How can we remain silent while Christians are being persecuted?

A new evil is sweeping the Middle East and the Foreign Office is failing to confront it.

 Egyptian Coptic Christians protest against violence: 25 were killed in October Photo: EPA/KHALED ELFIQI

By Fraser Nelson

Father Immanuel Dabaghian, one of Baghdad’s last surviving priests, is expecting a quiet Christmas. To join him in the Church of the Virgin Mary means two hours of security checks and a body search at the door, and even then there’s no guarantee of survival. Islamist gunmen massacred 58 people in a nearby church last year, and fresh graffiti warns remaining worshippers that they could be next.

The Americans have gone now, and Iraq’s Christian communities – some of the world’s oldest – are undergoing an exodus on a biblical scale.

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