Iran claims to allow the country’s Christian minority to practice its faith in peace. The reality for many Iranian Christians, however, is plagued by whippings, arrests, imprisonment, surveillance and harassment, according to a February report from the religious freedom NGO Article 18. 

One shocking finding of the Article 18 40-page study, titled ‘Faceless Victims: Rights Violations Against Christians in Iran,’ states, ‘By the end of 2023, at least 17 of the Christians arrested during the summer had received prison sentences of between three months and five years, or non-custodial punishments such as fines, flogging, and in one case the community-service of digging graves.’

The report noted, ‘Despite a comparable number of Christians being arrested in 2023 as in previous years – 166 arrests were documented in 2023, compared to 134 in 2022 – fewer names and faces could be publicized.’

Rev. Johnnie Moore, the president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, told Fox News Digital, ‘The Department of State’s absolutely insane policy toward the Islamic Republic, which is wreaking havoc worldwide, also has real life-and-death consequences for the people in Iran. The mullahs presently feel they have a license to kill whoever they want and no one will do anything. So more people are being captured and killed and the terrorist leaders of the Islamic Republic particularly lust for the blood of women and Christians. ‘

Moore, an influential evangelical leader, explained that Iran’s regime persecutes Christians ‘Because these mullahs fear the power and resolve of Iranian women, and they know that Iranian Christians, who only fear God, do not fear the ayatollah himself. The more the mullahs threaten, imprison and kill us, our movement just multiplies. No church in the world is growing, secretly, and faster than the Iranian church and Iran’s women look very much forward to the day when the world greets the first woman president of a free Iran.’

He continued, ‘I predict she and her cabinet, inclusive of evangelical Christians, the Baha’i and others, will make their maiden international trip to Jerusalem and Washington. The mullahs want to kill us for one reason: they know we are winning. It would be nice to have more help from the State Department but it isn’t required.’

A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital, ‘The persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in Iran is longstanding and well documented. The U.S. continues to condemn these actions and use all the tools at our disposal to address such egregious violations.’

The spokesperson added, ‘The Department’s most recent Report on International Religious Freedom in Iran notes, ‘Officials continued to disproportionately arrest, detain, harass, and surveil Christians, particularly evangelicals and other converts from Islam, according to Christian NGOs.’’

When Fox News Digital asked if the State Department will impose new human rights sanctions on Iran’s regime for the persecution of Christians, the spokesperson said, ‘While the Department does not preview sanctions, Iran has been designated as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ and imposed Presidential Actions under the International Religious Freedom Act for having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom every year since 1999.’

The raw violence used by Iran’s theocratic state against Iranian Christians was documented in the Article 18 report. Ali Kazemian said his interrogators ‘discovered that I had a metal implant in my left leg from an historic break’ and ‘for this reason, one of the agents kicked my left leg several times. Then they put me on a chair, tied my hands together, and the interrogator said: ‘You are now in an electric chair’… Then they violently punched me several times.’

He said the security forces threatened him, declaring: ‘We’ll harm your wife and children!… We’ll bring your wife to the interrogation room and strip her naked in front of everyone, to see if you can really resist and stay quiet!’

Iran’s regime has targeted all forms of Christianity for persecution, including Protestants and the arrest of Catholics.

Article 18, which published the report in collaboration with Open Doors, Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Middle East Concern, said there might be as many 800,000 Christians in Iran. The report extrapolated the number 800,000 based on a ‘A survey of Iranians’ attitudes toward religion in 2020, conducted by a secular Netherlands-based research group, revealed that 1.5% of Iranians from a sample size of 50,000 self-identified as Christians.’

The report was published on Feb. 19 to draw attention to the 45th anniversary of the Iranian regime’s brutal execution of Anglican pastor Arastoo Sayyah in his church in Shiraz, a mere eight days after the Islamic Revolution. Sayyah was the first Christian murdered by the regime.

Sheina Vojoudi, an Iranian Christian who fled the Islamic Republic, told Fox News Digital, Christianity in Iran is classified under political-security crimes, Despite this, more and more Iranians are converting to Christianity every day. Christianity is considered by the Islamic Republic in Iran as a Western religion and works against the Islamic Republic.’

