Global Christian Relief Red List 2025

Arrests

The top 5 nations in the GCR Red List are 

1. China
2. Eritrea
3. Nicaragua
4. Russia
5. North Korea

 
It is no surprise that China tops the 2025 GCR Red List for Arrests, given that the communist nation has the world's most sophisticated surveillance mechanisms. In February 2024, Chinese-American pastor Bob Fu--a voice for persecuted believers in China--told participants at the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit, "We are seeing the worst persecution of believers in China since the Cultural Revolution."
 
Churches are subject to invasive religious regulations enacted in 2018, and during the November 2022 - 2024 reporting period, at least 1,559 Christians, primarily from unregistered churches, were arrested or sentenced.
 
Pastor Wang Yi of Chengdu is currently the most prominent Christian prisoner, serving a lengthy nine-year sentence for "inciting subversion of state power" and "illegal business activity." Sources close to Wang Yi cite his "Faithful Disobedience" pamphlet as the actual key factor in his arrest; it raises the question of who has final allegiance over the church. Refusing to acknowledge that the government has supremacy invites almost certain arrest.
 
Ranking second, Eritrea continued its harsh treatment of Christians, with 475 confirmed arrests and sentences during the reporting period. The government officially recognizes only four religious groups: Eritrean Orthodox, Catholicism, Lutheranism and Sunni Islam. Christians who are unregistered bear the brunt of harsh treatment. In January 2024, at least 30 Christians were arrested during a first birthday celebration. The government is known to target independent gatherings of Christians suspected of opposing military conscription.
 
Nicaragua ranks third on the GCR Red List for Arrests, with 226incidents, mostly of clergy who front the pro-democracy movement. Here, the government seeks to eliminate civil society groups, viewing them as a threat to its dictatorial rule.
 
Russia is fourth on the list with 224 arrests and sentencings, predominantly among Evangelical Christians. In the context of the war with Ukraine, there is a strategy to suppress religious groups not aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church, which openly supports the Kremlin's "holy war."
 
Lastly, North Korea comes in fifth. House churches exist along family lines, but a new "anti-reactionary thought law" increased arrests. The figure of 208 arrests is surely a fraction of the overall total, but verification is all but impossible in this Stalinist regime, where the population is essentially forced to worship the ruling Kim dynasty, in power since 1948
 
The 2025 Global Christian Relief Red List. Washington, D.C.