Global Persecution Alert

Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett

Co-host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Shaheryar Gill

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 2/27/26. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Isaac Crockett:

Well, welcome to our Friday program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett, and I’m joined by my loyal and steadfast co-host, the normal host of this program, the honorable Sam Rohr. And we have a special guest today, return guest that a lot of you know. But Sam, even just recently, we were at a media event where we were doing some live radio and things. It is fun how much the two of us get to interact on TV and radio. But I’ve just got to say to you, just what a privilege it is to be on air with you, but maybe just have you mention maybe real quickly, just kind of the duo that we get sometimes as co-host. You are almost, I guess you could technically say you’re old enough to be my father. And so I think sometimes our age differences are not a big difference, but they actually kind of make us a complimentary hosting outfit.

I don’t know if that makes sense or not, but I’ll turn it over to you, Sam, and then we’ll go to our special guest.

Sam Rohrer:

Absolutely. Now on radio, people can’t see us, so they can’t make the connection I’m going to share. But when we first were together, Isaac, on TV, the first comment and the most prevalent comment we got right at the beginning emphasized what you just said. People looked and said, wow, a younger person, an older person, both talking and emphasizing the same truth, maybe slightly different, but it wasn’t that much different. It was just the way it was. But they looked at that and they said, “You know what? This is really a remarkable thing because it demonstrates that truth is truth in one generation and truth is the same truth in the next generation.” And to see it presented in that fashion was the comment that we got the most at the beginning. And so yeah, it is a real pleasure, but people actually saw more than they actually heard.

And that’s the idea of things are caught as much as they are taught.

Isaac Crockett:

And with that biblical worldview, you and I, sometimes we think differently about how we get to the same answer, but from a different perspective maybe. And our guest today is a guy who’s closer in age to me, although when you talk with him, he has a maturity and a wisdom of somebody far older than his years. He’s a civil rights attorney for the ACLJ. ACLJ, they’re our friends there, American Center for Law and Justice, and he operates with their international wing. And that’s our return guest. Many of you will recognize him as soon as you hear his name or hear his voice, but civil rights attorney, Shaheryar Gil. Shaheryar, thank you for joining us today.

Shaheryar Gill:

Thank you, Isaac.

Isaac Crockett:

And Sharia, you did not grow up in the United States in the same context. Sam and I grew up at different times, you and I grew up in basically the same time, but you had a whole different context where you grew up in Pakistan and even the way you think about the Middle East or the relationship our country and the United States has with Israel, those sort of things are from a different perspective. Yet again, you and Sam and I, as we talk about these things, we’re looking from the same biblical worldview. So all of our perspectives come back together with the same lens. And it’s really been incredible to see the camaraderie, I guess you could say that we have. Well, on this program, we want to look at persecution, the persecuted church. There was a recent study, the 2026 Open Doors World Watchless, which I was kind of waiting for that to come out this year.

It is now saying based on their statistics from 2025, that there are over 388 million Christians facing not just like mild persecution, but actually high persecution. So almost 400 million Christians, 388 million facing high persecution. We want to talk with Shaheryar, not just about these big numbers, but let’s break it down in regionally, but let’s talk about some cases. And Shaheryar could go on for hours and hours and hours telling us of different cases that he has been involved with the ACLJ or others of his colleagues. And it’s incredible what God is doing there. But Shaheryar, you recently had the honor and privilege of participating in the International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington DC, just at the beginning of March of 2026. You were there, Jordan Sekkulow, one of your colleagues and other colleagues from ACLJ were there. What were some of the key highlights from the panel sessions that you were on?

I know you got to talk to these different delegates and things, and how did the ACLJ contribute to these discussions about the priority of religious freedom everywhere?

Shaheryar Gill:

I think the summit happens about every year in Washington DC, and it brings people from all over the world to talk about religious freedom, and to share ideas, to network, and to really kind of learn from each other as to how we can really help God’s people and protect religious freedom. And this year, Jordan Seculo, our executive director, CC Heil, my colleague and I, we all participated in the summit and we, in fact, we had sponsored it as well. So one of the goals was for the ACLJ was to sort of really give some tools, share the tools that we have been using in the past 16 years in Pakistan, especially, and all around the world as to how we can improve the condition of religious freedom, especially protecting our Christian brothers and sisters. And one of the things that early on the first session, the opening session was Jordan was on the panel and he brought up the idea or the importance of persistence.

