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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. "
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.
According to Open Doors France, police are investigating a knife attack by Iraqi migrants against Christian refugees which left several wounded and one 19-year-old man dead.
Plans for Ofsted to regulate out-of-school settings could burden churches, discourage volunteers and cause unnecessary distress to children, a Conservative MP has warned.
At the end of November five Muslim security employees beat two refugees from Iran for having a bible in their room.
A 26-year-old Syrian, known as "N.N.," was arrested on suspicion of beating and threatening a 16-year-old at an asylum house in Borgholm.
School officials point to respect for the "multicultural character" of their student body as the reason.
Violent acts are not only committed by other asylum seekers, but in some cases by security personnel, as well.
The advertisement shows the Lord’s Prayer being recited by a members of the public ranging from bodybuilders to children.
The Department of Culture in Palma de Mallorca has reduced municipal funding for events during the week leading up to Easter (known as “Holy Week” or “Semana Santa”, famous for grand processions) to just 3.000 euros, and has not allocated any funding to the important Catholic feast of Corpus Christi (known simply as “Corpus”).
The mayor of Madrid announced plans for the city’s commemoration of the Christian holiday, including Greek dancing and Arabic food tasting, among other programming activities.
According to a petition in support of the family which has attracted more than 22,600 signatures, the couple have been charged with "Christian radicalism and indoctrination".
The Swedish Migration Board issued a deportation order against Faisel Javaid, concluding that Christians from Pakistan do not need protection because they can just keep their faith a secret.
A 24-year-old Iranian was beaten with a baton by an Afghan man, who allegedly declared that it was not a sin to kill him, according to police. This attack is now being called attempted homicide by prosecutors.
A Pakistani couple had to leave the shelter in Western Sweden where they were staying after harassment by some of the Muslims in the housing ended with the husband's name sprayed on a wall near their room calling for his death.
After a leaked report indicated that the strategy would include the following provision, "pastors, rabbis and other religious leaders will be subject to Government training and security checks and will have to enrol in a 'national register of faith leaders'," the Government's final strategy only calls for "training."
A Christian disciplined by an NHS trust for praying with a colleague has won permission to appeal an employment tribunal’s decision against her.
The Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith reported that Pastor Taras Sen was taken hostage on 27 September in the city of Sverdlovsk in the Luhansk oblast by armed militants and released on 1 October 2015.
Christian refugees in German asylum centres are living in constant fear, as the Sunni majority within the migrant population attempts to enforce Sharia law. The situation is so bad that Christians claim they live like “prisoners” in Germany, and some have even returned to Middle East.
A 26-year-old, who claimed to have fought with jihadist groups in Syria, was arrested by police after threatening to "slaughter" and "cut the throat" of a Christian refugee.
Voicing criticism of homosexuality “might be breaking the law”, a British values monitor claimed.
Just hours before a large rally in support of Kim Davis was scheduled to begin, the judge who jailed her for refusing to violate her Christian beliefs ordered her release. Ms. Davis was jailed on September 3rd for her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The following day, her deputies began issuing licenses in her absence after five of the six clerks who work for her swore under oath that they could comply with the court’s order to issue them. Ms. Davis stopped issuing all marriage licenses after the US Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, and refused to permit her deputies to do the same, because her name was printed on those licenses, and she said to issue them would violate her conscience. In his order to release Ms. Davis, the judge warned her not to interfere with her deputies issuing the marriage licenses, or she could risk “sanctions” again. Ms. Davis’s attorney said "Today Kim Davis is a free woman but her conscience did not change ... to get freedom." He noted that Ms. Davis would return to work, but he said she would "not violate her conscience."
Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, has been jailed for "contempt of court" after defying a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples.
On the 26th of August, local officials destroyed the Orthodox church St. Athanasius, which is located in the village of Dhermi, in southern Albania.
On Sunday, August 16, 2015, a ciborium containing consecrated hosts and chalice were stolen from the church of Gex. The same day, a ciborium, a chalice, and a reliquary, registered in the inventory of Historical Monuments, were stolen from the church of Collonges.
Colin Hart, director of the Christian Institute, has said Ofsted and the Department for Education (DfE) have given “inadequate attention” to the “bullying of Christian pupils”.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, a 10 year old boy was forcefully removed from his home and forced to attend sex education without his parents’ consent.
Taunton street preacher Mike Overd has been convicted of a Public Order offence for using a particular bible verse in a public conversation with a man who identifies as homosexual. The judge ruled that another bible verse would have been more appropriate and would have prevented the fine.
Christian nursery educator, Sarah Mbuyi, was dismissed from her job after "gross misconduct" for saying that marriage is an institution between one man and one woman in conversation with a colleague. In an employment tribunal hearing, witnesses testified that Christian views on the topic should not be expressed in the workplace.
