Trump urged to help secure release of 24 Christi…

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, March 20, 2025

Armenian refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh are seen in the center of the town of Goris on October 1, 2023, before being evacuated in various Armenian cities. A United Nations mission arrived in Nagorno-Karabakh on October 1, 2023, Azerbaijan said, after almost the entire ethnic-Armenian population fled since Baku recaptured the breakaway enclave. Armenians, who had controlled the region for three decades, agreed to disarm, dissolve their government and reintegrate with Baku following a one-day Azerbaijani offensive last week. | DIEGO HERRERA CARCEDO/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump is being urged to help secure the release of two dozen Christians who advocates say are being held hostage by the government of Azerbaijan and follow through on his pledged support for “persecuted Christians” on the campaign trail.

A coalition of Christian leaders has signed a letter urging the president to take action on behalf of 23 Christian Armenians and one Azeri Christian convert currently detained in Azerbaijan. The letter, published on March 11, was spearheaded by the advocacy group Save Armenia.

Notable signatories include former United States Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, Christian artist and missionary Sean Feucht, National Religious Broadcasters President and CEO Troy Miller, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Commissioner David Curry, Save the Persecuted Christians Executive Director Dede Laugesen and civil rights activist Alveda King.

Former Rep. Michelle Bachman, R-Minn., who now serves as the dean of the Robertson School of Government at Regent University, and Jim Garlow, former pastor of Skyline Church in California, also signed the letter.

The leaders expressed gratitude to Trump for showing “support for Armenia and persecuted Christians” during his 2024 presidential campaign and praised him for sending “a clear message to those who would undermine Armenia’s security and their rich Christian heritage as the first country in the history of the world to embrace the gospel of Christ.”

They believe the situation can only be resolved “by a leader of your qualities, a leader feared and respected by other world leaders.”

“Almost two years ago, Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed more than 120,000 Christian Armenians out of their ancestral homes, while the Biden administration refused to take action to stop the ethnic cleansing or punish the perpetrators of that crime,” the Christian leaders wrote. “Since then, the same regime has been holding 23 Christian Armenian hostages and one Azeri Christian convert, who are being subjected to routine torture, according to credible reports.”

The leaders stressed that the International Committee of the Red Cross, which they say was “the only organization with access to check on the well-being of the prisoners,” was recently ordered to leave the predominantly Muslim country.

Azerbaijan has found itself under the spotlight by international religious freedom advocates in recent years as it has warred with the predominantly Christian nation of Armenia over an area of land known as the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which was previously a de facto Armenian-majority state within Armenia’s borders known as the Republic of Artsakh but has been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.

Last May, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom labeled Azerbaijan among its list of the world’s worst religious freedom violators. The watchdog warned that religious freedom violations trended negatively in the aftermath of the Nagorno-Karabakh territorial conflict.

Nagorno-Karabakh was mostly ethnic Armenian Christians before a mass exodus in 2023, with some experts accusing Azerbaijan of “ethnic cleansing.”

Azerbaijan secured a place on the advocacy group International Christian Concern’s “Persecutors of the Year” report in 2023.

“Azerbaijan’s end game is clear: to rid its borders of Christianity either by forcing the Armenian people and their faith out of Azerbaijan or destroying the people and historical sites,” the ICC report stated. It cited rhetoric used by Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev to describe Armenians, specifically highlighting his characterization of the group as “barbarians, rats, and vandals.”

In their letter, the Christian leaders told Trump he is “the only one who can rescue these Christian hostages.”

“A few months ago, we saw how Hamas freed the Israeli hostages out of fear of your Administration,” they said, asking Trump to “utilize the authority of your office to stand for and with these 24 Christian lives, and once again send a message that murder and persecution of Christians around the world will no longer be tolerated.”

Last year, ICC called on the Biden administration to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan for its treatment of Armenians after obtaining testimony from Christians who were tortured in captivity. As highlighted on the website of Save Armenia, Armenia became the first nation to embrace Christianity in 301 A.D. Approximately 1.5 million Armenian Christians were killed in the Armenian genocide of 1915-16.

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com