Christian persecution on the rise globally, but overlooked, says expert

By Gina Christian

(OSV News) -- Data shows that Christian persecution is on the rise globally -- but that repression remains largely overlooked in the news cycle, one expert told OSV News.

"It is important to … remember persecuted Christians in many countries around the world. Their suffering gets no coverage at all by major media," said Joop Koopman, director of communications for Aid to the Church in Need in the United States.

Founded in 1947 as a Catholic aid organization for war refugees and recognized as a pontifical foundation since 2011, ACN is dedicated to the service of Christians around the world, wherever they are persecuted or oppressed or suffering material need.

Based in Brooklyn, New York, in the U.S., the nonprofit ACN provides pastoral and humanitarian assistance to the persecuted church in more than 145 countries, working under the guidance of the pope.

More than 360 million of the world's estimated 2.6 billion Christians -- or one in seven Christians globally -- currently experience "high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith," according to Open Doors U.S., an advocacy group that provides Bibles and support to persecuted Christians in more than 70 countries.

One in five Christians in Africa and two in five in Asia experience persecution, according to Open Doors, which notes that over the last three decades, the number of countries where Christians suffer high and extreme levels of persecution has almost doubled to 76.

Direct forms of persecution include attacks on life and property, assassinations, imprisonment, torture, restricted access to churches and Bibles, forced conversions, and violence against women, while indirect attacks take the form of educational and employment discrimination, legal restrictions and denial of rights, according to the nonprofit International Christian Concern.

Both Christian Concern and Open Doors rank North Korea, Nigeria, India, Iran, China, Pakistan, Eritrea and Algeria as top countries for Christian persecution, with North Korea taking the No. 1 spot in Open Doors' 2023 World Watch List.

In its 2023 report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended that the State Department redesignate 12 nations as countries of particular concern -- Burma, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. In addition, the USCIRF added five names to that list: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Syria and Vietnam. On the commission's special watch list are Algeria, the Central African Republic, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

Christian Concern cited Marxism, radical Islam, social and cultural discrimination and supernatural evil as the key sources of Christian persecution.

North Korea is perhaps the nation most "closed to Christianity and the outside world," according to Christian Concern. Under the totalitarian regime of Kim Jong Un -- referred to as the "Supreme Leader" who demands absolute allegiance -- the country's estimated 200,000 to 400,000 Christians must practice in secret amid imprisonment, torture, rape and extrajudicial killing. Owning a Bible or quoting Scripture can easily lead to death, according to Christian Concern's "Persecutors of the Year 2023" report, which noted that "Kim is just the latest in a dynastic line that has oppressed North Korea for decades, driving not just the economy into the ground but human rights and religious expression as well."

In recent weeks, embattled Christians in the Gaza Strip -- particularly the hundreds sheltering at Holy Family Church, Gaza's only Catholic parish -- have received international attention due to media coverage of the Israel-Hamas war. Koopman told OSV News the church in Iraq is fearful that "the war in Gaza might spread in the region, creating conditions that will prompt Iraqi Christians to leave their country (and) further shrinking the Christian population."

Concurrently, said Koopman, "in terms of numbers, more Nigerian Christians (have) died" in recent months, "several thousand, at least, most of them in Benue State and in the Diocese of Makurdi in particular."

Open Doors reported that 90% of the more than 5,600 Christians killed for their faith last year were from Nigeria, with the total number of Christians killed in 2023 up 80% from five years ago.

Koopman said ACN's latest annual report noted that more than 7,600 Nigerian Christians were killed between January 2021 and June 2022.

On Christmas Eve, at least 140 Nigerians were slain across some 15 central villages by rampaging herders wielding guns and machetes, the worst such attack in the region since 2018. The area has for several years been prone to clashes between Muslim Fulani herdsmen and mainly Christian farmers.

Koopman told OSV News that such "radicalized Muslim Fulani herdsmen" have "continued their killing spree, and no one is brought to justice.

"There was some hope that the fact that the new Nigerian president (Bola Ahmed Tinubu) is married to a practicing Christian would translate into government action against the Fulanis, but nothing has been done," he said.

To the east of Nigeria, Islamist militia have terrorized Christians in Burkina Faso, singling them out and "forcing them to adopt Muslim dress and customs," said Koopman, noting that Burkina Faso "has fallen victim to a terrorist takeover of the Sahel region," the 10 African nations located between the Sahara Desert and the continent's tropical south.

As they face the third year of a full-scale invasion by Russia -- which continues attacks launched in 2014 -- Ukrainians, most of whom identify as Christian, "are feeling very, very tired. People are exhausted, because there is no sign that the conflict is coming to an end,” Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, head of the worldwide Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, told ACN. "The population is terribly traumatized by the war … Some are physically injured, but above all they are wounded in their souls."

Russia's invasion, declared a genocide in two joint reports from New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, has seen Russian troops arrest and kill clergy; destroy Catholic, Christian and other houses of worship; and "outlaw" the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and several other faith confessions in at least one occupied territory. Two Redemptorist priests, Father Ivan Levytsky and Father Bohdan Heleta, remain unaccounted for after being detained in November 2022 and reportedly tortured since their arrest.

In Nicaragua, "the regime of (President) Daniel Ortega … is determined to continue to oppress the church, effectively silencing it," said Koopman. "Ortega sees the church as a threat to the regime, because of its powerful witness and sympathy for the opposition, which has practically disappeared."

Under the Ortega regime, clergy, religious and laypeople have been harassed, detained, imprisoned and expelled -- most notably Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, stripped of his citizenship and now serving a 26-year sentence for refusing to be exiled to the U.S. Charges against the bishop, an outspoken critic of Ortega, included treason, undermining national integrity and spreading false news.

On Dec. 21, Bishop Isidoro Mora was arrested, with some reports indicating the bishop had briefly asked for prayers for Bishop Álvarez and his diocese in a homily.

On Dec. 28, Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Molina reported on X, formerly known as Twitter that Msgr. Carlos Avilés, vicar general of the Archdioceses of Managua, was abducted by the Ministry of Interior.

The pro-Ortega congress has closed 3,500 nongovernmental organizations and expelled priests and women religious, including the Missionaries of Charity. Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Báez of Managua has lived in exile since 2019 and ministers to a growing Nicaraguan diaspora in Miami.

Pakistan "continues to be a country of concern," where a "tiny Christian minority suffers severe discrimination" and multiple accusations under the nation's blasphemy laws, said Koopman. In August, a rumored desecration of the Quran by two brothers led to mob rampage that destroyed hundreds of homes and several churches in the industrial district of Faisalabad.

In China, "believers are monitored and sometimes harassed for attending Mass," said Koopman, with the government "pushing churches to take on a Chinese communist identity and become a patriotic front."

Koopman also questioned the efficacy of the Vatican's "provisional agreement" with the Chinese government, by which the two entities coordinate on the appointment of bishops.

"It is unclear what good the Sino-Vatican agreement is doing. The regime has appointed bishops without any input from Rome," said Koopman, noting that some imprisoned bishops and clergy "have been disappeared and not heard from in a long time."