Latest news with #ChristianPersecution
Fox News
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
The Ongoing Persecution Of Christians In Nigeria
Associate editor at The Free Press Madeleine Kearns recently wrote a piece called 'As Christians Are Slaughtered, the World Looks Away.' She retells the horrific events in which Islamist militants massacred over 200 people in Yelwata, Nigeria. Men, women, and children fell victim to the heinous incident, and it received very little media coverage. Madeleine describes eyewitness reports and examines Western media's reaction to the massacre. She also points out that Pope Leo XIV has spoken out about the crisis, suggesting ways he could bring attention to these incidents. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
National Post
15-06-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Adam Zivo: Russia is systematically persecuting Ukrainian Christians
Russian President Vladimir Putin often portrays himself as a defender of Christian values, but, in reality, his government has systematically persecuted Christians who do not belong to the state-controlled Russian Orthodox Church. In Ukraine, this has meant murdering faith leaders, banning religious gatherings and shuttering churches. Article content This aspect of the war has received scant media attention, but a new documentary, ' A Faith Under Siege: Russia's Hidden War on Ukraine's Christians,' gives a voice to these victims and exposes Moscow's predatory relationship with faith-based communities. Article content Article content Article content Article content The film stars Colby Barrett, an Evangelical American businessman who joined an aid convoy to Ukraine last summer after researching Moscow's persecution of non-Orthodox Christians. 'It blew my mind, and I knew I needed to tell this story… There was so much misinformation about what's going on in Russia, what's going on in Ukraine. What the war is about,' he told me in a video interview last month. Article content Article content He learned that, contrary to Putin's claims, Russia is not a bastion of traditional values: church attendance is dismal (a 2023 poll suggests that only 15 per cent of Russians considered religion very important), while the country's divorce rate is among the highest in the world. Article content During the Soviet era, Moscow weaponized the Russian Orthodox Church as an instrument of espionage and control. Clergymen were recruited as informers, and KGB spies were placed within the church to monitor believers. This exploitation of organized religion has continued unabated since then — for example — the current head of the Russian Church, Patriarch Kirill, was reportedly a KGB agent in the 1970s. Article content Article content '(Putin is) a defender of control and wants to co-opt religion for this purpose,' Barrett said. Article content Article content He noted that, in 2016, the Kremlin passed the ' Yarovaya law,' which outlaws public proselytization within Russia. The legislation was designed to curtail the influence of Protestants and Evangelicals, whose faith operates beyond the domination of the Russian Orthodox Church, and permits the imprisonment of non-compliant believers. Article content When Russia invaded Ukraine, it transplanted these restrictions into the occupied territories and systematically persecuted independent Christians. 'Evangelicals and Protestants are the first churches destroyed or shut down. Then they would move on to Catholics, and then to other religious minorities,' said Barrett. Article content According to Barrett, Russia has destroyed over 630 religious buildings and tortured or killed at least 67 priests, pastors and monks in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Article content Barrett described in our interview how, according to religious leaders he met in Ukraine, one woman was sentenced to 20 years of prison simply for holding a Bible study in her home — an activity which Moscow's occupiers deemed 'terrorism.' As described in his film, another church was shut down and turned into a secular Russian cultural centre.
Fox News
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Bishop's village attacked, 20 slain after recent testimony to Congress on Christian persecution
FIRST ON FOX: A Nigerian bishop has been threatened and his home village murderously attacked after he appealed to lawmakers at a March congressional hearing for the killing of Christians to stop. Bishop Wilfred Anagbe told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview this week that after he went to Washington to testify, four fatal attacks in 10 days by "terrorist Jihadists" had happened in his diocese, the area he is responsible for. Nigeria is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian, according to NGO Open Doors International's 2025 World Watch List (WWL). Of the 4,476 Christians killed worldwide in WWL's latest reporting period, 3,100 of those who died – 69% – were in Nigeria. Open Doors U.K., added in a statement, "Jihadist violence continues to escalate in Nigeria, and Christians are at particular risk from targeted attacks by Islamic militant groups, including Fulani militants, Boko Haram and ISWAP (Islamic State West Africa Province)." One leader of one of the biggest churches in Africa's most populous nation, using the pseudonym "Pastor Winyadebi" because he's worried about his safety, told Fox News Digital. "It has been attacks upon attacks, religious violence. And we say this because the communities that are attacked are Christian communities." "What they (Islamist militants) want is to be sure that Islam [takes] over every part of these places. … And so they're doing everything to make sure that Christianity is brought down and Islam is [the] established No. 1. They want to make sure that Sharia law (strict Islamic law) has taken over Nigeria," he said. Anagbe's Makurdi Diocese in north-central Nigeria is almost exclusively Christian. But the constant and escalating attacks by Islamist Fulani militants led him to testify at a congressional hearing in March. In April, several foreign embassies in Abuja, Nigeria, warned the bishop of credible high-level official threats: that he would be detained upon arrival in Nigeria from the U.S. and that "something might happen to him." This led to Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., Anagbe's congressional host and chair of the House Africa Subcommittee, to write in a statement: "I am appalled by reports that Bishop Wilfred Anagbe and Father Remigius Ihyula (who testified alongside Bishop Anagbe) are facing threats—allegedly from Nigerian government sources and affiliated organizations—because of the Bishop's testimony before Congress detailing violence in Nigeria's Benue State. They reflect a troubling pattern of retaliation linked to testimony before Congress on religious freedom abuses in Nigeria." The U.S. Mission in Nigeria on April 10 posted on X calling for the bishop's "right to speak freely without fear of retribution or retaliation," declaring that intimidation and threats had been made "because of their March 12 testimony." Then the attacks, larger and more frequent than before, started, with four attacks between May 23 and June 1. Anagbe told Fox News Digital that "what has been happening in my village and diocese is nothing short of terror attacks on innocent villagers in order to seize their lands and occupy." "On the 23rd [of] May, one of my priests, Father Solomon Atongo, was shot in the leg by these terrorists and almost lost his life. On the 25th of May, my village, Aondona, was attacked for hours, leaving over 20 people dead, scores injured and thousands now displaced and living in makeshift camps," he said. "On the 1st of June, terror was unleashed on Naka town, with many killed and displaced," Anagbe continued. "This attack was so intense that even those earlier displaced and taking refuge in a nearby school were not spared. All over Nigeria, these terrorists are going about on a jihad and conquering territories and renaming them accordingly." "I have been speaking about this genocide for some years now, but whereas in the past some others saw my advocacy with the political lens, today almost everyone in Nigeria has seen the truth for what it is, especially after my testimony in the U.S. Congress." The bishop ended the interview with a plea: "The world has a lot to do. First of all, the world must learn from past mistakes, the Holocaust and most recently the Rwandan genocide. In both cases, the world hid its face in the sand like an ostrich. If the world does not rise up now to put a stop to the atrocities orchestrated in the name of being politically correct, it may wake up one day to casualties that make the Rwandan genocide a child's play. Keeping quiet would be to promote the genocide or ethnic cleansing in Nigeria." While the Nigerian government did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment, the Catholic Herald reported that the Nigerian Foreign Ministry had contacted the U.S. regarding the bishop's testimony, noting that "any reports of threats or intimidation against religious leaders would be investigated and appropriate actions would be taken."
