IDC In the News

Op-Ed by IDC Executive Director Philippe Nassif.

NBC News Interviews IDC Executive Director Philippe Nassif.

Op-Ed by IDC Human Rights Senior Advisor Ian Speir. “Last week, the State Department, led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, convened the first-ever “Ministerial to Advance…

Op-Ed by IDC Director of Government Relations Peter Burns: “After spending a week in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains meeting with local priests, victims of the Islamic State’s genocidal campaign, various Christian political parties, and refugee camp…

Philippe Nassif, executive director of In Defense of Christians, told Religion News Service that while some towns are policed by remaining residents or Yazidi or Christian militias, many are being guarded by the forces that…

Nassif discusses the situation of Christians in Myanmar.

Interview with IDC Executive Director Philippe Nassif. Philippe Nassif, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based human rights and advocacy organization In Defense of Christians, contends that reasons for Syrian Christian support of the Assad regime…

Iraq’s Christian population was devastated by the Islamic State in 2014. Two thirds of the approximately 1.5 million Christians who formerly inhabited Iraq either fled or were forced out by the violence, according to In…

Vice President Mike Pence announced two weeks ago that the United States would intensify efforts to deliver aid to Iraqi Christians. Last October, Pence told a conference hosted by the nonprofit In Defense of Christians that America “will work…

Pence has closely monitored USAID’s efforts since October, when he told the group In Defense of Christians that the administration will bypass “ineffective” programs run by the United Nations and redirect aid to religious minorities…

Philippe Nassif, executive director of the persecution advocacy charity In Defense of Christians and a supporter of the bill, told CP that Paul likely placed a hold on the measure because “language was added to…

In Defense of Christians (IDC), an organization pushing for religious freedom in the Middle East, reported that its website went down on Thursday around 10:30 a.m., with a Turkish flag periodically appearing on the site for several…

Last week, Tillis spoke at a briefing held by human rights groups on Capitol Hill and offered more detail about the types of paranoid claims being made by Turkish prosecutors in Brunson’s case. The day after the…

U.S. BBG’s Middle East Broadcasting Network also known as Al-Hurra TV (The free one) covers IDC’s Senate Briefing on Turkey’s human rights and religious freedom crisis.

In Defense of Christians which organized a debate in the Senate two days ago, accuses the Turkish authorities of hacking the organization.

Watch the entire video including an interview with IDC Executive Director Philippe Nassif.

WASHINGTON — The United States-based persecution advocacy nonprofit In Defense of Christians says its website, employees’ social media accounts and email accounts were hacked Thursday by someone they have good reason to believe was acting…

“The United States needs to thoroughly review relations with Turkey.”

According to In Defense of Christians — a nonprofit dedicated to protecting persecuted believers across the Middle East — over 65,000 people have been arrested since the government began its crackdown following the coup attempt…

The Executive Director of “In Defence of Christians,” Philippe Nassif, told CNA he is “concerned about Christian holy sites in Jerusalem being targeted by extremists on all sides.” “It is important that Christians feel free…

The university will also confer honorary degrees on four other immigrants who have made important contributions to the United States and their communities, including Toufic Baaklini, the president and board chairman of In Defense of…

Op-Ed by IDC Government and Policy Associate Peter Burns “The narrative of inevitable conflict is dangerous, but it shows the status quo cannot be maintained. War in Lebanon could cause fighting as vicious as the…

The Executive Director of In Defense of Christians explains why IDC supported the U.S.-led airstrike against the Syrian government and why he believes the Syrian Patriarchs condemned it. indefenseofchristians.org

Federal Legislators at U.S. Capitol Observance Press for President and Congress to Pursue Justice for Armenian Genocide  WASHINGTON—U.S. Senators and Representatives joined together Wednesday evening at a U.S. Capitol observance hosted by the Congressional Armenian…

Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian dictator responsible his nation’s unraveling and the destruction of such an ancient and religiously diverse land, is central to the most tragic tale of the modern Middle East. His recent decision…

The Armenian National Committee of America, as part of its continuing efforts to strengthen ties with Members of Congress working to safeguard Christians and other minorities across the Middle East, recently conferred in Washington with…

Contrary to conventional wisdom, supporting both Israel and Christians in the Middle East simultaneously are not mutually exclusive despite the recent moves of certain religious and political leaders, scholars say. Such was the perspective expressed…

“7 Days in Entebbe” recounts the events surrounding the 1976 hijacking of an Air France flight and capture of its Israeli passengers who were held for ransom in an attempt to force Israel to free…