Vojoudi, who is an associate fellow for the U.S.-based Gold Institute for International Strategy, added, ‘The persecution and killing of the Christians started after the occupation of Iran by the Islamic Regime and since then the Islamic Republic has murdered at least 15 Iranian pastors.’

According to Vojoudi, Iran’s regime ramped up its persecution of the struggling Christian community following the Green revolution movement in 2009 against the widely documented fraudulent election of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

‘The regime in Iran increased the persecutions and arrests due to fear of its downfall and that, of course, doesn’t exclude the Christians in Iran,’ Vojoudi said.

She said, ‘The regime burned 300 Persian Bibles and seized 650 Bibles and until today having a Persian Bible is a crime. A prohibition on preaching in Persian in the churches was announced by the intelligence organizations.’

Vojoudi converted to Christianity and fled to Germany due to religious persecution. Article 18’s report stated, ‘Christian converts from Islam are numerically the largest Christian community in Iran, but they are not recognized by the state and are frequently targeted by the authorities and, in some cases, by their extended families and society. ‘

Vojoudi said, ‘I used to go to a church near this cathedral church in Tehran, of course secretly. This church was open to the public, but I forgot on which days, but is extremely under [the] watch of the regime.

‘The picture of [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic regime, sits right next to the church, means that they watch everyone, and they have no respect for other religions.’

Article 18 wrote, ‘With converts constituting the largest – albeit unrecognized – Christian community in Iran, the issue of ‘apostasy’ is a central concern… a Christian convert was sentenced to be hanged for apostasy in 2010, the charge of apostasy and death sentence were overturned in response to international pressure, but many converts have since been threatened with a similar fate upon arrest and during interrogations.’ 

The dire fate of Iranian Christians has forced them to organize house churches as part of an underground movement.

Vojoudi said Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, declared in a speech the ‘importance of confronting the house churches and provoked his followers against the Christians by claiming that the house churches are created by the ‘enemies of Islam’ and must be stopped.’

Article 18 listed a number of demands for the international community, including that foreign nations urge Iran ‘to ensure and facilitate freedom of religion or belief for all its citizens’ and ‘highlighting human rights infractions during bilateral and multilateral dialogues with Iran.’

Fox News Digital sent numerous press queries to Iran’s U.N. mission and its Foreign Ministry in Tehran.

Former President Trump attacked his Republican opponent Nikki Haley on Saturday, claiming that former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is ‘a little bit’ smarter than her.

Trump addressed an enthusiastic crowd in Richmond, Virginia on Saturday night, days before the Super Tuesday votes are scheduled to take place. 

Earlier on Saturday, Trump won the Idaho, Missouri, and Michigan Republican contests. Speaking to a crowd of supporters in the evening, the former president lamented about media coverage of his statements referring to President Biden as ‘President Obama.’

Trump maintained that he refers to Biden as ‘Obama’ intentionally. He also acknowledged that he has mixed up Haley, who he calls ‘Birdbrain,’ with Pelosi.

‘I purposely mix up a name, like Birdbrain… you know who Birdbrain is, right, Nikki, with Nancy Pelosi,’ he began.

‘I put them in because they’re interchangeable in my mind,’ Trump added. ‘Except I have to say, I shouldn’t say this about a semi-Republican, but I think Pelosi’s probably a little bit smarter, actually.’

In January, Haley said that Trump was not ‘mentally fit’ for office after he referred to Pelosi as Haley during a speech.

‘Last night Trump is at a rally and he’s going on and on, mentioning me multiple times as to why I didn’t take security during the Capitol riots. Why I didn’t handle Jan. 6 better. I wasn’t even in D.C. on Jan. 6. I wasn’t in office then,’ Haley said during a January rally in Keene, New Hampshire.

‘They’re saying he got confused, that he was talking about something else, he’s talking about Nancy Pelosi. He mentioned me multiple times in that scenario.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Haley campaign for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson contributed to this report.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan wrote a letter to Alphabet, Google’s parent company, on Saturday, demanding the company explain what influence the Biden administration may have had on its controversial Gemini AI program. 

The Judiciary Committee asked for documents on the creation and deployment of the artificial intelligence chatbot. 

