A spiritual freedom activist warns that the Assyrian Christian community within the Middle East “doesn’t have a probability of survival” and offered sharp words of criticism on the sixth annual International Religious Freedom Summit, saying “the West has repeatedly failed Assyrian Christians.”
During a Monday panel discussion titled “Voices from Underreported Religious Communities Caught Amid Conflict,” experts discussed the dire state of spiritual freedom in several countries and pleaded for help from the United States, Western countries and supranational organizations just like the United Nations.
Karmella Borashan of the Assyrian International Council spoke concerning the plight of Assyrian Christians, which she noted dates back to the autumn of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and the following Syrian Civil War.
“Ever since, Assyrians faced systematic, subtle persecution from each 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 after were very thriving, they continue to be largely empty.”
“In Iraq, they face violent attack by Islamist extremists,” she added. “Assyrian archeological sites greater than 3,000 years [old] are being vandalized.”
Borashan lamented the existence of “minority laws” that “forcibly convert children to Islam.” She insists that Assyrian Christians do “not have a probability of survival.”
“Christianity is fading from the Middle East and [Christians] are placed within the mercy of the perpetrators,” Borashan detailed. “Once we had 1.5 million Christians, now we’ve got only lower than 300,000 left.”
The activist proclaimed that what the Middle East needs “is pluralism to bring the inspiration of democracy.”
“Assyrian Christians were once a thriving and integral a part of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey, respected members of society with a Christian faith of greater than 2,000 years when Jesus got here,” she said. “They have a history of greater than 6,000 years. The West has repeatedly failed Assyrian Christians within the Middle East, abandoning them to the distinguished powers which have persecuted and massacred them for generations.”
Sudan
Kamal Fahmi of the advocacy group Set My People Free detailed the challenges facing religious minorities in Sudan, a rustic gripped by a civil war since 2003. Sudan ranks because 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.
“We have quite quite a lot of victims who were executed or killed by their community because they left Islam,” Fahmi said. “Most of the time, they’ve to depart the country to go someplace else. And also once they leave the country, sadly enough, even inside the U.N. system, they don’t get relocation easily.”
“Now with the insecurity, with the coup of the military, with the fighting of the 2 factions, ex-Muslims are very vulnerable,” he warned. “And sadly enough, this will not be realized internationally, and no one is working to actually stop this. And they give the impression of being at this as an inconceivable law which can’t be modified. And we’ve got many individuals [who] are suffering.”
While a civilian government took shape in 2019, Fahmi lamented that a military coup “took away these freedoms again.” The war has resulted in “14 million displaced people,” he said, including 10 million who’ve been displaced inside the country and 4 million who’ve been displaced outside the country.
“Even the U.N. will not be in a position to help the displaced people in other countries and contained in the country because they don’t have finance. So many persons are facing hunger, but no one’s talking about it,” he explained. “Today, Sudan is suffering, and the world is quiet. There is quite a bit about other countries, but Sudan will not be mentioned, and even for relocation of individuals, it’s very difficult.”
Yemen
Keyvan Ghaderi of the Baha’is of Yemen described how he was arrested for his beliefs in Yemen in 2008 and released after 4 months.
“In prison, our faith was tested like … never before,” he stated. “The majority of the inmates had never heard of the Baha’i faith.”
“At first, they called us infidels and treated us with suspicion and disdain. They refused to discuss with us or share food with us. Over time, nonetheless, a few of them insisted on eating and … talking to us to interrupt down the prison rules,” he added. “Religious freedom and equal citizenship usually are not abstract ideas. They are foundations of [a] just and harmonious society. For Yemen, these principles usually are not only urgent but essential for healing and rebuilding a nation torn apart by conflict and division.”
Open Doors, which ranks Yemen because the third worst country for Christian persecution, states that dangers facing religious minorities in Yemen “proceed to escalate amid an unrelenting tide of conflict, extremism and economic collapse.” Yemen doesn’t allow non-Islamic groups to register formally, and non-Muslim places of worship haven’t been authorized for years, the group notes.
“Discovery as a Christian might be deadly because in Yemen apostasy is legally punishable by death,” Open Doors explains. “Believers can even suffer in other ways, including divorce and separation from their children. Yemen’s fragmented, weak rule of law only increases the hazards facing Christians.”
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