What is happening to Christians in Syria and Iraq?

What’s happening in Iraq and Syria is that ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) has told Christians to convert to Islam or pay a “protection tax”. If they refuse, they will be executed. In a statement issued after Friday prayers on 18 July 2014, ISIS, which seized Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, last month, gave Christians until lunchtime (on Saturday 19 July 2014) to comply. The group said the move was prompted by the failure of Christian leaders to attend a meeting called by the “Islamic Caliphate”, the name it has given to the stretch of Iraq and Syria it controls.

“They [the Christians] can leave via the border of the caliphate if they so seek; alternatively, if they refuse and decide to stay on without fulfilling the above then they face the sword,” the statement said. Pictures emerging from Mosul showed Christian houses already marked in red with the Arabic letter N - for nasarah, the Islamic way of referring to Christians. In Mosul the homes of Shi’ites and Turkmen had been marked with stickers declaring them the properties of the Islamic state. Residents are obliged to pay rent and fees to the group instead of to their landlords. In Raqqa (Syria), ISIS has posted pictures of Christians being crucified for disobeying. Christians have lived on the Nineveh plains for almost two millennia. Before the fall of Mosul, they are thought to have numbered about 3,000.

At the same time, an Islamic court in northern Syria condemned a woman to death for adultery. She was stoned to death by a frenzied mob of men and women. This is what happens when Sharia Law is enforced. Source: Sunday Times 20 July 2014.

They are being taught to either revert to islam, die or pay the jizyah. While non-muslims do have to pay a special form of tax named jizya in an islamic state, the thing is the way the ISIS have done it is unislamic. they are killing innocent men, women and children and are forcing down islam onto others which is not what the qur'an advocates. The ISIS are even persecuting muslims. The ISIS is a virus that is using islam. they are filled with saddam husseins former henchmen and just want power (politics). watch how they will leave islam when they become really established on the land (and then u will know them to be hypocrites)

The Christians of the east are suffering the consequences of the sins of the west.

They are being kicked out of the country because there was really no reason at all to go to war with Sadaam. He was bad, but now it's worse. Thank you compassionate conservative George "we have to kill everybody to make money" Bush

ISIS being ISIS. It's not only Christians, Muslims are facing much more persecution.

Recently they executed 13 imams

Muslims want to stand with YOU against THEM. But when you hate on us All, it's really impossible for us to be friends with you.

Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- The militant jihadist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria killed dozens of Syrian troops and workers during an attack on a gas field in central Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, killed 270 Syrians, including national guard members, security guards and employees, after storming and seizing the al Shaer gas field in Homs province on Thursday, the group said. The death toll could climb. Another 90 security guards and employees are missing, the anti-goverment activist group added.

Word of the slaughter in Homs came after ISIS violence against Christians and other minority groups in Iraq in recent weeks.

The Islamist militants, now occupying large regions of Iraq and Syria, have issued an ultimatum to the remaining Iraqi Christians in the city of Mosul: accept Islam, pay extra taxes to Islamic Sharia courts, or face "death by the sword."

Refugees risk all to escape ISIS

The letters from ISIS were distributed in recent days to the dwindling number of Christian leaders in Iraq's second largest city. The message added that ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has agreed to allow them (Christians who do not agree to convert or pay extra taxes) to leave the northern Iraqi city by noon Saturday (5 a.m. ET). After that, the message said, "the only option is the sword."

But the international organization Human Rights Watch says the extremist group is already "killing, kidnapping and threatening religious and ethnic minorities" in Mosul and other Iraqi cities and towns.

"Being a Turkman, a Shabak, a Yazidi or a Christian in ISIS territory can cost you your livelihood, your liberty, or even your life," Human Rights Watch Middle East Director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a press release issued on Saturday from Duhok in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Human Rights Watch has documented violence against these ethnic and religious minorities, reporting that tens of thousands of families have already fled their communities near Mosul in fear for their lives. Village residents have described horrific attacks by ISIS fighters, who "seize local men and pillage homes and places of worships," Human Rights Watch said.

They are being murdered or driven out of the country.

They keep falling into bullets. They're very clumsy and also don't let anybody wear condoms for some reason?

They are being murdered in abundance by people who profess the non-Abrahamic, Islamic faith.

I hear that they have been murdering Catholics, also.

ethnic wars and persecution all in the name of religion