‘The Committee is investigating how and to what extent the Executive Branch has coerced or colluded with Big Tech and other intermediaries to censor Americans’ speech,’ the House Judiciary Committee said in a Saturday news release. 

Gemini has faced backlash after it reportedly showed historical figures like George Washington appearing wrongfully as Black and a search for a ‘pope’ prompting a Black woman in Vatican garb. White Supremacist Nazis also were not White. 

The chatbot also wasn’t sure whether Adolf Hitler or Elon Musk was a worse influence on society. 

A week ago, Google admitted to Fox News Digital that a failure by its AI chatbot to outright condemn pedophilia is both ‘appalling and inappropriate’ and a spokesperson vowed changes. 

‘Recent reporting alleges that the Executive Branch, most notably the Biden White House, may have influenced the development of Alphabet’s Gemini AI model,’ Jordan’s letter to Alphabet said. ‘On October 30, 2023, President Biden issued an Executive Order on the ‘Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence,’ which claimed to serve as an overarching guide to how the Biden Administration will approach issues like AI development and deployment.’

Jordan added that a report from Google’s Gemini Team said the tool was evaluated by external groups, ‘which were selected based on their alignment with the Biden White House Executive Order and ’White House Commitments’’ and the company ‘claimed that it worked with these external groups ‘to help identify areas for improvement,’ including ‘societal risk,’ such as alleged ‘representational harms.’’

Jordan’s letter said the ‘improvements’ to Gemini showed its ‘clear bias.’ 

He added that reporting has suggested that Jack Krawczyk, who leads the Gemini program, and Jen Gennai, the Director of Google’s Responsible Innovation team, ‘expressed significant racial and political bias.’

He continued, ‘Given that Alphabet has censored First Amendment-protected speech as a result of government agencies’ requests and demands in the past, the Committee is concerned about potential First Amendment violations that have occurred with respect to Alphabet’s Gemini model.’

Fox News Digital has reached out to Google and Jordan for comment.

JERUSALEM — Over the last two years, since Russian forces invaded Ukraine, countries around the world have stepped up to help more than 6.5 million Ukrainian nationals flee the ongoing fighting.

In Syria, during 13 years of civil war, more than 12 million forcibly displaced civilians managed to leave the war-torn country, resettling in the region and beyond. In Afghanistan, where the radical Islamist Taliban group returned to power in 2021, more than 2.6 million people are now spread out across the globe. 

The number of people in need of permanent refuge or at least some respite from the ongoing unrest continues to rise, according to data provided by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

And while countries around the world, including the U.S., continue to offer some of them a safe haven, there is no such escape for an estimated 1.9 million Palestinians who have been displaced and are suffering after nearly five months of war between Israel and the militant terror group Hamas. 

The mere suggestion of relocating these desperate men, women and children, even temporarily, just a few miles beyond the borders of the Palestinian enclave has been sharply criticized and quickly dismissed.

On Oct. 7, thousands of Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, murdering some 1,200 people and kidnapping 240, triggering an Israeli ground and air offensive that Hamas officials now say has killed more than 30,000 Gazans.

Since then, even countries sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, including nearby Arab nations, have refused to offer any sort of refuge to Gaza civilians.

‘Palestinians are the only people in the world where relocation is not even considered.’

In fact, Egypt, which borders the Strip to the south, has bolstered its border fence and deployed additional troops in the event Palestinians in search of respite and aid might attempt to enter its territory.

In Europe, Thomas Corbett-Dillon, a U.S. based political commentator and former adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, told Fox News Digital the unwillingness to provide refuge to Gazan civilians was mainly due to past waves of refugees and migrants, ‘particularly Muslims who have failed to assimilate into our culture,’ he claimed.

‘The European appetite for accepting refugees is over,’ Corbett Dillon said, adding that recent polling in the U.K. and across Europe ‘consistently shows the vast majority do not want any more refugees.’

Corbett Dillon said the rejection of Palestinian refugees was less due to anti-Israel bias and more based on an overall rejection of opening doors to further immigration, including both those escaping war and those searching for better economic opportunities.

‘We saw it in Syria and in Ukraine, but only in Gaza the refugee organizations are unwilling to give people who want to move out the option.’