And that’s again, one of the tools to help our Christian brothers and sisters all around the world to be persistent in what we are doing. Sometimes justice and relief is not, you know, it’s not immediate, so you have to continue to fight for it. So that was one of the important lessons that we discussed. And part of the summit, I was able to participate on a panel with my colleague CC Heil, and we were able to talk about the fruit of that persistence that Jordan had talked about earlier. So we were able to talk about our cases in Pakistan, our 16 years of work, persistently working there, helping Christians in cases of persecution and how we have been able to achieve some of the victories that we have seen in Pakistan. So it was a pleasure to share with the people who were really kind of … There was a lot of talk about what’s going on with the persecution, the cases of persecution, but at the same time, we were able to give them some hope and some good news about how we have been able to be successful in those cases.

Isaac Crockett:

If you take us almost to the break here, just why is it important that we in America are careful about our own religious freedom here in America? We see these other places, but what about our own religious freedoms in America as we try to stand up for others in the globe?

Shaheryar Gill:

It’s a great question. And one of the topics that came up during the summit was, I mean, the world looks up to us, frankly, that’s really the answer. The world looks up to us as a Christian nation, so if we don’t hold those values high, then what’s really the outcome in places where persecution is real.

Isaac Crockett:

Sam, do you have anything to add to that?

Sam Rohrer:

No, Isaac, other than that, that who much is given much is required. And so for our country, God has given us influence, as Sharia said, but it may not always last. We may not be in a position of doing this ongoing. So part of our duty is to look out for others, but it’s incumbent upon us to make sure that that freedom is not lost here at home, and it’s being challenged right here at home.

Isaac Crockett:

And all of this, again, is in the biblical worldview. Sharia, what you’re talking about, that persistence, not being weary in our well-doing. 16 years. I mean, in Pakistan, that’s not a very long time in the legal system, and yet you’re starting to reap the fruit of those labors. And as you both are pointing out, we can’t let go of what we do have here in the United States. We need this foundation to help others as long as the Lord allows. We have a lot more to talk about. We’re going to actually look at some updates from Pakistan when we come back from this break. Well, thank you. Welcome back to the program on behalf of Stan of the Gap Media and American Pastors Network. We’re a ministry of the American Pastors Network. I thank you for listening and my name is Isaac Crockett. My co-host today is the honorable Sam Rohrer and our guest is Christian Civil Rights Attorney with the ACLJ and their international law groups, Attorney Shaheryar Gill.

And Shaheryar, there are so many cases that you could tell us in many of these countries, whether it be Nigeria or Iran or China or India or all over the globe, even in our own country, cases that the ACLJ is helping, but we’d like to focus in on Pakistan. And again, this is something you could take hours just telling us, updating us on cases that you’ve already mentioned or telling us about the new cases, but could you kind of give us kind of a nutshell version of that, a quick overview of any maybe new or developing cases that would be good to share with us all involving Christians and any fresh maybe accusations or patterns of persecution that you’re seeing. And we’ve seen a lot with you on the blasphemy laws. Are there other laws being used now? Just maybe give us some of these quick updates at this time.

Shaheryar Gill:

Absolutely. Isaac, I was hoping that you will give me a couple of hours to go on and on about these cases, so thank you.

Isaac Crockett:

If we had the time.

Shaheryar Gill:

Well, let me give you a most recent update that just happened yesterday. It’s a good report. I met with this mom, an older lady last year in December, whose son had been murdered in Pakistan. He was a janitor, he cleaned sewer for his neighbors. That was his job. And he was killed by a neighbor. His mom, when I met her, she looked in my eyes and she said, “I want justice for my son.” At that time, it’s hard to give some hope or encouragement at that time to these people, but we started working on that case. This man was killed because his nephew was riding, coming back from a barbershop and he was stopped by another Muslim neighbor who is known for selling drugs and alcohol and stuff. And his entire fault was, how could a Christian ride a motorcycle that fast in front of this guy?

