Report charts religious persecution

Christians have become the most persecuted group of people in the world, according to a major study of 14 years of reports, writes Abigail Frymann Rouch.

The 106-page report by the ecumenical group Maranatha draws together 170 sources and found that the “overwhelming majority” of the victims of religious persecution today are Christians and that in “the vast majority” of cases, persecution “is executed by militant Muslims”. Surveying countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, it listed crimes of coercion, intimidation and harassment as well as property damage, assaults, abductions and murders.

The study noted that even when entire Christian communities and villages had been wiped out, such acts had been “tolerated by central governments or even initiated by them”.