ICC Note: 2015 represented a horrific year in Africa marked by Islamic extremism representing the primary driver of Christian persecution on the continent. From riots in Niger in January, to massive attacks in April in Kenya and through the fall in central Nigeria, to ISIS abducting and beheading Africans, several persecution events punctuated the year. Systematic extremism also pervades in Somalia, Sudan, and in Uganda. In World Watch Monitor’s list of 50 worst countries for persecution, the largest proportion were from Africa (17), with 9 more filling out the next 15 after the first 50.

1/13/16 Africa (World Watch Monitor) – The year 2015 will surely go down as the Year of Fear, due to religious persecution. Islamic State and its affiliates took their barbarity across borders like never before, into Libya, Kenya, and Egypt, culminating in random massacres in Paris on 13 Nov. and San Bernardino on 2 Dec., 2015. There is a feeling globally that no-one is safe from the reach of these new jihadists, who can recruit, convert and train any one through the internet.

Governments are more worried than ever about the effects of Islamic extremism, which once again is by far the most common denominator on the 2016 Open Doors World Watch List; it is the primary driving factor in 35 out of the top 50 states. States as far away as Central Asia have tightened their controls on all religious expression as a result. Even in far-flung Myanmar, where the Muslim Rohingya people constitute a minority, a whole raft of restrictive legislation was passed, ostensibly to keep extremism down, but catching Christians in the dragnet.

Fears were not allayed, either, with uncontrolled migration flows, as over 1 million migrants took the hazardous route to Europe from the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees gave up on the possibility of ever returning to their war-torn homeland. Their influx has caused fear to mushroom among European nations that the numbers may be too high to handle or their cultures may be forever altered by the influx of mostly non-Christian peoples.

Much of this fear is paranoia, of course, and in some cases governments have stoked it to justify crackdowns that have reduced religious liberty. The saddest news from the 2016 Open Doors World Watch List is that, again, like the previous year, persecution of Christians worsened in all the continents. The entry level for points per country for the 2015 list was 48.5; for the 2016 list it is 53.4.

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