Hassan, who leads a Kurdish-speaking congregation known as The Kurdish Church in Beirut, was arrested July 19 by security forces operating under Syria's transitional government. A local official told reporters Hassan was detained over Facebook posts accused of "inciting religious hatred," specifically posts said to insult Islam and the prophet Muhammad. He was never formally charged. His case file was referred to judicial authorities in Aleppo before his sudden release two weeks later.
Hassan arrived home in Beirut on Aug. 6 to applause from family members and congregants who had spent two anxious weeks awaiting word of his fate. Syrian authorities urged him to return to Lebanon for his own safety rather than remain in the country of his birth. Mervyn Thomas, founder president of the advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide, welcomed the release but called on Syria's transitional government to end the practice of arbitrary arrest and detention in territory under its control.
Hassan is a Kurd raised in a Muslim family who converted to Christianity years ago. He has become known both for his pastoral work among Kurdish believers scattered across Lebanon and for speaking publicly about the hardships facing Kurdish communities inside Syria. His arrest unfolded as Syria's new leadership, which took power after the fall of the Assad government, faces mounting scrutiny over how it intends to treat religious minorities and converts from Islam.
A man does not go to jail over a Facebook post
A man does not get locked up over a handful of sentences on a screen unless somebody, somewhere, is afraid of what those sentences might do. That fear is old — older than Facebook, older than Rome, old as the book of Acts. And it has a way of circling back to the same kind of man every time: one who used to believe a certain thing about God, and does not believe it anymore, and will not keep his mouth shut about the change.
Nihad Hassan did not sneak back into Afrin under cover of darkness to stir up trouble. He went home to see his people, to look at land his family had lost in a war he did not start. And for that, he sat two weeks in a cell with no charge against him, his family not knowing whether he was alive, his congregation praying in the dark. My friend, that is the cost some men pay simply for having changed their mind about Jesus Christ and having the nerve to say so out loud.
The world calls this incitement. The Bible calls it something else entirely.
"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake." (Matthew 5:11)
Notice the Lord did not say blessed are ye when men understand you, or agree with you, or leave you be. He said blessed are ye when they lie about you and lock you up for it. That is a hard blessing to receive, and Hassan's family surely did not feel blessed those two weeks not knowing where he was. But the promise still holds, because the man who owns it is the same one who was falsely accused before Pilate and said nothing in His own defense.
Christ warned every man who would follow Him plainly, without sugar on it:
"Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." (John 15:20)
A man raised in one faith who comes to know the living Christ does not do so without cost. Sometimes the cost is a jail cell in Afrin. Sometimes it is a family that will not speak to him again. The gospel has never promised an easy road home — it has promised a Savior who walks it with you, and a home at the end of it that no government, no charge sheet, and no prison door can touch. Hassan is free tonight, back among the people he loves. Not every believer facing that same choice gets to say the same. But the Lord who kept him in that cell is the same Lord waiting for every man, wherever he was raised, who will turn from his old gods and call on the name of Jesus Christ.