“In addition, Europe and the entire Western world have done nothing to stop the war in Syria and Iraq, where Islamist terrorists are killing Christians, which could lead to the disappearance of Christianity from the cradle of Christianity. Only a few journalists talk about it.”
Croatia is a country of four million people bordering Slovenia, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. More than 86% of the population is Catholic.
Petir, an independent member of parliament, was instrumental in persuading the Croatian government to offer college scholarships to young people from countries where Christians face persecution.
The introduction of the scholarships marked the first time since the country gained independence in 1991 that it had earmarked money specifically to help individuals outside the European Union persecuted for their Christian faith.
Petir said it was unclear how giving scholarships to persecuted Christians could be characterized as Islamophobia.
“We do not give scholarships to Christians just because they are Christians, but because they are the most persecuted religious group in the world, and this is confirmed by reports of international organizations such as Aid to Church in Need and Open Doors,” she said.
Petir was not the only Catholic mentioned in the European Islamophobia Report 2020.
A section entitled “Islamophobia in Poland National Report 2020” criticized Catholic media in the Central European country, as well as the Polish-language section of Vatican Radio.
“Although the Catholic media — including leading media such as Gość Niedzielny or the Polish section of Vatican Radio — continue to lead the way in publishing Islamophobic content, when it comes to clergy and hierarchs, they are no longer as active in the field of fearmongering against Islam as they were in the previous years,” it asserted.
In a footnote, the report cited two Vatican News articles in Polish, one headlined “Sweden: social tensions rise, Christians are powerless” and the other “Christianophobia in Europe increased in 2019.”
Petir also took issue with other aspects of the “Islamophobia in Croatia National Report 2020.”
(Story continues below)
Subscribe to our daily newsletter
At Catholic News Agency, our team is committed to reporting the truth with courage, integrity, and fidelity to our faith. We provide news about the Church and the world, as seen through the teachings of the Catholic Church. When you subscribe to the CNA UPDATE, we'll send you a daily email with links to the news you need and, occasionally, breaking news.
As part of this free service you may receive occasional offers from us at EWTN News and EWTN. We won't rent or sell your information, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
“If you look at the rest of the report for Croatia, you can see that journalists who wrote articles about the migrant crisis, reported on the Turkish government’s decision on Hagia Sophia or conducted interviews with European politicians who spoke about radical Islamists were also marked as an Islamophobe,” she said.
“Such reporting on Islamophobia attempts to stop any critical thinking and information that has nothing to do with criticism of Islam as a religion, but with criticism of radical terrorist groups that abuse religion for their narrow interests and thus harm the religion to which they belong.”
“I believe that this report is an attack on freedom of speech, made superficially and maliciously with the aim of labeling people who dare to tell the truth, and contains elements of Christianophobia.”
The Catholic News Agency (CNA) Staff are a team of journalists dedicated to reporting news concerning the Catholic Church around the world. Our bureaus are located in Denver, Washington, and Rome. We have sister language agencies in Kenya, Germany, Peru, Brazil, and Italy. CNA is a service of EWTN News. You can contact us at news@catholicna.com with questions.