Open Doors: Drastic increase in attacks against Christian targets
Open Doors rolled out the 2020 report at a briefing attended by representatives of the Trump administration, Congress, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and prominent human rights activists.
On Wednesday, American nongovernmental organization Open Doors published its annual report on Christian persecution as a benchmark study concerning religious freedom worldwide.
The report, first launched in 1992, ranks the worst 50 countries in the world when it comes to the persecution of Christians and is based on data compiled by Open Doors’ operations in 60 countries, Christianpost reported.
According to Open Doors CEO David Curry, the report “is going to sound the alarm”.
The report also states that 9,488 “churches or Christian buildings” — or an average of 25 per day — were attacked during the 2019 reporting period (Nov. 1, 2018, to Oct. 31, 2019). By comparison, Open Doors noted in last year’s report that 1,266 churches or Christian buildings were attacked.
Annual data suggests, there has been a drastic increase of detained, imprisoned and arrested Christians without trial. In the 2019 (focusing on 2018) report this number was 2,625, however, in the next period in question it went up to 3,711 last year.
On Wednesday, the White House issued a statement on Religious Freedom Day in which President Donald Trump emphasized the foundational link between freedom and faith in the US and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to safeguarding the religious liberty of all Americans.
“My Administration also remains cognizant of the stark realities for people seeking religious liberty abroad and has made protecting religious minorities a core pillar of my Administration’s foreign policy. Repressive governments persecute religious worshipers using high-tech surveillance, mass detention, and torture, while terrorist organizations carry out barbaric violence against innocent victims on account of their religion”, the statement says.
According to Breitbart, the Trump administration will also issue a directive that states religiously affiliated groups can get federal grants even if the group is located in a state that prohibits public funding of such groups.
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