That was the entire issue that started a fight between the two and our clients, his uncle who was killed, he went out to intervene and the Muslim man went to his house, brought a knife and stabbed him. So we filed charges against him. We work with the prosecution, which in Pakistan, the victim’s lawyers basically really prosecute with the state. So we were able to present evidence, we were able to prepare witnesses for cross examination. So after about six months, just recently yesterday, the court sentenced that Muslim man to death. And I can’t wait to go back and meet his mom and the deceased mom and just kind of see that if we have brought some sigh of relief to her. So that’s just one victory, an example of victory that we just received in Pakistan. And we have received two new cases that are really, really sad.

Both cases involve two young 15 year old girls. In one case, this girl, a poor Christian family was sending their daughter to a neighbor, this lady who was teaching her sewing. One day the lady’s husband was there and she wasn’t at home and the girl showed up there to go attend her class and the husband said, “Yeah, yeah, his wife is in the house. Let this girl, young girl in, raped her.” And then threatened her that he will kill her if she tells her parents. She comes home, said she doesn’t go back to the class. She’s sick now and she wouldn’t stop bleeding and her mom, obviously she wouldn’t think of anything like that, that would have happened to her daughter. So after about like going to doctors, getting medicine for her, after about a month and a half, they got an ultrasound for her and found out that she was pregnant.

This guy now is in prison, so we have taken up the case and we will be aggressively prosecuting this guy. In another case, another 15 year old girl was, she was forced to convert to Islam and married to a man. We have filed a habeas corpus petition. Recently, the government has done, the government of Punjab province has done a good thing that they have raised the age of consent for marriage to 18. It used to be 16 for girls. They’ve raised it to 18. This girl is 15, we have evidence of that, and hopefully we will be able to rescue that girl and bring her back to her parents.

Sam Rohrer:

Shaheryar, what you’re talking about there is obviously extraordinarily gripping. And when I look at that, you say the motivation, one was just terribly lust driven by the one and so forth, but are false accusations, they’re brought up as a mechanism as well by those who would want to bring harm to Christians too. And when that happens, the weaponization of that more or less, what are those who bring false accusations against a Christian? As an example, blasphemy, perhaps whatever, what are they trying to … Are they trying to get something in exchange or what?

Shaheryar Gill:

Sam, most of the time in the blasphemy cases, there’s usually a prior dispute between the parties before a blasphemy charge is brought up. So blasphemy complaints are so easy to be brought against people that what a lot of times happens is if I want somebody’s land, all I need to do is just accuse him of blasphemy. So a lot of Christians are basically falsely charged. And I’m sure you remember our client who was 16 when he was accused of blasphemy. In some cases, like his case, people are interested in trying to convert somebody to Islam. So that’s exactly what happened in this case. His coworker was trying to kind of influence him to convert to Islam, and when he realized that this kid is not doing that, he filed false blasphemy charges against him. So that usual motivation is really a fight happened and now somebody wants to get back at you, or I want your property, I want your land, so I’m going to do this.

So most of the blasphemy cases are really, there’s this other story behind them.

Isaac Crockett:

You were talking about this being 16 years that ACLJ has been working in Pakistan and when you were on this religious freedom summit on the panels talking about it, in context of some of these things that are going on, like those who have been in eight years on death row or things like that for blasphemy charges, what are some of the legal strategies that over the years you have been able to develop out of Pakistan? I know that I’ve been there with you in Lahore Pakistan and seen you actually doing trials, doing a mock trial, so to speak, so that you were training your lawyers every word, going every word that they said. I’ve also been in your office in Virginia and seen you doing that on video chat over the camera with your lawyers there. But what are some of the things that you’ve found maybe more helpful or something or ways that you are developing to be the best steward of the resources to help these people, these Christians who are being persecuted?

Shaheryar Gill:

So a lot of times we in the Western world think that in the judicial system in such countries like Pakistan is not great or it’s not … Well, it’s more of a kangaroo court, but that’s not true. The judicial system works, it’s based on common law principles, which is very similar to the US law and it’s in English. So what we can do in the United States or in the West, when we help them, when we help organizations and individuals, lawyers in Pakistan or elsewhere, I think the important thing is that we stay engaged. And one of the reasons why we are able to have been successful in Pakistan is that we train our team in Pakistan on a regular basis. We go through the files together, we write the petitions together. So I think it’s very important not to just simply say, “Okay, yes, we are supporting this Pakistani organization.” That’s great.

