized. Portions of the posts of the portico holding the roof were sawn with chainsaws. Motives are unclear, as there was no wood taken. The mayor is outraged and the police are investigating.
The Hamburg prosecutor has indicted a 23-year-old Afghan asylum seeker Mohebolla A. He is said to have attacked and seriously injured a 24-year-old Amir H., an Iranian Christian, with a telescopic baton on 18 October in a shelter.
On the evening of Wednesday, February 10, a municipal officer discovered 16 vandalized crucifixes in a cemetery.
Due to frequent reports of abuse, harassment, and assaults against Christian refugees at the hands of their Muslim co-habitatants, the City of Stuttgart has approved new, separate, accommodations.
Over the weekend of February 6-7, an unknown vandal left graffiti on the parish church in Kalsdorf bei Graz, in Styria. The graffiti included vague symbols and letter combinations, as well as a swastika smeared on the pillar of the church canopy.
On February 6, 2016, the parish church of Kervignac (Diocese of Vannes) was the victim of vandalism: papers scattered on the floor, an umbrella left in pieces, candles broken, all the confessionals left wide open, flowers thrown to the ground, and the altar cloth left in rags.
A member of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin-Stegliz was attacked because of his Christian faith in the refugee camp where he lives.
Despite promises to the contrary, officials from the Calais Prefecture bulldozed a church and a mosque in the refugee camp.
According to the parish priest, beginning on January 5th, eggs have been thrown at the windows of the Nancy chapel every evening during the 7pm Mass.
On February 1st, an unknown perpetrator broke into the chapel of la Famille Missionnaire de Notre-Dame à Lyon around 5:00pm and vandalized the statue of the Virgin Mary, which was found on the ground with a demolished head.
Unknown perpetrators broke a window, overturned the tabernacle, stole the ciborium containing consecrated Hosts, and sacked the sacristy. The bishop of Evry called it a "rampage." According to a parishioner, this was not the first time the church had been a victim, as graffiti had been found last year. However, this attack was much more serious. "Consecrated Hosts were stolen. For someone who doesn't believe, this probably does not matter much. For [Catholics] it is the most serious. It is the body of Christ. It is Jesus who was attacked." For the bishop of Evry, "this is a real attack against the Catholic Church. It is the symbol of the sacred that has been affected. There is a will to do harm." (Translated from French).
St. Mary Church, a Syriac Orthodox church, was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, destroying a portion of the wall in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir.
Forty shots were fired in what was termed a quarrel between rival smuggler gangs at the Grande-Synthe refugee camp near Dunkirk. David Michaux, a CRS anti-riot officer from the Unsa-police union, told Le Figaro: "There is a real problem between Muslims and non-Muslims. Most of the camp's 3,000-odd occupants are Muslim Kurds from Iraq, Iran and Syria but a minority are Christians from Iran." He went on to say "The Muslims are trying to expel the Christians from the camp."
Thieves have stolen three silver ciboria, chalices and the contents of collection boxes from the Corpus Christi church.
On the 23rd January, Deputy Mayor Marcel Galli discovered that the Sainte Marie Madeleine de Plan-de-Cuques church (of the Marseille diocese) had been smeared with tar on three facades, with many circles painted on the walls, and large lines were drawn on the ground. The large wooden doors of the entrance to the church and the sacristy, the surface of the front porch, and entrance hall were also damaged by tar.
Assyrian refugees hope to be housed apart from Muslims in the future camp near Stuttgart due to conflicts and threats.
“The situation in refugee camps, especially in Berlin is very dramatic”, said Pastor Gottfried Martens of the Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin. Around 1.000 refugees from Iran, Afghanistan and the Arabic world visit his community.
In a series of emails to a French blog, Pastor Daniel O. described the beatings, stabbings, disappearance, and presumed murder of an Iranian Christian at the Grande-Synthe refugee camp.
