US persecuted church agency International Christian Concern (ICC) has named its Persecutors of the Year awards for 2021.
Previously entitled the Hall of Shame report, naming and shaming the world’s worst persecutors of Christians, this year it has been revamped to give awards to the most notorious countries, individuals and entities around the world.
Top individual persecutor is Kim Jong Un, leader of North Korea. Since 1948, the successive Kim dynasties have tortured and killed millions of individuals who they viewed as political threats. While many are familiar with how the North Korean state deals with political dissenters, it is less well known that the Kims have targeted Christians with a special vehemence.
After the withdrawal of US forces in August 2021, the Taliban quickly regained control of Afghanistan. They immediately began to search for the roughly 10,000 Afghan Christians in hiding. Almost all are Christian converts from Islam and are therefore apostates under a death sentence. Given their total disregard for any religion other than their own, the Taliban receives the award for Top Entity Persecutor.
Nigeria is one of the deadliest places on earth for Christians – up to 70,000 have been killed since 2000. Nigeria is home to the infamous Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram, Fulani militants, and conservative Islamic communities. With these groups operating in the country, aided and abetted by the government’s complacency and incompetence, Nigeria is awarded Top Country Persecutor.
Jeff King, President of ICC, said: ‘Christians in many places face a daily torrent of threats; everything from job discrimination to systematic imprisonment, rape, torture, and assassination. Unfortunately, the challenges of the more than 200 million Christians who live under persecution often go unnoticed. Shining a light on their dark sufferings is our most effective tool to fight the government officials, judges, torturers and dictators that beat, imprison, rape, and kill those with different belief systems to themselves.’
