TEHRAN, IRAN (Worthy News)– A Christian prisoner suffering internal bleeding has been denied proper medical attention in Iran, according to Barnabas Aid.

According to his prison doctors, Vahid Hakkani — who has been detained since his arrest in February 2012 — urgently needs surgery, but Iranian officials have refused to transfer him to a hospital.

Hakkani is on a ward for prisoners of conscience, many of whom also suffer physical and mental health issues as a result of its poor prison conditions.

Hakkani was arrested at a house church gathering along with a number of other Christians; although they were all accused of evangelizing and promoting Christianity, having contact with foreign Christian organisations and disturbing national security, to date none of them has been convicted of any offence.

DAMASCUS, SYRIA (Worthy News)– In April, two senior clerics caught in the Syrian civil war were kidnapped by unidentified gunmen and remain in captivity, their whereabouts unknown.

Bishop Boulos Yaziji of the Greek Orthodox Church and Bishop Yohanna Ibrahim, head of the Syriac Orthodox Church, were in the Aleppo countryside when armed men intercepted their car and took them at gunpoint.

Both Christian and Muslim religious leaders expressed concern over the kidnappings and called for the clerics quick release, according to International Christian Concern.

"While this is not the first time church officials have been kidnapped," said Aidan Clay, ICC's Regional Manager in the Middle East, "Archbishops Boulos Yaziji and Yohanna Ibrahim are the most senior church leaders abducted in Syria's civil war to date."

"Syria's war is increasingly mimicking the war in Iraq where some 200 Christians were kidnapped for ransom between 2003 and 2012 … Many fear that if the war continues without resolution, Syrian Christians will follow the path of other ancient Christian communities throughout the Middle East such as Iraq where more than half the Christian population has fled and some 900 Christians have been killed following the outbreak of war in 2003."

According to ICC, Syria's Christians are caught between Islamist rebels and the secular Assad regime; while the Islamists consider Christians to be Assad loyalists, the regime eyes them with suspicion.

ABUJA, NIGERIA (Worthy News)– African Christians are divided over a proposal to grant amnesty to the militant members of Boko Haram, the violent Islamist sect whose bombings have killed thousands of believers and destroyed hundreds of their churches in northern Nigeria.

As Nigeria's military struggles against Haram's Islamist insurgents, the ensuing violence has compelled some leaders to seek a political solution to a crisis that has continued unabated since 2009.

Historically, amnesty was granted to ecological activists operating in the nation's oil-rich Niger Delta in 2008; the deal restored peace to the region and raised its oil production, prompting Northern politicians to extend a similar offer to Boko Haram.

To that end, the government created a committee to develop a plan for amnesty in exchange for disarmament, but Haram leader Abubakar Shekau declined the offer, claiming it was Nigeria, not his sect, that needed amnesty.

As for Shekau's Christian victims, many fear that amnesty is just a tool to appease northern politicos before the 2015 presidential elections; in general, Protestant leaders consider any amnesty as unacceptable while Catholics desire more dialogue.

Earlier this year, the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria suspended relations with the Christian Association of Nigeria whose president, Ayo Oritsejafor, described any proposed amnesty as "wickedness"; in response, the Catholic archbishop of Abuja, John Onaiyekan, said amnesty could bring peace.

"Even if we fight them militarily for years, we would still have to have dialogue," he said. "Dialogue, not violence, is what ends wars everywhere in the world."

But Evangelical Bishop Jeremiah Gado said amnesty for Boko Haram only rewards violence by punishing Christians who have greatly suffered from the sect's sectarian attacks.

"Even God does not forgive a sinner until he confesses and repents," said Gado. "Boko Haram believes it has done nothing wrong. So why force amnesty down their throats?"

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (Worthy News)– The Executive Council of Pakistan's Christian Congress issued a press release Saturday condemning the upcoming national election because 51 percent of Pakistani women and 18 percent of Pakistan's population will not be voting for any candidates.

Instead of electing representatives, Pakistan's minorities will only vote for Muslim men on 272 seats, who in turn will nominate 60 women and 10 minorities to reserved seats on the National Assembly of Pakistan.

PCC President Nazir Bhatti said the election is unconstitutional under Article 226 of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan's constitution; the Article directs that every seat in parliament to be filled by secret ballot, not by nomination.

Bhatti said the votes of 20 million Pakistani Christians will only go to Muslim feudal lords, business tycoons and Islamists.