Politician Mark Holleman had to withdraw his candidacy for appointment as the environmental and health officer for Munich, despite being the favored candidate of the City Council, because of his membership in a pro-life group as well as in Christian Solidarity International.
When Cardinal Schönborn was about to read the gospel in the liturgy of festivity of December 8th in St. Stephan’s cathedral, a performance artist stepped in front of the altar for a minute of silence dressed in read. Afterwards he marched out of the church together with about 20 activists to hand out leaflets picturing a nacked nun eating icecream to protest celibacy. Police investigate on grounds of a violation of freedom of religious practice.
A group of people organized a campaign against building religious schools in Spain and painted slogans "Your education - our destruction” on walls of the church of Santa Monica in Rivas Vaciamadrid. Moreover, some protesters in green jerseys (as a symbol of public schools) broke into the church with praying people to express their opinion. Local right-wing party PP decalred that it was another example of the radical atmosphere in the town.
Robert Oscar Lopez, a teacher for Literature and Classics in Los Angeles, documented 300 cases of overboarding responses of gay activists to opponents. These incidents mainly took place in Europe and the US. Some are directed against Christians, others are more of a political nature. Some cases might seem self-inflicted, many do not.
Sarah Mbuyi, 30 year-old nursery worker from north London will bring her case to court as she claims she was fired on the grounds of her religious beliefs because she said that she would have scruples about reading children’s stories involving same-sex couples.
A group called KUL, founded in 2009 by Christian youth in Slovenia concerned with defending life and fundamental human rights, posted an article on their internet site on the 23rd of April, 2014 called, “Christianophobia: Is Mayor Zoran Janković violating human rights and promoting intolerance against Christians in Slovenia?” after Zoran Janković’s municipality had forbidden a mass to be celebrated for unborn babies at the hospital center of the public university of Ljubljana.
Dutch PhD student Jerke de Vries inserted a clause into his doctoral thesis in which he gave thanks to God. At the Wageningen University, religious statements are not allowed in theses unless they are the subject of research. Although De Vries’ thesis advisor was not so strict, the doctoral committee would not allow his thesis to pass unless he removed the phrase, leaving de Vries to cut out the page from over a hundred copies of his thesis which had already been printed.
The UN-Committee on the Rights of the Child has asked the Vatican to change its teaching on abortion and homosexuality and on changing the interpretation of a bible verse. The Vatican has responded calling the requests of the UN Committee an interference with Church doctrine and a violation of religious freedom.
Cardinal Fernando Sebastian of Málaga commented in an interview with the local newspaper SUR that homosexuality “can be normalised with treatment”. Consequently the Málaga Provincial Prosecutor's Office opened criminal investigations against him. His comment was understood to undermine Spanish legislation which protects the fundamental rights of dignity and non-discrimination in Articles 18 and 14 of the Constitution and therefore to constitute a "clear incitement to hatred and discrimination".
During the celebration of Epiphany of Christ in Piraeus, a number of homosexual couples started to kissing each other in oscentatious way, trying to show their protest against Christian morals and teaching. Local faithful and prayers declared themselves offended.
In the early morning of September 5th, a massive police raid of 100 police and 60 social workers descended on two of the Christian Twelve Tribes Communities of Klosterzimmern and Wörnitz. The police seized 40 children from 16 families and took them away in 25 vans on allegations of physical abuse.
A British homosexual couple feels „forced to take Christians into a court to get them to recognise” them. The Marriage Act contains legal provisions to protect churches which chose not to conduct same-sex weddings from being sued.
A gathering of “Les Veilleurs”, a peaceful manifestation group in favour of the traditional family of was disturbed by shouting from students and radical LGBT activists. Anti-Catholic insults were yelled as “Les Veilleurs” gathered to pray and sing together as they do every Tuesday evening before the prefecture in Montpellier.
Citizens of the French city of Angers are confronted with stickers on traffic signs saying: “CATHO RAS-LE-BOL” (=Catholicism – enough annoyance). The credit is claimed by a group called “Comité anti-Catholique Angevin” (= anti-Catholic committee of Angers).
Anti-religion groups have created a climate hostile to frank discourse. Besides defamation campaigns and negative stereotyping, hate incidents have come to the Observatory’s notice. Activists physically prevented a professor to enter an auditorium to voice deviating views. Anti-religion slogans and images are often used in hurtful manners, such as the public destruction of crosses, the image of Jesus as a crucified pig, or slogans such as “We are here to hurt your feelings” or “If Mary had had an abortion, we would have been spared people like you”.
Organisations may base their work on whatever beliefs or convictions - but to receive public funding, they must not object to current legislation. This creates a problem for Christian organisations especially with regard to objecting to medical procedures.
