Watchdog Group Now Designates Afghanistan "Most Dangerous Country for Christians"

By 

Jordan Sekulow

|
January 20, 2022

4 min read

Persecuted Church

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The situation for Christians in Afghanistan has become so dangerous under the hard-fisted Taliban, it has garnered the country a new label: the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian.

Open Doors USA, a persecution watchdog group, just released a brand-new report, where it ranks countries for their persecution and oppression against Christians, and for the first time in two decades, North Korea has been displaced from the top position. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan has quickly risen to number one – a rare instance where taking first place should bring about shame and result in international intervention. 

Even Nigeria, where we’ve told you Christians are gunned down, Christian schoolchildren are brazenly abducted at gunpoint by the hundreds, and Christian pastors have been beheaded, only reached number seven on the persecution list.

We would prefer to say this is somehow surprising, but we told you from the beginning how President Biden’s abandonment of Christians, helpless women and children, and even stranded U.S. citizens in Afghanistan would play out. When Biden’s botched withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan allowed the Taliban to once again seize power, the end result was, is, and always will be horrific violence and death, regardless of their empty promises of amnesty.

The Taliban is a cold-blooded terrorist organization, but they know how to smile for news cameras and claim it’s a new day and they will show compassion. But only the truly naïve or foolish would believe them. The news reports coming out of Afghanistan paint a very clear picture that the new Taliban is no different from the bloodthirsty, violent Taliban that ruled before.  And President Biden should have known that.

In fact, while President Biden claimed that no one could have predicted that the hasty removal of our troops would cause Afghanistan to descend into chaos, we know he was warned prior to the withdrawal.

That is why we submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Biden State Department, Department of National Intelligence, Department of Defense, and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), demanding answers regarding the Biden evacuation plan from Afghanistan and how it became such a catastrophe.

Our FOIA specifically highlighted the dangerous environment that Biden’s failure had created for women and Christians in Afghanistan:

The Taliban has a hit list of known Christians they are targeting to pursue and kill. The US Embassy is defunct and there is no longer a safe place for believers to take refuge. All borders to neighboring countries are closed and all flights to and from have been halted, with the exception of private planes. People are fleeing into the mountains looking for asylum. They are fully reliant on God, who is the only One who can and will protect them.

The Taliban are going door-to-door taking women and children. The people must mark their house with an “X” if they have a girl over 12 years old, so that the Taliban can take them. If they find a young girl and the house was not marked, they will execute the entire family. If a married woman 25 years or older has been found, the Taliban promptly kill her husband, do whatever they want to her, and then sell her as a sex slave.

But as we reported, the Biden Administration has chosen to ignore our FOIA, preferring that the world would just move on and forget about the nightmare the President’s actions in Afghanistan created. We were left with no other choice but to file a lawsuit against President Biden, citing violation of the Freedom of Information Act. Biden’s refusal to cooperate with our FOIA request forced our hand to involve the federal court system to get to the truth.

This new “most dangerous country” designation should be a wake-up call to the world that innocent Christians in Afghanistan are in very real danger. President Biden might want to turn a blind eye, but we cannot. Our Christian brothers and sisters are facing genocidal persecution.

We've expanded our global efforts to save dying Christians. I personally delivered an emergency video intervention to the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC), and our next critical HRC submission deadline is looming. 

We also filed our federal lawsuit against FOUR Biden Agencies over their abandonment of Christians. Their deadline was last week, but the Biden Administration asked the court for more time to respond.

Frankly, Mr. President, Afghan Christians don’t have any more time. They need assistance and protection NOW.