But if we can give our expertise, if we can share our expertise, and that was my main point at the Religious Freedom Summit in DC, was that we need to participate. God has given us talents, and whatever talents God has given us, we ought to participate and use those and share those talents with our partners overseas. So that’s been one of our very successful strategy that we’ve had used is to participate with them, work on the cases together, not just leave it to the local lawyers. And I mean, God has blessed the work, as I mentioned about this case earlier, and he continues to bless our work in Pakistan.

Isaac Crockett:

Sam, I’m just going to ask you a quick question before we … We’re almost to our break, but we’ve talked about this before about the similarity of our courts because of some of the common grace that God has allowed by the court systems that came all of ours and theirs from kind of a British court system. Any comments about that as we go to the break?

Sam Rohrer:

Well, to me, it’s a wonderful thing that ACLJ and Shaheryar and others understand that there is an opportunity even in circumstances where the average person would say there’s no way, and then be able to go as they are doing. And that’s why in our previous programs we’ve talked about it because I’ve said, “How in the world can you do that in a Pakistan?” All right, that was information for our audience and anyways, I’ll just leave it at that, but it’s wisdom applied.

Isaac Crockett:

And that’s a biblical worldview. Again, it comes down to using what we have. We’re stewards of what God has given us. Take what wisdom we have, what resources, what opportunities we have and use them. I would encourage you to go to aclj.org, ACLJ.org, look at some of their articles. We’re going to come right back. We’re going to talk about another part of the world experiencing great Christian persecution, pray for them. We’ll be right back. Well, welcome back to the program. This is Isaac and Sam and I are talking with Shaheryar Gill, human rights attorney for the ACLJ and talking about what’s going on internationally, global persecution of Christians. And we’ve talked about a summit, a religious summit that already happened in Washington DC this year that Shaheryar and some of his colleagues, Jay Seculo and others from the ACLJ were a part of. And we’re talking about things that they’ve learned, whether working in Pakistan for 16 years or sharpening and honing skills here in the United States and passing that on to other lawyers all over the world.

And really, again, just this calling to whom I think Sam was the one that said to whom much is given, much shall be required. And what we need to do to make sure that we, as long as we can, Lord willing, that we can keep our religious freedom in order to help others and to use these things, so many things going on. ACLJ.org, ACLJ.org, their website has some amazing articles. Shaheryar has an article on there about a group of young people in Pakistan who were arrested for preaching the gospel at a train station. And what’s interesting about that is that there are cases here in the United States of America that the ACLJ is involved with like Chicago Street preachers, Brett Rayo and Perez Nidi and Ratik de Mala, I think are their names, our three young street preachers in Chicago, arrested for a similar offense as these youth in Pakistan.

And so all of these things are coming together. We need to be praying for one another for those who are true believers, the remnant in these days, and we’re going to get into more of that. But before we go into more interrogating of our lawyer, if we could interrogate our program producer, Tim Schneider, and Tim, could you give us some of the resources we have right here through the American Pastors Network and Stand in the Gap Media that can help us sharpen our skills and knowledge and use the resources that God has given us?

Tim Schneider:

Well, Isaac, if this is an interrogation, and this is a pretty easy interrogation, I’m sure it’s a lot. Well, hopefully it is helpful. Our brothers and sisters unfortunately have to deal with around the world under persecution, but I will go ahead and let you know about a couple of things. We do have presence on social media. If you do social media, we’re in a couple of different places. One place I’d like to focus on today is we’re on Facebook. So like us on Facebook, we have two pages on there, American Pastors Network and Stand in the Gap Radio. Occasionally there’s stuff posted on there. So please go ahead and check that out. So we’re on BitChute. It’s a lesser known social media platform, but we’re there also and there’s stuff that’s posted and there’s content. You can find over there too. So subscribe there by searching for our channel at Stand in the Gap Media and you can find the content there.

Excuse me. Anyway, go to our websites. We have two great websites if I can get my act together. We got two great websites. You can check out Americanpastorsnetwork.net and standinthegapmedia.org. Please check them out. And on Americanpastorsnetwork.net, please consider signing up for our e-newsletter. We’ll send you information about things that are happening. One of the great things that you will get usually weekly is a recap email of the media items from the previous week. There’s usually a program that we’ve chosen, usually our weekend program that we’ll choose to highlight in that email then the following week of recap. Then also you can see some podcast Q&As, you can see a transcript to that program. You can also see a recap of the previous week’s programs. And occasionally if we have brand new TV programs, you can also see a link to a TV program. So there’s a lot of information recapping the previous week of media stuff there if you check it out by signing up for our e-newsletter and you can do that at Americanpastorsnetwork.net.

Also, we encourage you to please pray for this ministry. We appreciate your prayers ahead of time for all the things that the Lord has for us to do here. And we please encourage you to continue to pray for us. And also please consider giving financially. No amount too big, no, not too small, is too much. Please consider if the Lord has put it on your heart and you’re blessed by what we do here to continue to help us to continue to do it. Unfortunately, ministry does cost money and we appreciate anything that you could do that the Lord might put on your heart. So we appreciate your prayers and your financial giving and everything else. And that’s what I’ve got. A lot here. Isaac, always I could share a lot more, but I’ll go ahead and send it out back to you.

Isaac Crockett:

Hey, that’s great, Tim. And don’t forget about those resources. These are resources that can be used around the world, right at our fingertips, right on your cellular phone, your computer screen. And we get pastors from all over the world reaching out to us. Just this week, Shaheryar and I have been talking about a pastor who’s doing some amazing things. He grew up in a cave, just very, very poor in Nepal. This Nepalese pastor who’s asking us to come, he’s got several hundred pastors that want some further training and legal questions from the persecution they’re facing. And Shari and I are looking at the possibility of maybe being able to go over there and help them out, but they heard of us through the internet, through a mutual connection we have that kind of put them onto our program and they’ve been reaching out. So use this for your friends here in America, and this can be used all over the world and we appreciate all of your prayers and support for this.

But let’s get back to Christian persecution in Nigeria, Shaheryar. You’ve talked about Pakistan. It’s a different situation even yet in Nigeria. And according to the latest reports from the Open Doors World Watch list, over 70% of the cases of global Christian killings for their faith happened, it would appear in Nigeria. Can you talk about, you were giving us some case by case issues like in places like Pakistan with situations, stories of those individuals, but can you talk a little bit about just the scale and nature of the violence that we’re seeing breaking out in Nigeria now?

Shaheryar Gill:

Right. I think when you look at Pakistan and talk about persecution, and then you turn around and you look at Nigeria, and then you basically makes you forget about Pakistan, really. The level of persecution, we’re not talking about people being just imprisoned, or there’s a blasphemy case here and there, or one person getting killed. We’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of people getting killed every year. In the last 15 years, it’s been the number of murders of Christians in Nigeria has been over 55,000 people. And most of that is done by Philani militants who are basically capturing, killing Christians, capturing illegally occupying their lands. So that’s really what’s going on there.

We’ve been talking about who much is given much is required and persistence and what are the tools. And we have worked on this issue for a long time now at the UN, in front of our own administration here. And you might remember in the last show, we talked about Nigeria getting back on the list of countries of particular concern by the United States. That happened recently after our long campaign that we and others did for basically asking our government to take action. And thankfully, President Trump has taken some action. He has, and I think it was just two, three, a few days ago, the committee on … Hold on. There’s a congressional committee that presented its report to the president, to the White House as well, basically documenting Christian persecution in Nigeria, and they have basically given some recommendations as to how to fight it.

So the killings, thousands of people have been killed, captured, taken as prisoners, as slaves, sex slaves, or just simply kidnapped for ransom. So that’s the scale of Christian persecution in Nigeria.

Sam Rohrer:

All right, Shaheryar, let me follow up. I think people, if they’re listening, if anybody’s listening right now, they may be thinking, why is it that 55,000 people can be killed in Nigeria and this be going on for so very long because it preceded the Trump administration. I think it goes all the way back before the Biden administration. Why is it that such numbers of people in this setting when persecution is oftentimes talked about that nothing has been able to be done here in Nigeria?

Shaheryar Gill:

Sam, just two simple, very clear reasons. One is simply the hatred for Jesus. People who don’t believe he’s the son of God, they are opposed to him and they don’t like his followers. That’s number one. The second one is greed. Greed of property, of land, and these people who are mostly are killed are farmers, Christian farmers who have land and they … Fulani herdsmen basically want their lands. So, and most of these Fulani militants are jihadi Islamist ideology people and Since in the last 15 years when they gained control in the north, remember almost half of the population in Nigeria is Muslim and almost half is Christian and the Muslim population happens to be in the north and they are the ones who are basically attacking Christians and taking their land. So again, two reasons, hatred for Christianity and greed.

Isaac Crockett:

And well, the Bible warns us that we are born into a dark world, children of darkness because of the sin of the human nature is to sin. And yet we are to walk as children of light. And as we walk as children of light, it makes us a target. And I’ve said this many times, but in times of war, some of our older listeners might remember blackout curtains and things, especially in cities in Europe, but even in the US that they were supposed to use during war time so that they wouldn’t be a target. And when our lives replicate the light of Jesus, Christ, the light of the world, we become a target. And it’s a great reminder to remember that evil exists and we will be attacked for it. And then we have the greed of our own heart, of our own flesh when left to our own devices, just this desire to have more, even at the expense of taking somebody else’s life.

And you look at that when it’s unbridled and we see that happening in places like Northern Nigeria. I know Sam has talked to me and shown me pictures that pastors from Nigeria many years ago. Sam, I think it was maybe Obama or Biden or Trump or president, but showing pictures of what was going on, just horrific pictures. And so we need to be praying for them and to stay involved. I’m so thankful for the work that ACLJ and others are doing. When we come back from this, we are going to take our time out. We want to wrap things up. We do want to look a little bit about what’s going on in Israel. You may have heard some comparisons with Israel and other places. A lot to talk about as we wrap things up when we come back. Welcome back to the program. I’m Isaac Crockett, co-host today, Sam Rohr.

Our guest is Attorney Shaheryar Gill. If you’ve been listening to the entire program, thank you very much for listening. I hope that you’ve learned a lot and you’ll be able to share some of this with others. If you’re just tuning in or have only heard part of it, we’ve been talking with attorney Shaheryar Gill about the persecuted church and a lot of things going on. And there’s so much more we could talk about global tensions, of course, rising and all kinds of global international events we could talk about in other countries that we could talk about too. We just don’t have enough time to get into all of the stories. But one thing I do want to talk with you about Shayar and you too, Sam, as we close this program, is there’s been a lot of talk about Israel lately, even from professing Christians in America, questioning American involvement in Israel and questioning the rights of Jewish people, in some cases questioning their rights to have a nation.

There’s some very popular social media commentators that are pushing this, including a celebrity news personality who has a big podcast. And they’ve really, I think, tried to smear or attack Israel, I think you could say, and at least question a lot of things. And so Shari, let me ask you that one of the points that’s been being made by some of these social media commentators is that somehow Israel is treating people poorly, Christians or things like that. And one of the things that one commentator, especially I’ve seen him ask different pastors and civic leaders is about Qatar and Israel and saying that Qatar, even though it’s a slightly smaller nation and population and size in Israel, they have many more Christians than Israel. And saying it as if somehow that means that Christians have more freedom in the Islamic nation of Qatar, this Gulf State Qatar than they would in Israel.

And I just want to get from your perspective as an international attorney, somebody from the Middle East focused on Christian civil rights, could you compare Muslim countries to the freedoms that people face in Israel, particularly regarding their citizenship rights, their freedom to worship, their faith, and just overall security for Christians in those two Middle Eastern areas?

Shaheryar Gill:

Right. Isaac, as you mentioned, we’ve been talking about religious freedom around the world, especially in Islamic countries. We have talked about Pakistan, how Christians are persecuted under blasphemy laws. And then we have talked about Nigeria, just two countries where Christians are in Nigeria slaughtered by thousands and that’s our decades of work in these different countries. Another area that the ACLJ has worked on is Israel. Again, the ISELJ has been working with Israel for decades now and our work at the ICC, International Criminal Court at the United Nations, at the International Court of Justice, defending Israel. So I personally, as a lawyer, I don’t see how one can make a comparison between the US, Israel and the Islamic world about Christian freedom there. So I mean, when someone says there are more Christians in Qatar, they’re not Qataris. They are foreign workers who are allowed to come and work.