The parliament of Denmark voted to force the established Evangelical Lutheran Church to perform same-sex “marriage” ceremonies inside their sanctuaries, although one-third of all the denomination’s priests say they will not participate in such rituals. The Danish parliament voted by an overwhelming 85-24 margin to compel churches to carry out unions for same-sex couples that are identical to heterosexual marriage celebrations.
The state is very strict with regard to political correctness in schools. It is very difficult for Christian teachers to debate with their pupils about abortion. One of the most striking cases was Philippe Hisnard, a French Catholic teacher who was revoked and suspended from teaching because he organised a debate about abortion in a class of “civic education”.
Home-schooling is severely limited in Slovakia. In fact, it is allowed only for pupils of 1st - 4th class in basic schools, for disabled children, or for children in custody and who are not able to go to school for longer than two months for health reasons. Permission for “individual education” must be granted by the director of the district school of the pupil. Another major problem is that the person who teaches the pupils must have a pedagogical university qualification. As a consequence, home-schooling is very rare in Slovakia.
Spanish educational law includes a set of mandatory subjects under the generic category of Education for Citizenship which are indoctrinatory and violates the rights of parents. The Education for Citizenship curriculum is mandatory for primary and secondary education (children ages 10-16), and must be implemented into all Spanish schools (public and private).
According to the Education Act (2010:800) home-schooling is practically forbidden in Sweden. Home-schooling is allowed only when exceptional circumstances apply, which is hardly ever granted. According to the preparatory work of the government bill, permissions should be granted with great restraint, stating explicitly that religious and philosophical reasons are not to be considered as exceptional circumstances.
At a primary school in Vienna crucifixes had to be taken off the walls because a mother felt that they were a “religious paternalism”. This was possible when it turned out that less than half of the pupils are registered as Christians. For the first time since National Socialism crucifixes were banned from class rooms.
In the course of a debate on the health care reform in the National Assembly of Austria, the spokesman of physicians of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), Andreas Karlsböck criticised Health Minister Alois Stöger of the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) because he had discouraged or even prohibited the use of the common German greeting “Grüß Gott” (a greeting which literally means “Greet God”) in the Department of Health.
A classroom ban on a Christian school teacher who condemned the “homosexual lifestyle” in front of year 11 pupils aged 15 and 16, has been upheld by the High Court. Science teacher, Robert Haye’s appeal against the decision to ban him indefinitely was rejected by the judge. After telling his class that the way homosexual people lived was a “sin”, according to the bible, he was sacked and prohibited from teaching at any school.
A Christian foundation for working with youth surprisingly lost its license to serve coffee and soda on the grounds that the youth centre was a gastronomical enterprise running on deficit and other permits would be necessary for non-profit activities. This was perceived as a governmental anti-Christian repression and is now debated in court.
A child at a Catholic school in France was punished for refusing to memorise a verse of the Koran in January 2013. At the school of Notre Dame de St Mihiel in the Meuse, Lorraine, a pupil refused to memorise a verse of the Koran as a part of a class on Islam. Two mothers arranged a meeting with the teacher to explain their disagreement with the punishment. Instead of removing the punishment or allowing the student to opt-out of the class the school director informed the mother of the punished child that she considers removing the child from the school.
(October 2006 - January 2013)In October 2006 an employee, Ms Eweida, was banned from wearing a cross on a necklace by British Airways, UK. Court ruling in January 2008 upheld prohibition for Christians, but not for other religions' symbols. On January 15th, 2013, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ms Eweida's rights had been violated.
The rights of homosexual couples trumped those of Christians, according to a ruling of the Employment Appeal Tribunal. The European Court of Human Rights dismissed the Christian applicant Gary McFarlane and left the balancing out of rights to national appreciation.
Lillian Ladele, a Christian registrar, was disciplined because of her stance on civil partnerships. The European Court of Human Rights dismissed Ladele’s application on January 15th, 2013 and left the balancing out of rights to the national authorities.
On January 15th, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in the four UK Freedom of Religion cases: one was ruled in favour and three against. The decision of the Court is not yet final and can be appealed to the Grand Chamber of the Court.
When Pope Benedict XVI gave his weekly Sunday address on January 13, 2013, on St. Peter's Square, four women of the Ukrainian feminist group Femen took off their shirts to reveal the slogan they had written on their bare skin, "In Gay We Trust". This took place while the pope lead the Angelus prayer. The women screamed "Homophobes shut up" as they were taken away from St Peter's square by the Italian police.
In the January edition of the Diocesan newspaper, the Bishop of Trieste had published an article restating the Church’s teaching on homosexual unions. Because of this, on the 12th of January about two hundred homosexual activist demonstrated in front of his home effectively barricading him in for the afternoon.
A new ruling by a High Court judge says that Christians have no right to decline working on Sunday as it is not a “core component” of their beliefs, considering that „many Christians work on Sundays".
