In the run up to Easter the US government ordered Afghan Christians awaiting asylum decisions to leave the USA.

Afghanistan was among a number of countries now declared to be “safe” by Department for Homeland Security.  Consequently, Afghans, including Afghan Christians, were told that their Temporary Protected Status, which allows them to stay in the USA while their asylum claim is processed was being ended – and they must leave the country within days.

One of the worst countries for persecution of Christians

Afghanistan is in fact, one of the worst countries in the world to be a Christian in. Not only does it almost uniquely stand out by having not a single one of the 10 aspects of Freedom of religion, its laws decree execution for anyone who is deemed to have left Islam. 

That doesn’t just include converts from Islam – of whom there are several thousand thought to be currently hiding in Afghanistan, moving from place to place in daily fear of their lives. Because the post 9/11 government never officially recognised the existence of Afghan Christians, the Taliban deem all Afghan Christians to be converts from Islam, even if they are second, third or even fourth-generation Christians…

That means that Afghan Christians are in a far more vulnerable situation than Christian minorities in Iraq and Syria were under Islamic State who had dhimmi status imposed on them.  Dhimmitude is a non-citizen status whereby Christians and Jews as “People of the Book” are granted permission “to live” provided they keep a strict set of rules. Its closest modern parallel is the Nuremberg decrees which the Nazis imposed on the Jews in 1935. 

However, Afghan Christians do not even have the option of dhimmitude– because they have never been recognised by any Afghan government – so it’s just forced conversion back to Islam or execution.

The apostasy law

Even under the western backed government which existed in Afghanistan between 2001-21 for an Afghan to become a Christian was a capital offence. The Afghan Criminal Code began by stating that it only dealt with taz’ir offences, those for which there was no specific penalty set out in the Qur’an or Hadith. While those for which there was – known as hudud offences were to judged by the shari’a of the Hanafi school. 

This decrees execution for any sane adult man who leaves Islam, with women imprisoned for life and children likewise until they are old enough for the adult penalty to be applied. That’s why even under the previous western backed government Afghan Christian Abdul Rahman was arrested and sentenced to execution. It was in fact, one of the greatest failures of the twenty years of western intervention in Afghanistan that converting from Islam to Christianity remained a capital offence.

However, under the Taliban life has got immeasurably worse for Afghan Christians. A year ago the Taliban annulled the constitution and all existing laws, announcing it was drafting new laws to enforce shari’a. Then in August it announced a new law which actually banned any action which was not specifically Islamic, even traditional children’s games were banned. It also gave sweeping new powers to religious police to enter houses, search mobile phones and computers for anything non-Islamic.

The risks of being suspected of even communicating with a non-Muslim make it incredibly difficult to get hard facts out of Afghanistan, but there are multiple reports of Afghan Christians being arrested and some being killed.

Risk of total religious cleansing

Whilst no one actually knows how many Afghan Christians there are, credible estimates range between 7,500 and 12,000. However, in the midst of the chaos caused by the Taliban’s seizure of power in August 2021 Christian agencies, such as our friends at Help the Persecuted managed to rescue around 750 Afghan Christians using specially chartered planes, many of whom arrived in the USA as refugees. Many more were unable to get out as the Taliban closed the borders. Christians in Afghanistan live in hiding, often moving from house to house every few weeks to avoid arrest.

Yet, there also appears to be a debate within the Taliban as to whether or not to immediately “religiously cleanse” Afghanistan of its entire non-Muslim population. Since the flight of almost the entire Hindu and Sikh population who only a generation ago numbered quarter of a million, this now principally consists of Afghan Christians. More pragmatic voices within the Taliban who want western government recognition and assistance appear to be urging a more cautious approach. This probably explains why the Taliban appear to be currently mainly arresting and imprisoning Afghan Christians, although some have almost certainly been killed in custody.

Add into this mix the fact that al-Qaeda have now returned to Afghanistan and are coaching the government. Then factor in that the Taliban are themselves facing an insurgency from Islamic State in Afghanistan, who claim the Taliban are not being strict enough in their application of shari’a – and you begin to get some sense of how delicate the balance is within the Taliban which prevents a complete religious cleansing of Afghan Christians.

So, anything could tip that balance…

The public deportation of Afghan Christians from the USA could force the Taliban into a trickle of public executions of Afghan Christians which could quickly turn into full bloodied religious cleansing as they seek to demonstrate that they are strictly enforcing the shari’a penalty for apostasy.

Now would be a very good time for the US government to pause, reflect and row back on this decision. 

Please pray for Afghan Christians...