Why we don’t police anti-Christian hate
by Hardeep Singh, Artillery Row:
Jewish and Muslim communities rightly get protections and attention from the government — but Christians are routinely overlooked
In the last few weeks, the government has announced a considerable package of funding to enhance security of Jewish and Islamic institutions. Rishi Sunak pledged to give the Community Security Trust (CST), which protects Jewish sites, more than £70 million, as part of the Jewish Community Protective Security Grant. Moreover, the government also committed to provide UK Muslims with more than £117 million of protective security funding too (£34.3 million allocated for this year alone) — both pledges are for over the period of the next 4 years. The reported increase in incidents targeting both communities since the outbreak of the Israel-Palestine conflict, has been cited as a reason why. The 14-fold larger Muslim population vs Jews (in England and Wales) has also been used to justify the proportion of relative funding allocated. Meanwhile Labour have said they will order police to record ‘non-hate crime incidents’, when it comes to prejudice against Jew and Muslims. The state has historically funded third-party hate crime reporting monitors — like Tell MAMA (anti-Muslim) and the CST (antisemitism). But whilst politicians continue to make various announcements with reference to safeguarding Jews and Muslims, do they risk marginalising other faiths, who also suffer prejudice and religiously motivated hatred?
There is of course a pressing need to protect Jewish and Muslim communities, especially given the increased targeting of both since October 7th. Some British Jews have even chosen to hide their identity for fear of attacks. However, despite a decrease in those who identify as ‘Christian’ according to the census from 59.3% to 46.2% in the ten years from 2011–2021, there remains an often-unspoken undercurrent of societal prejudice against them. 2020/21 figures indicate there were over 4,000 incidents of crime against churches (data from 40 police forces) — these includes theft, vandalism, assault, and burglary — some may well fit into the subjective category of ‘hate crime’ — if perceived to be by a victim, ‘or any other person’.
Indeed, the church statistics rightly resulted in calls for extra government funding. Some incidents against Christians are more blatant, like the man accused of a ‘religiously aggravated offence’, for attempting to rip a large cross from the roof of Chadwell Heath Baptist Church in Romford back in 2020, or the Pakistani Christian beaten up by Muslims for simply selling poppies. According to Home Office figures for 2022/23, there were 609 ‘perceived’ hate crime offences against Christians which accounts for nearly 10% of the total. Christian Street preachers are often arrested for promoting the gospel under the Public Order Act, and Christians have been arrested for the ‘thoughtcrime’ of praying silently outside abortion clinics. Yet, given all this, we see few (if any) politicians referring to ‘Christianophobia’, or anti-Christian hatred.
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