The UK Home Office’s Independent Advisory Group on Country Information issued guidance in August to staff assessing applications for asylum from Syria which disturbingly makes no reference whatsoever to Christians.
This is despite the fact that it is now widely accepted that Christians in Syria are facing genocide. Instead the guidance simply asks staff assessing asylum claims to ask: ‘if the person’s fear is of serious harm or persecution on the basis of actual or perceived support for the Assad regime / rebel groups, the onus will be on that person to establish that they are unable to obtain sufficient protection from that regime / group’.
Based on Islamic law
Christians in Syria are targeted by Islamist groups. When their towns and villages have been captured they are subject to summary execution, forced conversion, enslavement, enforced dhimmitude (subjugated, non-citizen status) and religious cleansing. These are not random acts of violence; they are directly based on Islamic shari’a law.
