Iran: New Report Highlights “Faceless” Persecuted Christians
A new report by the Article 18 persecution watchdog draws attention to the plight of “faceless” Christians facing intense government persecution in Iran.
A new report by the Article 18 persecution watchdog draws attention to the plight of “faceless” Christians facing intense government persecution in Iran.
Cracking down on Christianity it perceives as a threat to its authoritarian power, Iran’s Islamic regime last year arrested a record number of Christians across the country, targeting Bible distributors in particular, the Christian Post (CP) reports.
Causing alarm that soon there will soon be nothing left of Iraq’s historic Christian community, more than million Christians have now left the country due to war, persecution, government corruption, and unemployment, the Catholic Register reports. There are now just some 150,000 Christians in Iraq, compared to around 1.5 million in 2003.
Thanks to Bible translators who risk their lives for the work, Christians who live under Iran’s hostile Islamic regime are now able to read the New Testament in 12 more of their nation’s 62 languages, Christianity Today reports.
An Iranian has begun the New Year behind bars after being detained for converting from Islam to Christianity and related activities, Worthy News learned Tuesday.
A 60 year-old Christian woman in Iran has been summoned to begin a six-year prison sentence for promoting “Zionist Christianity” through leading a house-church, Article 18, a London-based group that monitors persecution in Iran, reports.
As Syrians struggle to cope with the devastating consequences of a catastrophic civil war, the number of Christians in the previously formidable Syrian city of Aleppo has now decreased from around 250,000 to just 50,000, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
A bride and groom are among at least 114 people who died at a Christian wedding party in northern Iraq where a fire tore through the hall packed with guests, officials said Wednesday.
Recent comments by a senior Iranian cleric that around 50,000 of Iran’s 75,000 mosques are closed highlight the growth of Christianity in Iran and disillusion with “the regime’s use of Islam to justify its authoritarian rule,” a prominent human rights activist told Worthy News on Monday.
An Iranian-Armenian pastor began a 10-year prison sentence in Iran yesterday, after being found guilty of engaging in “propaganda contrary to and disturbing to the holy religion of Islam” through his leading of a house church in Tehran, the Article 18 religious freedom NGO reports.
A court in Baghdad, Iraq, sentenced four Iraqi militia members and one Iranian national to life imprisonment last week for the killing of American Christian Stephen Troell last year, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.
Iran has detained scores of Christians ahead of the first anniversary of the death in custody of a young Kurdish woman, Christians said as more details on the crackdown emerged Friday.
More than 50 Christian converts have been detained over the past week in five Iranian cities, and Christians said the number could rise.
In a sudden spike of persecution against Christians in Iran, government authorities arrested and detained more than 50 Christians in five cities across Iran in the last 10 days, Article 18 reports.
The much-persecuted, tiny Christian community in Iraq has taken the historic step of launching a new public television channel broadcasting only programs conducted in their native Syriac language, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. Syriac is an ancient language derived from Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke while He walked the Earth.
Christians in Syria continue to face “genocidal” attacks not only from jihadists inside the country but also from Islamist-affiliated, NATO member Turkey, Algemeiner reports.
In a rare display of justice from Iran’s notoriously corrupt judicial system, an appeals court judge in Tehran overturned the convictions of two Christian leaders who were sentenced to imprisonment for participating in a house church and ordered their release, Morning Star News (MSN) reports.
Amid a spike in the number of executions it has carried out since last year’s nationwide anti-government protests, Iran has just executed two Iranian men charged with blasphemy for insulting Islam and the Islamic prophet Muhammad, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, there are currently more than 150 people imprisoned in Iran for their religious beliefs.
A court in Iran has accepted an application for a retrial by an Iranian Christian couple sentenced to a combined 10 years in prison for being members of a house church, Article 18 reports.
A historically significant former Assemblies of God church building in Iran has been put up for sale by the country’s authoritarian Islamic government after first being forcefully closed to its congregation, Article 18 reports.