<!–>

‘Europe is struggling,’ he said. ‘Flooding the continent with people who will take more out of the system than they put in will only make the European crisis worse.’

For Arab states, the refusal to even discuss offering Palestinians from Gaza refuge is more personal. 

‘The Palestinian record in Arab countries has not been one of behaving guests, which has made Arab countries reluctant to take in any number of them from Gaza,’ explained Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. 

He noted that Palestinians relocating to Arab countries in the past created friction and even sparked conflict, such as in Jordan, where Palestinian armed factions tried to topple the government, or Lebanon, where Palestinian terrorists drew Israel into multiple wars. 

‘We are not taking part in forced displacement,’ UNRWA spokesperson 

–>

In addition, Abdul-Hussain said that for most Arab leaders, it would be ‘politically toxic’ to urge Palestinians to leave the coastal enclave – even if it meant sparing their lives.

‘No Arab official wants to be seen as the one who called on Palestinians to surrender their territory to the Israeli army,’ he said. ‘Prioritizing land over a good life for Palestinians has been at the heart of the problem and of Palestinian misery.’

Abdul-Hussain said that while many countries and activists are calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, they hold back from calling for lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians because they want ‘the Palestinians to prevail over Israel.’

‘Getting Palestinian civilians out of harm’s way weakens the position of Hamas and allows a quicker Israeli victory,’ he said. ‘The international community deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along the lines of a theoretical framework that is devoid of reality, suggesting that the solution is territory, regardless of the interests of Palestinians.’ 

‘The global model is inefficient and perpetuates the conflict, including making hereditary Palestinian ‘refugee’ status,’ said Abdul-Hussain, referring to UNRWA, the U.N. agency dedicated to servicing Palestinian refugees. 

‘On a per capita basis, Palestinian ‘refugees’ receive more global attention and resources than all other displaced persons on the planet,’ he said. ‘This global generosity has transformed humanitarian aid and agencies into an industry in which many have vested interests and want to see them continue.’

Abdul-Hussain pointed out that the U.N., which works successfully to resettle refugees from all other conflicts, could have set up a temporary camp for Gazans in Sinai, the sparsely populated Egyptian territory. 

‘The U.N. seems unwilling to impose such a decision on Egypt,’ he said, noting that the international body has also held back from pressuring Hamas into surrendering, another way that could ‘spare further Gazan and Israeli deaths. …. The only pressure the U.N. decided to apply is on Israel. If this is not bias, I don’t know what is.’

When asked by Fox News Digital if UNRWA had considered or discussed assisting Gazans who might want to leave the Strip, even temporarily for the duration of the fighting, Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications, responded sharply.

‘We are not taking part in forced displacement,’ she said. 

‘There is very little trust that the Israeli government would eventually allow displaced Palestinians to return to Gaza’

<!–>

Israel has long said that UNRWA’s unprecedented approach to helping Palestinian refugees only serves to perpetuate the decades-old intractable conflict between the two. Instead of finding a permanent solution, the agency, which was initially established to provide shelter, welfare and health services to some 750,000 Palestinians displaced when Israel was created in 1948, continues to add refugees. 

Today, it works with more than 5.9 million Palestinian refugees, descendants of the original group, in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, as well as in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. 

With clear evidence that individuals employed by UNRWA participated in the Oct. 7 atrocities against Israel, Israeli officials have been ramping up their calls to disband the agency and create a new entity to help Palestinian refugees or have them fall under the broader UNHCR umbrella. 

‘Egypt is the one that controls the border with the Gaza Strip, not Israel, so no one will block them from returning home whenever they want to.’

–>

‘The world has a legal obligation under international law to protect Palestinian civilians from forced displacement, indiscriminate harm, collective punishment and atrocity crimes,’ Jeremy Konyndyk, president of U.S.-based Refugees International, told Fox News Digital. 

Konyndyk said few countries were likely to help Gazans leave without a credible guarantee they would be able to return to the Strip one day.

‘No country in the region wants to be seen as facilitating ethnic cleansing, which would be the perception in many countries,’ Konyndyk said. ‘The goal of providing refuge for people fleeing extreme violence should not be permanent relocation but to provide temporary protection until conflict ends.

