Paris 2024: 7 arrested ‘at gunpoint’ for calling for an end to attacks against Christians

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 7, 2024 / 16:38 pm (CNA).

Seven people aboard a bus protesting the attack against the faith of Christians that was featured during the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games were arrested in Paris on Monday.

The bus, sponsored by the grassroots lobbying group CitizenGo, was emblazoned on one side with a scene from the blasphemous mockery of the Last Supper that was part of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics and on the other with the slogan “Stop Attacks on Christians!” 

The message on the bus also included a website address for a petition in defense of the rights of believers signed by more than 386,000 people and addressed to the authorities of the International Olympic Committee.

According to CitizenGo, the vehicle was intercepted by French Gendarmerie agents “at gunpoint.” The six members of CitizenGO, along with the bus driver, “were taken from one police station to another, being treated in a humiliating manner and deprived of communication with the outside world,” they indicated in a statement to the media.

After the vehicle was impounded, the Paris prosecutor’s office initiated proceedings against the detainees, although on Tuesday afternoon, almost 24 hours later, they were informed “that they will not be charged.”

For CitizenGO, this incident is “extremely serious” and represents “a new attack on religious freedom and on Christians, just like the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.”

Woke governments ‘becoming more and more totalitarian’

As a result, CitizenGO president Ignacio Arsuaga announced the organization will file a lawsuit against French President Emmanuel Macron, the country’s attorney general’s office, and the gendarmerie.

Arsuaga charged that “woke governments are becoming increasingly totalitarian” and that what the members of his organization have suffered reveals “that woke ideology aims to do away with Christian symbols.” 

In this regard he pointed out that “the same thing is happening in Spain with the threats of the [Spanish] government to [resignify] the Valley of the Fallen and [remove] the largest cross in the world.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.