A persecution watchdog has released a new report that aims to fill a “gap” when it comes to fully reporting on the Christian persecution raging across the globe.
“We found was there needed to be a report that was based entirely on well verified, carefully reviewed sources,” Isaac Six, senior director of advocacy for Global Christian Relief (GCR), told CBN News. “These are public sources that are included in a database we’ve commissioned called the Violent Incidents Database, and the report is built on that database.”
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One of the issues with some of the other reports in this realm, Six said, is that they are relatively qualitative in nature, relying on interviews and available numbers to essentially “make an estimate.” While this is valid and helpful, he said GCR’s new “Red List” works a bit differently.
“Our report numbers can seem a little lower than some of those, but that’s because we’re only using numbers we can absolutely verify are true,” he said, noting the “Red List” provides data over a two-year period that is heavily verified and “irrefutable.”
The methodology even enabled the researchers to confirm a few hundred of the arrests that have unfolded in North Korea, a reclusive nation known for being the worst persecutor of Christians across the globe — and that’s not all.
“We were able to confirm that Afghanistan, since the takeover of the Taliban, is almost a closed box,” Six said. “Everything is underground. We do have networks there, but it’s very difficult to get any public verified reporting of persecution.”
Watch Six explain:
And while there are many types of persecution and pressures placed on believers, Six said violence is the “primary method through which persecutors are trying to drive out the church.”
“This isn’t just random, sporadic acts of anger or violence towards Christians,” he said. “In a lot of these cases, this is well-organized, systematic, long-term, and the overarching goal here is to crush the church and extinguish it. It’s an existential crisis for a lot of these communities that we’re talking about in this report.”
One of the unique facets of the “Red List” is that nations are ranked not just by overall persecution metrics but by categories. Killings are just one such category, with Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Russia serving as the top five on the list.
As CBN News has reported, Nigeria is consistently found by watchdogs to be the most deadly nation for believers. The “Red List” is no exception, with the numbers found in the report quite staggering.
“We documented almost 10,000 killings of Christians, mostly in the north and middle part of that country,” Six said. “And, again, that is systematic violence being perpetrated and led by groups like Boko Haram, and Islamic State West Africa Province, and then other armed groups.”
Ultimately, Isaac said Christians in America need to understand the extent of the terror.
“The church in America really has to hear how horrific some of these stories are,” he said. “It’s not just violence. It’s not just killings. It is brutal atrocities. And, frankly, the church has to wake up to some of this. Only a fraction of believers in America are even aware of what’s happening.”
Six also addressed Russia’s placement in the top five for killings.
“Russia … appears twice on a report, both for killings and also for arrests,” Six said. “Now, the killings are primarily happening in an area called Dagestan, which is in the North Caucasus region of Russia. It borders Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea.”
He continued, “And, in Dagestan, you have an Islamist militancy that’s …targeting Orthodox Russian Christians; it will target priests and churches. So that’s where most of those killings are happening.”
Six said some of the killings are also happening in occupied areas of Eastern Ukraine, as the Russia-Ukraine war continues to rage.
“Many parts of the church are going underground in Eastern Ukraine,” he said.
Six is hoping the “Red List” is a valuable resource – one that helps people navigate and understand these persistent issues of persecution.
“When I looked over the report and finally saw the numbers [I thought], ‘There is so much here for us to do,'” he said. “We’ve been working in this area and we get very focused on some areas where there’s great need and that’s good. … But I looked at it and thought, ‘We need a wave of support and prayer coming out of the American church and the global church for the areas where the body of Christ is just being attacked in the worst possible ways.'”
With those areas now identified in the “Red List,” prayer and action can more readily be taken — and with more spiritual and practical precision. Find out more about the report and research here.
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