FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 03 August 2026

LINDISFARNE CENTRE ISSUES MAJOR REPORT

Five years after the Taliban seized Kabul they are inflicting crimes against humanity on Afghan Christians and thousands are at imminent risk of genocide

15 August 2026 will be five years since the Taliban seized Kabul.

Thousands of Afghan Christians are in hiding constantly moving from place to place in fear of their lives.

The Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution is releasing a 125 page report on what is happening to Afghan Christians – this will be the most detailed report any organisation has ever published on Afghan Christians.

The Taliban have passed laws removing all 10 aspects of Freedom of Religion from Afghanistan. This includes banning all religious and even Afghan cultural practices which are not specifically Islamic.

AFGHAN CHRISTIANS ARE BEING SUBJECTED TO CRIMES AGAINAT HUMANITY

Afghan Christians are currently suffering crimes against humanity including arrest and imprisonment simply for being Christians and being subjected to multiple forms of torture including beatings, electric shocks, burnings, suffocation, simulated drowning, sexual violence and mock executions.  Some have been extra-judicially killed by the Taliban.

The Taliban are also judicially executing people for apostasy and blasphemy.

AFGHAN CHRISTIANS ARE NOW AT RISK OF GENOCIDE

There is clear evidence of the intention to commit genocide:

The Taliban seek to implement the teaching of the Hedaya - a textbook on shari’a which has been taught in Afghan madrassas for centuries. This requires

-            Execution within 3 days for any sane adult male who converts to Christianity

-            Life imprisonment and regular beating for any female convert to Christianity.

-            Children and young people who convert to Christianity imprisoned until they reach adulthood when the adult penalty is applied.

The Taliban have spent the last 5 years checking people’s phones and downloading contacts building up a large database on Afghan Christians

There is currently a power struggle within the Taliban – ordinary Taliban appear to want the immediate execution of Afghan Christians, while some of the senior Taliban leaders appear to be delaying this in the hope of gaining the kudos of recognition as a legitimate government by the west first i.e. before they start large scale killings of Christians.

Almost all of the non-Muslim minorities who existed in Afghanistan before the Taliban’s first came to power in 1996, including at least 200,000 Hindus and Sikhs and the remaining Jewish population, have now fled because of the Taliban.

Afghan Christians are now the ONLY significant size non-Muslim minority in Afghanistan and they face religious cleansing and the imminent prospect of genocide.

Afghan Christians are uniquely vulnerable as, unlike other religious minorities, their existence was never publicly recognised by any recent Afghan government. As such the Taliban regard ALL Afghan Christians as converts from Islam deserving the shari’a punishment for apostasy – even if they are second, third or even fourth generation Christians.

COMMENT

Dr Martin Parsons, CEO of the Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution and the report’s lead author commented:

“It seems that the only thing holding the Taliban back from a total religious cleansing of Afghan Christians, is the fear among some senior Taliban that this could jeopardise their hope of gaining the kudos of western countries recognising their government”

“If western nations were to recognise the Taliban they would no longer have any real leverage over them and there would be nothing stop them engaging in a mass killing of Aghan Christians.”

For interviews

Dr Martin Parsons, CEO the Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution

07980 131576  

www.christianpersecution.co.uk

Download report

HERE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 23 OCT 2025

UK government’s terror de-proscription of HTS puts Christians in Syria – and around the world at risk 

NB the UK government de-proscription of HTS is NOT YET being reported by the BBC

23 October 2025 – The UK government’s decision to remove Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the terrorist list to enable closer engagement with Syria’s new government raises serious concerns for Syria’s Christian minority, as well as other Christians facing jihadist attacks around the world

HTS, seized Damascus in December 2024 and now governs under former al-Qaeda leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, who has been installed as President. Since seizing power forces under HTS control have carried out targeted killings of Alawites, Druze and some Christians. While the government is seeking to spin itself to the west as a “moderate force” who can help it fight its bitter rival Islamic state, its own actions show it is itself creating an authoritarian Islamist state.

