The first March for the Martyrs was held in California in 2020 but Chacón, a humanitarian and motivational speaker, moved the event to Washington last year in hopes of drawing more national attention.
“Our goal is to bring the issue of Christian Persecution to the forefront of the fight for human rights and stand in solidarity with our persecuted brothers and sisters,” she said. “Christian Persecution is a human rights crisis — and it should be treated with the same level of urgency as any other human rights issue.”
Although the march has traditionally been designed to encourage Christians to rally in support of oppressed peoples, it has received support from the Global Imams Council, an Iraq-based group of Muslim religious leaders from a range of Islamic denominations.
Open Doors USA, a Christian watchdog group, has found that more than 360 million Christians across the world — or 1 in 7 members of the Christian faith — are suffering high levels of discrimination and persecution.
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This article originally appeared on ReligionNews.com.