“Religious minorities are pushed out of mainstream politics through these nominations," said Bhatti.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Worthy News)– Of the 15 worst violators of religious freedom in the world, 10 are Islamic states.

Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Egypt, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam severely restrict religious activities by harassing individuals and groups for their beliefs; therefore they have been classified as "countries of particular concern" in the 2013 report by the Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The Commission is an independent advisory body that monitors abuses of religious freedom by identifying nations such as Egypt — whose transitional government has failed to protect religious minorities, usually Coptic Christians, from Islamic-inspired violence — as "governments that are the most egregious violators."

Muslim-dominated Iraq was cited for tolerating "violent, religiously motivated attacks" and the Islamic Republic of Iran for "prolonged detention, torture, and executions based primarily, or entirely on the religion of the accused." Iran often accuses converts to Christianity of crimes against state security.

Saudi Arabia suppresses all religious practices outside of its officially-sanctioned Wahhabism. The home of Islam prosecutes individuals for apostasy, blasphemy and even sorcery; it also interferes with the faiths of its guest workers.

Pakistan strictly enforces a controversial blasphemy law while failing to prosecute acts of sectarian violence by its Muslim majority against minority religions.

Religious freedoms in Sudan continue to suffer long after South Sudan seceded from President Bashir's criminalization of apostasy and his government's imposition of a strict interpretation of shari’a.

Nigeria was cited for its religious violence between the militant Muslims of Boko Harem and Christians living in the North; this violence is compounded by the government’s inability to stop the incessant sectarian attacks.

A second tier of dishonorable mention where the abuses of religious freedoms don’t meet all of the criteria to be ranked as countries of particular concern include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos and Russia.

KHARTOUM, SUDAN (Worthy News)– In yet another official slap to Sudan's Christian minority, a government minister recently announced that no new licenses would be granted for church construction.

Al-Fatih El-sir, Sudan's Minister of Guidance and Endowments, said that no new churches were needed because the existing structures should suffice; El-sir attributed this to a decrease in the number of Sudanese congregations coupled with an increase in abandoned churches.

But in reality, there hasn't been a new church built in Sudan since South Sudan seceded in 2011. The fact that new buildings can't legally be built suggests that the Sudanese government is systematically eradicating Christianity from the land through a series of anti-Christian actions by President Omar al-Bashir’s Islamist government.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide recently reported that Sudan deported a senior church leader and two expatriate missionaries, one from France and one from Egypt, for no apparent reason.

In February, the Evangelical Literature Center at the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church in Khartoum was raided: three South Sudanese were arrested and Christian books and films were confiscated. In January, the government demolished seven churches in the Khartoum in just two days for paperwork "irregularities". All these actions were bolstered by a media campaign combating the "Christianizing" of Sudan, which is in keeping with President Bashir's promise that the country's next constitution would be entirely Islamic.

In response, BarnabasAid's Exodus project continues to relocate Christians of South Sudanese origin stranded in Sudan safely into South Sudan; to date, Exodus has rescued 4,415 Christians. 4,415 Christians.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Worthy News)– While the Obama administration carefully avoids any religious connection between Islamic jihad and the Boston bombings, the president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation bluntly told Pentagon officials that Christian troops who proselytize are guilty of sedition and treason and should be punished.

“Someone needs to be punished for this,” said Mikey Weinstein. “Until the Air Force or Army or Navy or Marine Corps punishes a member of the military for unconstitutional religious proselytizing and oppression, we will never have the ability to stop this horrible, horrendous, dehumanizing behavior.”

Weinstein also said his Foundation has thousands of Protestant members who are only opposed to Christian fundamentalists.

“As soon as we find a fundamentalist Muslim, atheist, Jewish person or anybody else, we will be happy to fight them, but so far they have been few and far between,” he said.

Surprisingly, Weinstein seems unaware that there are many fundamentalist Muslims who are willing to fight us all the way to the Finish Line of the Boston Marathon.

After Weinstein went to the Pentagon to discuss the state of religion in the military, Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council, wondered why U.S. officers were taking advice about religious freedom from one of the most rabid atheists in America.

“That’s like consulting with China on how to improve human rights,” he said.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, an FRC executive VP, told Fox News that he sees a pattern of attacks on Christianity within the military.

