French police arrest several Christians for protesting attacks on Christians

In the wake of the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony mocking the Last Supper, members of a conservative advocacy group headed to Paris to protest such routinized attacks on Christianity. They were promptly arrested and left to conclude that the underlying problem is perhaps worse than first imagined.

The watchdog group Open Doors revealed in its latest annual report that one in seven Christians worldwide — over 365 million Christians — faces "high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith."

Blaze News previously reported that the 10 worst countries for Christians are North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, and Afghanistan. Christians stand a good chance of being tortured, imprisoned, raped, and murdered for their faith in these third-world nations as well as in countries far higher up the list, such as China.

Attacks on Christians and on their churches are not limited, however, to Africa, the Middle East, or the Orient.

Arielle Del Turco, director of the Center for Religious Liberty at the FRC, revealed in a report earlier this year that between 2018 and 2023, there were at least 915 acts of hostility against American churches. Canada, too, has seen hundreds of churches razed by radicals since 2021.

Against this backdrop of anti-Christian persecution and hatred, the French — who have seen their fair share of anti-Christian attacks — kicked off the 2024 Olympics with a ceremony mocking Christianity.

The opening ceremony contained a scene intended to resemble Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper." However, instead of depicting Christ and his disciples, the ceremony's designer, Thomas Jolly, instead had several transvestites strike poses on either sides of a morbidly obese lesbian named Barbara Butch.

Jolly then had a virtually naked man painted blue — intended to represent Dionysus, Greek god of wine-making — set upon the table as a substitute meal.

The ceremony generated significant controversy and elicited denunciations from various Christian institutions around the world, including the Vatican.

The Madrid-based conservative advocacy group CitizenGo started a petition demanding an apology and an explanation from all members of the International Olympic Committee.

"Enough is enough! This grotesque spectacle was an affront to everything we hold sacred, and it cannot go unchallenged," said the petition, which had over 392,500 signatures at the time of publication.

"All too often, we stand by and do nothing while they step on us and mock our Christian faith. But after today, I’ve seriously had enough! What happens if we stay silent? Our faith, our Christian symbols, will become a permanent parody promoted by queer, LGBTI, and trans lobbies, backed by our globalist leaders and the international left."

CitizenGo sent a bus into the heart of Paris Monday with "Stop attacks on Christians!" written on the side.

The bus was also emblazoned on one side with images of both Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" as well as a photograph of the Olympic ceremony mocking the religious imagery, striking a damning contrast.

Catholic activist Caroline Farrow alleged that despite having no issues early in the day, the bus was ultimately stopped "at gunpoint" by French police who surrounded the vehicle and claimed they were "conducting a 'public demonstration without the government's permission.'"

'They are tyrannical, anti-Christian bullies.'

A lawyer for the group claimed, "It appears impossible to constitute the crime of failing to communicate a protest because there is no protest in the presence of one unique vehicle. The prosecutor pushed the law to its limits to stop the bus and limit their free speech."

According to Farrow, six members of her team — including two from the U.K. — were arrested, then taken to the police station "where they were put in handcuffs and transferred to a second secure facility."

"They are tyrannical, anti-Christian bullies. It's absurd," the group said on X.

"Fearing the campaign's impact and the stain on France's image to the world, the political elites viciously censored CitizenGO in a manner akin to an authoritarian regime," continued Farrow. "The French police, under political orders from high-level political authorities, arrested six campaigners and the bus driver. All of their belongings were confiscated, they were stripped and searched, and they were illegally denied to call their personal lawyers. [S]ome were even not allowed to call their family members and were held on non-existent charges."

Farrow suggested further that the effort to shut up the protesters backfired, granted their bus, which was "clearly offensive to the French police and authorities, [was] still parked at the Police Station in District 16th, 3 blocks from the Arc de Triumph in front of everyone in the middle of downtown Paris."

The conservative group indicated that French police escorted their bus out of the city the next day.

Ignacio Arsuaga, president of CitizenGo, tweeted, "Our lawyer tells us there is no case, and that the prosecutor ordered the gendarmerie to arrest the campaigners even though there was no case."

"We are now going to file a lawsuit against Macron, the Attorney General, and the gendarmerie. Woke governments are becoming increasingly totalitarian," added Arsuaga.

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