The seizure of Syria’s government by a jihadist organisation not only sent shock waves around the Middle East, but has massively emboldened jihadists elsewhere who target Christians – any de facto recognition by a western government will further embolden them.

The UK government

1.      23 October 2025 – The UK government’s decision this week to follow the lead of the Trump administration and remove Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the terrorism list raises serious concerns for Syria’s Christian minority and regional stability in the Middle East, as well as potentially having a wider impact on Christian minorities around the world.

2.      HTS is still listed as a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UN and other western countries such as Australia. The ONLY governments to officially de-proscribe it are the US (July) and now UK.

HTS

3.      HTS, led by Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa seized Damascus in December 2024, having till then governed Idlib province, where they had closed churches, seized Christian property, instituted shari’a courts and brutally suppressed any expression of dissent.

4.      Al-Sharaa was sent to Syria by al-Qaeda in 2011 to establish their local branch, the al-Nusra Front, which later merged with other jihadist organisations to form HTS. The al-Nusra Front are widely regarded as having been implicated in the April 2013 abduction of Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim, head of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Aleppo, and Bishop Boulos Yaziji, head of the Greek Orthodox Church. This was the event which kick-started the widespread targeting of Christians in Syria by jihadist groups, including Islamic State, which in 2017 the US State Department recognised as “genocide”.

5.      Since then forces under the control of HTS have carried out targeted killings of minorities –  almost 1,500 Alawites, Druze and a small number of Christians.  A Reuters investigation found these has been carried out by HTS forces including its Interior Ministry police force.      The day before the UK took the almost unprecedented step of deproscribing HTS, the Syrian government’s own envoy in Dubai resigned in protest at the ongoing “genocidal” massacres of Druze.

6. Al-Sharaa’s new government have been creating an authoritarian Islamist state including imposing a new constitution which gives wide ranging powers to the President with almost no checks and balances, as well as holding recent sham elections which left the President himself in effective control of parliament. 

7.      Since shortly before their Nov-Dec 2024 military offensive started HTS began carrying out a media offensive seeking to present themselves to the west as a “moderate” force who can help the west defeat their bitter rivals Islamic State.

8.      The HTS government in Syria desperately wants 2 things form the west. 1. The status of official recognition 2. Government aid money (NGOs already provide aid) as it knows without this people will quickly turn against it. These are the two major bits of leverage western countries have till now had over al-Sharaa’s government.

Syrian Christians

9.      The church in Syria has existed in Syria since New Testament Times (Acts15:23) and is possibly the world’s oldest continually existing church. Just over a decade , Syria’s Christian population was widely estimated at more than 2 million. Some published estimates now suggest it is less than 300,000.

10. Since HTS takeover of Syria in Dec Syrian Christians have been asking themselves whether they should stay or flee.

11. HTS present one image to the west and another to their supporters. Whilst HTS and al-Sharaa in particular have made statements to western media about tolerance of minorities, these carefully worded statements are quite capable of meaning the imposition of dhimmitude – the non-citizen status – which Islamic State imposed on Christians in Syria a decade ago.

Impact on Christians around the world

12. The seizure of government power by a jihadist organisation not only sent shock waves around middle eastern governments. It has also massively emboldened jihadists elsewhere who target Christians – official recognition by a western government will further embolden them.

13. BOTH Islamic State and Aa-Qaeda are resurgent and a major threat to Christian minorities in the Islamic world.

14. In 2023 the Lindisfarne Centre made news headlines with its report that al-Qaeda had returned to Afghanistan and were training suicide bombers – including the Pakistani Taliban who target Christians.

15. In July 2025 we reported on the resurgence of Islamic State in Africa who are brutally targeting Christians with multiple beheadings in sub-Sharan Africa.

FOR MEDIA INTERVIEWS

Dr Martin Parsons CEO, The Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution

   www.christianpersecution.co.uk 07980 131576