Prominent Iranian house church pastor Behnam Irani is still beaten in his prison but less frequently, an official assisting him with advocacy said Monday, just weeks after his family expressed concerns he may die.
The Baptist Council of Churches refuses to register their churches with Uzbekistan; the Council views registration as a precondition for exercising freedom of religion to be against the binding international human rights agreements Uzbekistan formally promised to implement.
Following a February raid on a house church in Shiraz and the arrest of its Christian converts, the first of many interrogations for five detainees was finally held after they spent 80 days in Adel-Abad prison, according to Mohabat News.
A blind activist who became a symbol of the fight more religious and political rights in China has fled to the United States embassy in Beijing after escaping from house arrest, but others close to him have been detained, Christian rights activists told Worthy News.
Historic Christian monuments in Iran are being destroyed, or allowed to fall into disrepair in an attempt by the Islamic authorities to wipe out that country’s Christian heritage.
There was concern over the plight of several Iranian Christian asylum seekers in Sweden Tuesday, April 24, after Swedish authorities decided to deport them despite fears they may be jailed or even executed there, Christians said.
A court in Baku will decide next week whether Greater Grace Protestant Church – which has been registered with the state for 19 years – should be liquidated, according to Forum 18 News Service.
Twelve Christians are to stand trial in Iran on Easter Sunday on charges including “crimes against the order”, an activist assisting them with advocacy told Worthy News.
After earlier denying that it had bombed civilians, last week Sudanese aerial strikes targeted church buildings and schools in Kauda, South Kordofan state.
Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani who faces execution for refusing to abandon his faith in Christ and embrace Islam was still alive, “through the power of Jesus Christ and prayers”, an official assisting him told Worthy News.
Another church in Tehran was ordered to cease holding services in Farsi, the Iranian national language, otherwise it could be “bombed”.
Islamic militants with ties to terror group al-Qaida have launched the “ethnic cleansing of minority Christians” in Syria, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee the embattled Syrian city of Homs and other areas, aid workers confirmed Tuesday, March 27.
At least a dozen devoted Christians from Iran’s third largest city remained in jail Saturday, March 17, as part of an attempt by authorities to discourage Muslims and Christian converts to attend church services, Iranian Christians said.
Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, recently declared that it is “necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.”
Only a week after Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told a conference of evangelical Protestants that his government respected the rights of Christian minorities, his fellow Palestinian officials told Pastor Naim Khoury that his church could no longer operate as a religious institution under the Palestinian Authority.
Authorities in Azerbaijan continued preparations Tuesday, March 13, to close down an evangelical church in the first such reported incident since the former Soviet republic introduced harsh religious legislation in 2009, rights activists said.
Although President Bashar al-Assad’s counter-insurgency has already claimed the lives of at least 7,000 of his own people, his state represented a diverse society in which minorities and women enjoyed freedoms alien to other Arab nations.
Yet another convert and member of a house church was arrested along with many other Christians in Esfahan, according to the Iranian Christian news agency, Mohabat News.
A Kuwaiti parliamentarian will soon draft legislation banning the construction of churches and other non-Islamic places of worship in the tiny emirate.
Iran again ordered the death penalty for jailed Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani for refusing to recant his faith in Christ and return to Islam raising fears his execution is imminent, a well-informed church official told Worthy News and its news partner BosNewsLife Tuesday, February 21.