People in the Denizli, Diyarbakir, Sinop and Hatay provinces attending worship services were being threatened and warned about further participation by plain-clothes policemen. The Police also requested information about other people attending.
On a school trip to the nearby Cathedral of Saint-Jus, students of the local school Therese Leon Blum where warned against making the sign of the cross upon entering the Cathedral. As a punishment, the teacher mentioned three hours of after-hours at school. One of the parents wrote to the council to complaint but did not receive a response.
The Christian community The Reichenberg Fellowship and its German Institute for Youth and Society have become the object of a parliamentary inquiry that the parliamentary group of the Green Party has directed at the state government of the German state of Hessen on October 19.
Three masked fans of the Russian punk-band “Pussy Riot” disrupted the Sunday Mass in Cologne’s Cathedral as a sign of solidarity to members of the punk-band who had been convicted of causing disturbances in a church in earlier this year.
The International Gideons are known for distributing pocket Bibles for free - mostly at schools, hospitals, hotels and medical practices. They were denied to further distribute Bibles at public schools in Berlin by the ministry of education and cultural affairs.
“Christians are threatened” said a resident of the Roma neighborhood in Iztok, a suburb in Pazardjik (Bulgaria) in the television program "Fatherland Front" (Otechestven front) with Martin Karbovski.
Parents rights are commonly understood to include the right to chose the form of education of one’s children, including the possibility of non-institutional education, such as the so-called homeschooling. Not so in Germany.
Germany’s strict federal laws on compulsory school attendance do not allow any opt out with regard to sexual education.
Prime minister David Cameron thinks that faith schools should not be allowed to teach that homosexuality is a sin, according to a quote featured by the Daily Mail.
French member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe proposed a report on the protection of children against 'sectarian drifts' which possibly collides with the parents' right to religious education of their choice.
The Austrian Initiative “Religion is a private matter” seeks to deprive the Russian-orthodox Church in Vienna of its legal personality because of its involvement in the “Pussy Riot” case.
On July 28th, 2012 there were demonstrations against a newly opened church in Denizli. The church did not shut down but security matters were increased and no one got hurt.
The Salzburg-based NGO „Infoladen“ calls for violence against Christians when expressing pro-life views. In July they called for a counter-demonstration against a pro-life manifestation. „Let’s make their 1000-crosses-manifestation a disaster!“ and „Sink the 1000 crosses!“ are some of the slogans on their website.
A French retired doctor faced police investigation for trial because of giving a woman who intended an abortion knitted baby shoes and a medallion. In France “moral and psychological pressure” seen as an “hindrance of abortion” is punishable.
About 10 MPs of the anti-clerical “Palikot Movement” seek to enforce the removal of the Cross in the Polish Parliament by legal proceedings at the Administrative Court.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church is forced to marry same sex couples after vote of Danish Parliament.
The General Medical Council’s Investigation Committee has reprimanded a Christian doctor for sharing his faith with a patient at the end of a private consultation.
The city council of Alcala adopted a motion banning bishop Juan Antonia Reig Pla from official city events. The motion answers the bishop's remarks criticizing homosexual lifestyle.
Christian doctor who was sacked for emailing a prayer to his colleagues has lost his clam for unfair dismissal, after an Employment Tribunal ruled that there was “no need” for religious references to be made at work.
The Irish Justice Minister has introduced a 5-year prison sentences for priests who fail to report sex abuse of minors if they hear about it in the confessional.
Secular campaigners have launched an attack on the Roman Catholic Church for urging its secondary schools to back the current legal definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.
Reformed-baptist parents, who wanted to homeschool their three children, lost in the regional administrational court of Baden-Würtemberg in Mannheim. The parents wanted to homeschool to protect their children from a form of „emancipation“ they did not favor, as well as in order to teach them Christian sexual ethics.
The Catholic Schützenverein voted in March 450 to 28 to not to allow homosexual or lesbian „kings“ or „queens“ to preside activities together with their partners. The German federal anti-discrimination commission screened this decision and declared it to be in disrespect of the law.
About fifteen people came to St Eloi’s church to insult parishioners at the end of Sunday Mass. It is not the first time this Catholic church is targeted by anti-Christian acts, as it had already been covered whith tags and anti-Christian posters.
A 12-year-old boy, Hussein, witnessed his Christian faith by wearing a silver cross necklace in school. Muslim classmates taunted and spat on him. When the boy threatened to report one of the bullies, the bully's father threatened to "kill him". He says he also received a beating by his religion teacher.
A new provocative action was carried out by the occupying regime in Cyprus when Bishop of Karpasia Mr. Christoforos was not allowed to enter the occupied area from the barricade of Astromeritis village. Later, he was also prohibited to go into one area of Agios Dometios. The bishop was stopped without explanation.