“Mickey Weinstein has a very visceral hated of Christianity and those who are Christians,” he said. “He’d like to see it eliminated from the military entirely.”

However, that seems unlikely since military chaplains are an exception to the so called separation of church and state found in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment; the Department of Defense must support the free exercise of religion by its service personnel and DoD employees because the Constitution proscribes Congress from enacting any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion, according to The American Center for Law and Justice.

This is especially true when U.S. service personnel must deploy to parts of the world where the facilities to practice their respective faiths are not only unavailable, but non-existent, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which prohibits all public worship save Islam.

JOS, NIGERIA (Worthy News)– Since Nigeria's government has proved itself incapable of protecting the country's Christians, the militant Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has pledged to protect them by targeting Islamic institutions with retaliatory violence.

Last year, almost 70 percent of all Christians killed worldwide were murdered in Nigeria, but if sectarian warfare breaks out in the African nation, Nigeria may become the deadliest place on earth to be a Christian, according to International Christian Concern.

Many of the more than 900 Nigerian Christians killed in 2012 died horribly at the hands of Islamic militants from Boko Haram. In response, MEND announced in April that it would begin bombing mosques and assassinating clerics unless Boko Haram stops its attacks.

ICC reports that MEND might call off any planned retaliation if the Christian Association of Nigeria asks it to, but to date, CAN has remained silent.

And while Nigeria's federal government attempts to avoid any further violence by offering Boko Haram total amnesty in exchange for peace, Haram's leadership said it would reject that deal because, in its eyes, Haram's members have done nothing wrong!

NEW DELHI, INDIA (Worthy News)– A Christian-run children's home in India was attacked in April by a mob of Muslims who assaulted its staff and visitors and then damaged its property, according to Barnabas Aid.

Islamic leaders tried to kidnap the home's children after they falsely accused the staff — who work in the predominantly Muslim state of Kashmir — of converting Muslim children to Christianity.

In March, mullahs abducted two children from the home and spirited them away them to Islamic schools, but when the staff refused to release any children — as only a relative could remove them — a group of Muslims armed with rocks and sticks came and forced their way into the home by smashing its windows.

The violence ended after police arrived and escorted the staff and children to safety. But the Muslims — who also killed a therapy dog — threatened the building's landlord, who in turn informed the Christian group that runs the home to vacate the premises despite the fact that police found the mullahs’ accusations to be baseless.

TEHRAN, IRAN (Worthy News)– A new report by the International Campaign for Human Rights shows that many Christian customs in Iran are criminalized by the authorities, according to Barnabas Aid.

Although the Iranian government claims to respect the rights of religious minorities, the report found that Christian converts and members of unregistered churches can face extrajudicial punishment and even execution for apostasy. In fact, the Islamic Republic hasn't permitted a single new church to be built since its revolution. Instead, many churches have been closed as attendance is restricted, members are monitored and their Bibles and other religious literature are routinely confiscated.

The report also reveals a systematic pattern of arbitrary arrest and detention for purposes of state security; for example, Iranian-American pastor Saeed Abedini was recently arrested for planting house churches that officials claimed were "intended to undermine national security" by turning Iranian youth away from Islam.

When detained, Christians are often denied basic rights: they are held without charge, denied access to proper legal advice and are ill-treated, yet as a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Iran is legally obligated to safeguard these freedoms.

"The egregious violations of Christians’ rights," said Hadi Ghaemi, Executive Director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, "which include not only the inability to freely practise their religion, but also the threat of torture and death at the hands of state officials, go against all international law. The international community must let the Iranian government know this is unacceptable."

RABAT, MOROCCO (Worthy News)– This week the Supreme Ulema Council in Morocco published a fatwa calling for the death penalty for all apostates to Islam.

According to Agence France-Presse, the Ulema Council published the religious ruling in the Arabic-language daily Akhbar al-Youm Tuesday; the ruling stated that Muslims who renounce their faith "should be condemned to death".

Although apostasy is illegal in most Islamic states and often fatal in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Article 220 of Morocco's Penal Code only mandates a maximum of three years in prison for undermining the faith of any Muslim, according to International Christian Concern.

"We are deeply concerned about the proposed fatwa which would warrant the death sentence for Muslims accused of apostasy," said Aidan Clay, ICC Regional Manager for the Middle East. "We urge the Moroccan government to safeguard the religious freedoms of all Moroccans and to reject edicts that would constitute a breach of the country's international human rights obligations."

