Ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable to see a headline about the genocide of Christians on the BBC website. While the corporation has run excellent reports from the frontlines of persecution – for example, in Iraq – it has largely failed to grasp that violence against Christians is a rising worldwide phenomenon.
But last Friday BBC News posted a report on its website headlined “Christian persecution ‘at near genocide levels’ ”. It described the interim findings of an independent review commissioned by Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt.
The review, led by the Anglican Bishop of Truro, the Rt Rev Philip Mounstephen, estimates that one in three people suffer religious persecution. Christians are by far the most likely to be targeted. It is worth quoting from the review at length:
