Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. In February, the persecution watchdog organization

International Christian Concern reported on a group of Iranian Christian women who had crossed

the southern border into the United States. After seeking asylum as victims of religious

persecution, they were deported to Panama. After a brief detainment, the women were released with

permission to only stay in the country for up to 90 days. Unless their pleas for sanctuary or granted

there, they could end up back in Iran, facing the harsh punishment of that Islamist regime.

Artemis Gizimzada became the face of this group.

She became a Christian back in 2019 after a brief trip to Turkey.

The New York Times described it this way, quote, converting was colossally risky.

While Christians born into the faith are free to practice, by the way, that's not exactly

true. Iran's Sharia laws state that abandoning Islam for another religion is considered blasphemy.

That is true. And punishable by death. Some members of her Bible study group were arrested,

end quote. Also, there were some Afghan women deported with the group of Iranian women.

They could end up back in the hands of the Taliban.

As Kazimzada noted in her statement, quote,

There are Afghan girls here who have been separated from their siblings.

They're terrified of what will happen if they're deported into the hands of the Taliban.

They say that if they're sent back, it will be an execution order that's already

signed. Gizimzada insists that she and her fellow escapees need not be relocated to the U.S.

They're simply terrified of being sent back to their respective anti-freedom, anti-woman

homelands. In addition to Iran's draconian conversion laws, the Taliban recently issued an edict to resume

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