In Austria two individual incidents were reported in January in which a Roman Catholic Parish Priest was attacked, brutally beaten and robbed. It is unknown if the perpetrators picked the priests as victims on grounds of their faith.
On a website for pledge exchange a members offers the following: "I will post the next public person to bang on about "Christianophobia" a couple of planks of wood and a packet of nails but only if 20 other people will do the same."
Most expensive Turkish TV series ever produced now shown in cinemas. The "bad guy" is Christian.
In 2007 one out of every three Anglican churches suffered a vandal attack at some point during the year. Theft, arson and malicious damage is a problem for churches. Claims cost £1.8 million in total, a significant amount for petty crime. The average cost of these claims was around £900. These statistics don’t even take into account the smaller attacks which churches don’t report to their insurer because the damage is minor. It is therefore likely that many more thousands of churches suffer malicious damage every year.
Many acts of vandalism have occured in France in 2007. Please find here a list of examples of various incidents against Christian sites.
An attack on an Orthodox priest was foiled by Turkish police. The suspect confessed that he had been influenced by the portrayal of Christian missionaries in the TV series “The Valley of the Wolves”, where young Turkish people were depicted as being deceived and bribed for converting to Christianity.
Intentional fire was set at a Catholic chapel in the Cossack village of Leningradskaya, the Krasnodar Region. The motivation of the attack and its perpetrators remain unknown but it could be religious hate.
The war on Christian Christmas symbols wages in many countries. Interestingly, it seems not to be about religion in general. It seems to be against Christian symbols. Find here a collection of cases from the United States.
Catholic League in the U.S. collected several instances of where Christmas symbols were banned, removed or mistreated in the United States. In Europe, similar instances took place.
A Catholic priest was hospitalized Sunday after being stabbed, the latest in a string of attacks on Christians in Turkey. Police said they had detained the suspected attacker.
German "Black Attakk" CEO Karsten Jakob sells four CDs on Ebay which contain hateful language against Christ.
Prolife sidewalk counsellors praying in front of an abortion clinic were violently harrassed and sexually assaulted by people allegedly hired by the owner of the clinic, Dr. Christian Fiala, in Vienna, Austria.
A 36 year old man, wearing a clown costume, entered into the Corpus Christi Parish in Granada during mass and interrupted it. Right after, he destroyed the Baptismal Font with a wrench. The media reported that regulars to the parish had noticed the aggressor in the adjacent areas of the church in the days before the attack.
The Sevilla Biennale of Contemporary Art presented an artwork of German-born Josephine Meckseper intended to merge the concepts of sex and the religious symbolism of Holy Week. Meckseper displays Jesus Christ hanging from lingerie. Christians were offended, but Pablo Suarez, the Museums General Director in Andalucia highlighted freedom of expression without censorship. The Biennale is mostly funded with taxpayers' money.
The Parliament of Catalonia has passed a new law that increases the power of the government over religious organizations. Catholic and Evangelical churches, among others, have raised some concerns about the role of the state regulating activities that belong, originally, to religious organization. Under the new law, and from now on, a permit issued by the local City Hall is needed to carry out any religious activity, and the permit could be denied for security and health issues.
The word "Lord" was removed from a primary school grace before meals after one parent complained the mention was offensive. Contrary complaints of other parents lead to a subsequent reinstatement of the term.
The Czech Constitutional Court dismissed the proposal by a group of senators to abolish a controversial amendment to the church law that churches say limits their rights.
"Humo", a Belgian Dutch-speaking weekly that is known for its liberal and satirical opinions, published a representation of a man urinating in a chalice with the accompanying text: "And Jesus changed wine into urine". Our sources report that this was not the first time "Humo" published blasphemous representations.
Christmas should be downgraded in favour of festivals from other religions to improve race relations, says a report of the Institute for Public Policy Research, a Labour Think Tank.
A priest from the Syriac Christian community has been kidnapped in southeast Turkey.