{"id":18230,"date":"2026-02-08T23:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18230"},"modified":"2026-02-08T23:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T23:16:12","slug":"west-has-repeatedly-failed-assyrian-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18230","title":{"rendered":"West has ‘repeatedly failed Assyrian Christians’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The cross on the roof of a church in Qaraqosh in Iraq\u2019s Nineveh Plains.<\/span>\u00a0(Photo: Aid to the Church in Need)<\/span><\/p>\n

A religious freedom activist warns that the Assyrian Christian community in the Middle East “does not have a chance of survival\u201d and offered sharp words of criticism at the sixth annual International Religious Freedom Summit, saying \u201cthe West has repeatedly failed Assyrian Christians.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

During a Monday panel discussion titled \u201cVoices from Underreported Religious Communities Caught Amid Conflict,\u201d experts discussed the dire state of religious freedom in several countries and pleaded for help from the United States, Western countries and supranational organizations like the United Nations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Karmella Borashan of the Assyrian International Council spoke about the plight of Assyrian Christians, which she noted dates back to the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the subsequent Syrian Civil War.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since, Assyrians faced systematic, subtle persecution from both the Jihadists and Kurdish forces, each using different tactics, and in Syria, lack of security and economic collapse specifically affects all Syrians, specifically Assyrian Christians as minorities,” Borashan said. “Many villages that once were very thriving, they remain largely empty.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Iraq, they face violent attack by Islamist extremists,\u201d she added. \u201cAssyrian archeological sites more than 3,000 years [old] are being vandalized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Borashan lamented the existence of \u201cminority laws\u201d that \u201cforcibly convert children to Islam.\u201d She insists that Assyrian Christians do \u201cnot have a chance of survival.”<\/p>\n

\u201cChristianity is fading from the Middle East and [Christians] are placed in the mercy of the perpetrators,\u201d Borashan detailed. \u201cOnce we had 1.5 million Christians, now we have only less than 300,000 left.\u201d<\/p>\n

The activist proclaimed that what the Middle East needs “is pluralism to bring the foundation of democracy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAssyrian Christians were once a thriving and integral part of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, respected members of society with a Christian faith of more than 2,000 years when Jesus came,\u201d she said. \u201cThey have a history of more than 6,000 years. The West has repeatedly failed Assyrian Christians in the Middle East, abandoning them to the prominent powers that have persecuted and massacred them for generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sudan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kamal Fahmi of the advocacy group Set My People Free detailed the challenges facing religious minorities in Sudan, a country gripped by a civil war since 2003. Sudan\u00a0ranks\u00a0as the fourth worst country for Christian persecution on Open Doors 2026 World Watch List, as converts from Islam often face rejection from their families, threats and violence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have quite a number of victims who were executed or killed by their community because they left Islam,” Fahmi said. “Most of the time, they have to leave the country to go somewhere else. And also when they leave the country, sadly enough, even within the U.N. system, they don\u2019t get relocation easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow with the insecurity, with the coup of the army, with the fighting of the two factions, ex-Muslims are very vulnerable,\u201d he warned. \u201cAnd sadly enough, this is not realized internationally, and nobody is working to really stop this. And they look at this as an impossible law which cannot be changed. And we have many people [who] are suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a civilian government took shape in 2019, Fahmi lamented that a military coup \u201ctook away these freedoms again.\u201d The war has resulted in \u201c14 million displaced people,\u201d he said, including 10 million who have been displaced within the country and 4 million who have been displaced outside the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the U.N. is not able to help the displaced people in other countries and inside the country because they don\u2019t have finance. So many people are facing hunger, but nobody\u2019s talking about it,\u201d he explained. \u201cToday, Sudan is suffering, and the world is quiet. There is a lot about other countries, but Sudan is not mentioned, and even for relocation of people, it\u2019s very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yemen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keyvan Ghaderi of the Baha\u2019is of Yemen described how he was arrested for his beliefs in Yemen in 2008 and released after four months.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn prison, our faith was tested like \u2026 never before,” he stated. “The majority of the inmates had never heard of the Baha\u2019i faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, they called us infidels and treated us with suspicion and disdain. They refused to talk to us or share food with us. Over time, however, some of them insisted on eating and \u2026 talking to us to break down the prison rules,\u201d he added. \u201cReligious freedom and equal citizenship are not abstract ideas. They are foundations of [a] just and harmonious society. For Yemen, these principles are not only urgent but essential for healing and rebuilding a nation torn apart by conflict and division.\u201d<\/p>\n

Open Doors, which\u00a0ranks\u00a0Yemen as the third worst country for Christian persecution, states that dangers facing religious minorities in Yemen “continue to escalate amid an unrelenting tide of conflict, extremism and economic collapse.” Yemen does not allow non-Islamic groups to register formally, and non-Muslim places of worship have not been authorized for years, the group notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Discovery as a Christian can be deadly because in Yemen apostasy is legally punishable by death,” Open Doors explains. “Believers can also suffer in other ways, including divorce and separation from their children. Yemen\u2019s fragmented, weak rule of law only increases the dangers facing Christians.”<\/p>\n

\u00a9 The Christian Post<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cross on the roof of a church in Qaraqosh in Iraq\u2019s Nineveh Plains.\u00a0(Photo: Aid to the Church in Need) A religious freedom activist warns that the Assyrian Christian community in the Middle East “does not have a chance of survival\u201d and offered sharp words of criticism at the sixth annual International Religious Freedom Summit,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5889,119,907,5888,2516],"class_list":{"0":"post-18230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-assyrian","9":"tag-christians","10":"tag-failed","11":"tag-repeatedly","12":"tag-west"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}