Today, over 1 billion Christians worldwide celebrate the death and resurrection of their Savior Jesus Christ, remembering that Jesus was ridiculed and persecuted in his life. Celebrants this week should remember that their brothers and…

The extraordinary 2010 film Of Gods and Men, by the French director Xavier Beauvois, depicts the kidnapping and murder of nine Trappist monks in Algeria by Islamic fundamentalists in 1996. In one of its most…

Charges have been dropped against 11 of the 15 members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security team who were involved in the brutal beating of protesters on May 16 in front of the Turkish…

On Feb. 28, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation aimed at ending the U.S. military’s role in Yemen’s civil war unless Congress authorizes otherwise. Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Chris Murphy…

A new play about Iraqi Christian immigrants deals with the conflict between remembering and forgetting.

After talks with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan where he was made to explain and navigate the fallout from the Trump administration’s controversial decision last month to acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,…

The head of Israel’s Arab coalition party has vowed to boycott the flash visit by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, expected to arrive in Israel on Sunday evening. “We were asked if there’s a change in our position…

Vice President Pence arrives in Cairo Saturday morning as part of a Mideast trip that has been rescheduled and substantially changed since it was originally announced. He was supposed to travel in December, but the…

A former cabinet minister has called on the UK government to follow Donald Trump’s example and divert aid for the Middle East away from the United Nations and directly to persecuted religious groups on the…

The federal government has pledged $55 million in aid for religious and ethnic groups that have faced ISIS persecution in Iraq’s Ninewa Province, drawing praise from the Knights of Columbus, a supporter of humanitarian efforts…

The Trump administration has decided to steer humanitarian aid funding to Christian and other minority communities in Iraq, against the advice of some officials at the State Department and others at the United Nations, who…

Millions of dollars in U.S. assistance are now flowing to desperate Christian, Yazidi and other minority refugees in northern Iraq. It’s a fulfillment of Vice President Mike Pence’s promise last year to “stop funding ineffective…

In the wake of Vice President Mike Pence’s announcement last October that the United States government would provide direct aid to persecuted Iraqi Christians struggling to rebuild following the liberation of the Nineveh Plains, the…

The ability of Syria and Iraq’s minorities to rebuild their communities in the post-ISIS landscape will depend very much on the political situation in these countries, according to analyst Yousif Kalian. SINCE THE SYRIAN regime,…

The Trump administration has reached a deal with the United Nations’s (U.N.) international development agency to provide more funding for ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said…

When President Donald Trump announced in December he would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and call for the U.S. embassy to be moved there, some of his loudest cheerleaders were American evangelicals. Members…

As Israel has shot to the top of President Trump’s agenda, world leaders have looked for the perspective of one of Trump’s biggest and most reliable voting blocs. And Johnnie Moore, the White House’s evangelical…

Since the Syrian regime, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and U.S.-coalition airstrikes have driven ISIS out from its several strongholds, the heyday of the so-called caliphate is nearing its end. With Raqqa and Deir el-Zour in…

Iran is using its proven strategy of co-opting local militias to encroach on Iraq’s Christian heartland. The good news: the incursion is still reversible. In the past few weeks, Iraqi federal forces and the militias…

Before Islamic State militants attacked Karemlash in northern Iraq, Noeh Binoo, 13, was known as a champion marbles player in his hometown. He had a stash of over 6,000 marbles of many sizes and colors…

Christian leaders in the Middle East oppose U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The underlying issue is that Christians in the region side with the Palestinian cause against the Jewish state, on the whole….

CAIRO – 12 December 2017: After the American recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Wednesday, Arab and Islamic nations have held summits and urgent meetings to discuss mechanisms of responding to the…

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence met with Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda of Erbil on Monday to discuss the needs of Iraqi Christians who are looking to rebuild their homes and communities. Warda, who came…

US Vice President Mike Pence met with the Chaldean Archbishop of Erbil, Bashar Warda, on Monday in what Pence characterized, in a tweet, as an “important dialogue” about President Donald Trump’s “commitment to directly assist…

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence met with Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Matti Warda of Erbil on Monday for a “substantial discussion” on the needs of persecuted Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq. “I updated him…

Authorities in a governorate in southern Egypt have allowed 21 churches to restore, expand and rebuild, after a wait of about two decades, and some are attributing this gesture to U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s…

The entire Church — pastors and their flocks — is encouraged to ‘express their solidarity through prayer, sacrifices’ and financial help for Christian communities. The savagery of the Islamic State’s two-year assault on Christian and…

In the context of of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s resignation, Pope Francis and Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai are trying to keep the peace for the Middle East’s best model for future stability. Twenty years…