‘There is very little trust that the Israeli government would eventually allow displaced Palestinians to return to Gaza, hence the lack of enthusiasm for taking in Palestinian refugees from this conflict.’ 

A senior Israeli government official told Fox News Digital that claims of ethnic cleansing by Israel in Gaza were false and hypocritical.

‘In every situation of war and conflict there are people who wish to leave,’ said the official, who spoke anonymously due to the sensitivity of the situation. ‘We saw it in Syria and in Ukraine, but only in Gaza the refugee organizations are unwilling to give people who want to move out the option.’

‘Palestinians are the only people in the world where relocation is not even considered,’ the official said. ‘I am sure there are many in Gaza who would be willing to start a new life somewhere else.’

The official pointed to around 1,000 Gazans with relatives in Canada who were recently given safe haven there and are already starting a new life.

‘More countries could offer that to the people in Gaza, but instead the majority will stay there, with the world stopping them from leaving,’ said the government official, who also rejected claims refugees from the Strip would not eventually be able to return once the war ends.

‘Egypt is the one that controls the border with the Gaza Strip, not Israel, so no one will block them from returning home whenever they want to,’ the official said. 

Nikki Haley on Friday received endorsements from two of the GOP’s most moderate senators in Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. 

Collins, who previously voted to convict then-President Trump in his impeachment trial in which he was acquitted, revealed Friday that she voted for Haley in Maine’s primary this week, calling her ‘extremely well-qualified.’

‘She has the energy, intellect, and temperament that we need to lead our country in these very tumultuous times,’ she said, according to the Bangor Daily News. 

On Friday, Murkowski also threw her support behind the former South Carolina governor, saying she was ‘proud’ to endorse her. 

Collins and Murkowski are the only senators to endorse Haley as the rest of the party has coalesced behind Trump, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, from Haley’s home state. 

‘We need a president who sees Americans as one American family, and that’s why I came to the very warm state of New Hampshire to endorse the next president of the United States, President Donald Trump,’ Scott said in January. 

Haley has yet to win a primary or caucus, having most recently lost South Carolina 39% to Trump’s 59%.

Still, the 52-year-old has refused to drop out of the race, insisting Republicans need another option besides Trump.

She also claimed last week that Trump would not be able to beat President Biden in the general election.  

‘Donald Trump will not win the general election. You can have him win any primary you want, he will not win a general election,’ she told CNN last Friday. ‘We will have a female President of the United States: It will either be me or it will be Kamala Harris. But if Donald Trump is the nominee, you can mark my words, he will not win a general election.’

President Biden appeared to mix up Ukraine and Gaza while talking about the war-torn regions in a bilateral Oval Office meeting with Italy’s prime minister Friday. 

‘Today, I also, we’re going to discuss the Middle East and yesterday’s tragic and alarming event in north Gaza, trying to get humanitarian in there and the loss of life is heartbreaking,’ the president said, referring to the dozens killed there Thursday, when humanitarian aid trucks came under fire. He had previously mentioned passing legislation in support of Ukraine.

He continued on Gaza, ‘People are so desperate that innocent people got caught in a terrible war to feed their families. And you saw the response when they tried to get aid. And we need to do more. And the United States will do more in the coming days. We’re going to join with our friends in Jordan and others in providing airdrops of, additional food and supplies into Ukraine and, seek to continue to open up other avenues in the Ukraine, including the possibility of a marine corridor, deliver large amounts of humanitarian assistance in addition to expanding deliveries by land.’

He added that the U.S. would ‘insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need. No excuses. The truth is, aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough.’ 

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni spoke briefly, and they didn’t take any questions from reporters in the room. 

The mix-up is Biden’s latest gaffe. Last month he appeared to confuse NATO with Ukraine while talking to reporters in Delaware, and he also mixed up the presidents of Mexico and Egypt earlier last month. 

The 81-year-old’s mental fitness has been under scrutiny since Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on the president’s mishandling of classified documents last month said he had a ‘poor memory.’ 

‘We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,’ Hur wrote in the report, explaining that the president would not face any charges. 

Former President Trump, the Republican frontrunner, has also had his share of gaffes, most recently in January appearing to confuse opponent Nikki Haley for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.