In a lot of these Muslim countries, you can’t become a citizen. You can become a citizen in the US. You can have all those rights that are available under the Constitution to anybody. Muslims are allowed to build mosques. I mean, look at the mayor in New York. He’s a Muslim. So can that happen in a lot of these countries? No. The answer is absolutely no. Christians are not allowed to buy land. Christians are not allowed to become citizens in, let’s say, in Qatar or in Saudi Arabia. So to say that there are more freedoms for Christians in those countries, I just simply don’t understand how one can make that claim.

Isaac Crockett:

So the facts are that yes, numerically and percentagely, yes, Qatar has more Christians there, but they are not there as nationals, as citizens. They’re there as foreign workers. Is that correct? And by that, then they’re also treated different than regular maybe citizens of the nation. Am I correct in saying that? Well,

Shaheryar Gill:

For example, in Saudi Arabia, you can’t build a church. A Christian can’t a foreign Christian, which are basically all Christians in Saudi Arabia are foreign nationals. They can’t buy land to build a house. They cannot become a citizen. So they don’t have those … Yeah, the numbers, they’re all foreign workers, and they may be there. They may have certain rights, but they don’t have rights of a citizen that any other Qatari or Saudi Arabian would have. So I just don’t see the comparison as being as a valid comparison here.

Isaac Crockett:

Israel, and I know that you were over in Israel recently, Christians, can they be citizens? Are there maybe members of the Knesset that are not Jewish that don’t practice Judaism? Is that a possibility in Israel?

Shaheryar Gill:

Israel has Muslims, let alone Christians. They have Muslims as members of the Knesset. There was a Muslim on the Israeli Supreme Court. So they have judges. They have lawmakers who are Muslim. I was there. I did not feel … I mean, I don’t look like a Christian. I’m from Pakistan, so I don’t look Jewish. So I didn’t feel threatened. I didn’t feel any … I heard in the city of David, a mosque prayer in the city of David through a loudspeaker. So again, that was such a big eye opener for me that I even recorded that, that, okay, I’m going to show it to my friends who don’t understand how many rights Israel has provided to its Muslim population and to its Christian population.

Isaac Crockett:

Sam, as we finish up this program, we’re fast running out of time. I wish we did have two or three hours with Shaheryar to pick his brain on some of this, but Sam, you’ve been over to Israel a number of times. You’ve seen that. And you’ve also talked with a lot of our friends, friends from Friends of Israel and other places that are concerned about this growing antisemitism, even coming from people that claim to be the religious right, so to speak, here in America. I’d just love to get your thoughts on this and maybe even a comparison. Are you worried at all that as antisemitism grows, it could lead towards religious persecution of Christians as well?

Sam Rohrer:

All right, Isaac, you don’t have much time is right, but I would say there is a parallel. Generally speaking, when persecution against Jews increases, it increases against true Christians. And that’s a distinction, not just somebody who says I’m Christian, but true believers. Why is that? Well, Jesus said in Matthew 24, he says this about these days and around,” They shall deliver you up to be afflicted and they shall kill you and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. “Now, who’s he talking to? He’s talking to people who are claiming to know Yeshua, the Messiah. That’s a true believer, right? For my sake. All right, that’s the point. Now, why antisemitism? Well, because on a different level, the Jews are covenanted people with God where he went to Abraham and he said,” You are my people. “He said,” You’re my chosen people.

“He had a chosen people, a chosen city, and a chosen designated land. So Jews are inherently persecuted by who, by the devil and others, because they play a very vital role in God’s greater plan of redemption. Although the majority of all Jews, clearly in Israel, have not yet accepted Messiah, Yeshua, but they will at some point down the road. So ultimately Isaac, any persecution against a true believer or a Jew is ultimately someone who demonstrates they do not know the God of heaven. They do not believe the Bible and therefore they hate because they’re leaning more on what the devil wants than understanding the plan of God.

Isaac Crockett:

And it all goes back to that light versus darkness, and we are praying that God will use us as children of light to open the eyes of those who are in darkness. So let’s keep praying, praying for persecuted Christians and praying for all who need to accept Jesus Christ as Savior. Thank you for listening. Until next time, stand in the gap for truth wherever you are.