Mallorca Gay Men's Chorus dressed as nuns in a concert for the celebration of St. Sebastian, patron saint of Palma de Mallorca.
Twenty figurines in the Nativity scene installed in the church of Chamaret were beheaded.
A theft occurred in the Church of Notre Dame de Quézac, sometime between Thursday, January 14th and Friday 15th. A ciborium, a gold sacred vase containing a hundred consecrated Hosts, was stolen from a tabernacle, a small wardrobe. The police have opened an investigation.
Saint-Jacques church, located in the city center, was the target of vandalism by unknown perpetrators.
FIFA, the highest institution in the world of football, censored a reference to Jesus by Ballon d’Or candidate Neymar.
Christian refugees are exposed to harassment at the refugee camps in Germany, says Hegumen Daniel (Irbits) father superior of the St. George the Victorious Monastery in Gotschendorf, member of the Integration Committee at the German Federal Chancellery.
On January 11, 2016, a member of the St.Demetrios Church in Sušica discovered a broken window and the theft of the trunk for offerings had been stolen. The police are investigating.
Around 4pm, a parishioner noticed two individuals at a table covered with tablecloth. They left quickly and the parishioner immediately noticed a fire had broken out on the furniture. She extinguished the fire with her shoes.
The sixteenth century church Saint-Louis was entirely burnt out, images, including that of the baby Jesus, were desecrated, and the ciborium containing consecrated Hosts was stolen.
On the same night that an arson fire swept through the church of Saint-Louis of Fontainebleau, a historic cross in the forest was toppled from its base.
A Catholic church in Morigny was tagged with grafitti, just days before the Fontainebleau Church was the victim of a serious arson.
The magazine's cover for the anniversary edition commemorating the attacks one year ago depicts an angry, violent God and contains the headline (translated): "One year later, the assassin is still on the run".
In a community shelter for refugees in Ballenstedt (Harz), a Muslim Syrian threatened an Eritrean Christian woman that he would kill her baby while she slept.
On December 30 and January 6, wax statues in the nativity scene were vandalized. These figures were more than a century old and familiar to the faithful of Sainte-Catherine parish in Le Passage-d’Agen. The abbot of Thibaud de La Serre, the parish priest, and the mayor issued a joint press release to express the town’s dismay and sorrow over the incidents.
On the morning of January 4, as he opened the cemetery, a guard discovered that many crucifixes had been removed.
A nativity scene in Treviglio was destroyed and the Jesus statue taken and beheaded by unknown perpetrators.
The Cathedral Notre-Dame-de-l’Annonciation in Nancy was spray painted with "Spray for Paris" - a distortion of the message "Pray for Paris".
The four floats that would be used in the traditional procession of the Three Kings were found burned on the Sunday before Epiphany in Arriate.
Youths in Brussels yelled 'Allahu Akbar' as they set fire to a Christmas tree in a public square using a home made petrol bomb.
Gasoline had been poured inside the church and a half-burnt rag was found on one of the dining chairs.
Police are investigating the destruction of Nativity statues in a creche in front of a church in Dorga in the Bergamo region.
In Piazza S. Rocco, Fibbiana not only was the statue of the infant Jesus broken, but the entire nativity was attacked with firecrackers and fireworks.
A 19-year-old man told another refugee (18) that he was no longer a Muslim, but had become a Christian. The 18-year-old responded: "Then I will cut your throat. For this, I do not even need permission from IS. "
The act was condemned by the Bishop, as well as the President, of the region of Liguria.
In Villa d'Almè, a group of unknown perpetrators threw a big firecracker into the hut containing the creche where the hand painted statue of the baby Jesus been placed on Christmas Eve.
Norwegian child services have begun the adoption process for five children who were seized from a Romanian Pentecostal family in November after concerns were expressed about the parents' Christian faith, the family says.
The shelling of the Cologne Cathedral with fireworks and firecrackers on New Year's evening between 6:30 and 7:45 pm was a targeted disruption of the service.