TEHRAN, IRAN (Worthy News)– An American pastor sentenced to eight years in an Iranian prison for planting house churches in the Islamic Republic a decade ago recently wrote that prison officials have told him to either deny Christ, or remain incarcerated indefinitely, according to the Christian News Network.

The letter from Pastor Saeed Abedini was released by the American Center for Law and Justice.

According to Abedini's letter, officials told him to deny his faith in Jesus Christ and return to Islam, or remain in Evin Prison even after his eight year sentence is over.

Abedini's response was Romans 8:35-39:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

"As it is written, ‘For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

The ACLJ reported that despite his lack of strength, Abedini’s faith is keeping him alive.

Abedini, who resided in Idaho with his wife and children, was visiting Iran last year to build an orphanage when he was unexpectedly arrested by Iranian officials for establishing a network of house churches that would entice Iranian youth away from Islam to Christianity.

The ACLJ requests Christians to send encouragement for Abedini at savesaeed.org.

ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN (Worthy News)– An appeals court in Kazakhstan has overturned a previous ruling to destroy Bibles and other Christian literature seized from a street evangelist, according to Barnabas Aid.

The literature was confiscated from Vyacheslav Cherkasov when he was detained by police back in October; after he was found guilty last month of distributing religious literature, Cherkasov was fined 86,550 Tenge ($574), which is about one month’s average wages.
Cherkasov appealed the ruling, claiming it was his constitutional right to distribute religious literature to anyone who wanted it, but though the order to destroy the literature was overturned, the fine was still upheld.

“Thank God they didn't destroy my books,” said Cherkasov.

Although the confiscated Christian literature was restored to Cherkasov, literature previously taken from him wasn't returned.

In the past, Cherkasov has been repeatedly stopped by police for offering religious literature on the street.

CAIRO, EGYPT (Worthy News)– Human Rights Watch has called upon Egyptian authorities to bring those responsible for the deaths and injuries of Christians to justice after Muslim police failed to prevent the Islamist inspired violence outside St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo on April 7.

Mahrous Ibrahim was shot dead and 89 other Christians were wounded in an assault by Muslims on a funeral procession for four Christians killed in earlier violence at al-Khosous.

"The authorities urgently need to get to the bottom of the violence at Khosous and at the subsequent funerals, and bring all those responsible to justice, promptly and fairly," said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East and North Africa director for Human Rights Watch. "President Morsi should ask his police chief why the police failed to uphold the law and protect those under attack, and insist the chief take steps to ensure that the police do their job in future."

Footage taken by an Egyptian newspaper revealed riot police shooting tear gas at St. Mark's at the direction of men who were also throwing stones at the cathedral, according to BarnabasAid.

Although Coptic Christians have long suffered at the hands of Egypt's Muslim majority, these sufferings have intensified since the revolution that placed President Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood in control of the country. Human Rights Watch has reported five separate incidents of sectarian violence since Morsi was elected last June, yet to date there have been no prosecutions in connection with any of these incidents.

LAHORE, PAKISTAN (Worthy News)– The Legal Evangelical Association (for) Development (LEAD) filed a bail petition Monday in the Session Court of Lahore on behalf of Sawan Masih, an imprisoned Pakistani Christian accused of blasphemy.

A 35-year-old street sweeper, Masih — accused of blasphemy by a former friend — was booked under statue 295 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which prohibits blasphemy against any recognized religion, although in practice the only religion officially recognized in Pakistan is Islam.

Masih is facing 295 Section C, which forbids any defaming of Muhammad regardless of the accused's intent; defaming Muhammad merits a death sentence with, or without a fine after a conviction in a Court of Session that must be presided over by a Muslim judge.

Although there was nothing pertaining to section 295 C in the original First Information Report, a second report to the SP Investigation City Division by Complainant Shahid Imram stated that Sawan said, "Our Jesus will come back again and must come back and He is the Son of God" as well as alleged derogatory remarks about Islam's prophet, according to the Pakistan Christian Post.

Masih's alleged remarks resulted in two separate attacks against Lahore's St. Joseph Colony last March as Muslim mobs rampaged through the Christian neighborhood, burning and looting everything in sight in search of the accused blasphemer while Paki Police stood idly by.

LEAD is a Christian relief and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice; LEAD is motivated by God's grace to serve all peoples regardless of race, religion, gender or ethnicity.