BEN JOHNSON
One in every eight Christians around the world faces persecution, ranging from imprisonment and censorship to extra-judicial and government-sanctioned martyrdom, according to a new report.
"Each year, an estimated 300 million Christians around the world are persecuted because of their faith in Jesus. Our brothers and sisters in Christ are beaten, imprisoned, and even killed for their faith," said the International Christian Concern's 2025 Global Persecution Index, released last Friday, which documents instances of governments denying rights to a share of the world's estimated 2.38 billion Christians. "In many countries, it is illegal for them to share the Gospel."
"The details of persecution you will read in our report are not isolated incidents," clarified International Christian Concern President Jeff King. These repressive acts represent the reality of "Christians worldwide who face daily threats to their lives and religious freedom."
The index, formerly known as the "Persecutors of the Year" report, ranked 20 countries based on the danger they pose to their Christian population: red (where Christians are regularly tortured or killed for their faith), orange (where nations "severely oppress" Christians), and yellow ("lesser offenders" who subject Christians to arrests, attacks, or oppression).
"2024 was a harrowing year for massive numbers of Christians worldwide," said the ICC report, "from underground house churches in China to remote villages in Nigeria."
ICC's conclusions overlap with Global Christian Relief's "2025 GCR red list," which documents the 25 worst nations for Christian persecution, broken into five separate categories.
Four of the five deadliest nations for Christians are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Global Christian
Relief: Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. The ICC report's red list also included Somalia and Eritrea, the Marxist dictatorship of North Korea, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, now dominated by the Taliban (but excluded Ethiopia).
The world's two most populous nations, China and India, fall just below the worst level of persecution, making ICC's orange list, with Iran and Saudi Arabia. ICC's yellow list includes Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russia, and Vietnam.
Both reports agree Christians face the greatest persecution in Africa's Sahel region: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, Guinea Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal.
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