Christian Persecution – Middle East

An Egyptian convert to Christianity who filed suit for his conversion to be officially recognized is in hiding after his attorney announced he would withdraw from the case yesterday.

A Muslim convert to Christianity filed suit against Egypt last week for refusing to legally recognize his change of religion, sparking a reactionary lawsuit by Muslim clerics and death threats against his lawyer.

The Washington-DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) www.persecution.org has learned that an Egyptian Christian working in Saudi Arabia as a surgeon has been repeatedly blocked from going home for over two years. The Saudi government has intentionally run him in circles, promising he can leave, then refusing to let him go.

Iraq’s Kurdish regional high court has reduced jail time for a teenager who fatally stabbed her uncle as he beat her for converting to Christianity and “shaming” the family by working in public.

Militants have crucified Christians in Iraq, including converts from Islam and people involved in “mixed marriages,” a senior Dutch parliamentarian has established.

A growing number of devoted Christians in Jordan, including native missionaries and refugees, are forced to leave the predominantly Muslim nation, missionaries said Tuesday, July 10.

For one man, the release of eight kidnapped Christians from his hometown of Qaraqosh on Friday (June 22) was bittersweet.

An unidentified armed group kidnapped eight Assyrian Christian students and teachers returning home to the Nineveh Plain from Mosul University Wednesday afternoon.

Lebanese Christians, already shaken by several bombings, faced the prospect of civil war Wednesday, June 13, as officials confirmed that a key anti-Syrian legislator and nine others were killed in an explosion in Beirut, apparently from a bomb-rigged car.

Iraqi Christians are mourning the deaths of a Catholic priest and his three assistants who were gunned down by Islamic militants over the weekend, shortly after another Christian couple working for the US embassy was reportedly killed, BosNewsLife established Tuesday, June 5.

As night fell, “hungry” and “frightened” Christians remained trapped in their houses in Gaza on Monday, May 21, as rival Palestinian factions continued their battles while Israel increased air strikes against militants, a Christian aid group said.

Christians in the Gaza Strip faced new tensions Sunday, May 13, amid reports that a Palestinian Islamic group’s armed wing is targeting “Christian missionary activity” in the Gaza Strip.

Iraq was named Wednesday, January 3, as the world’s “second-worst persecutor of Christians” after North Korea in an influential report expected to underscore concern about sectarian violence in the war-torn county.

One of eight Iranian house church leaders arrested last month for “evangelization” and threatening security remained detained Thursday, January 4, on new charges that he must pay “an outstanding debt,” Iranian Christians reportedly said.

Iranian secret police began to raid and arrest leaders of the Islamic republic’s indigenous “Jesus Only” movement last Sunday (December 10), arriving unannounced in the early morning hours to search their homes in Tehran, Karaj, Rasht and Bandar-i Anzali.