Revolutionary Guards Close Church Properties
Both the Central Assembly of God Church in Tehran and its summer campsite have been closed by the Islamic authorities, according to the Farsi Christian News Network.
Both the Central Assembly of God Church in Tehran and its summer campsite have been closed by the Islamic authorities, according to the Farsi Christian News Network.
It’s been almost three years since Iranian officials arrested Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani on charges of apostasy, but now Iranian judges may add crimes against national security and blasphemy, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
Thousands of Christians have fled their homes in Syria where news emerged Tuesday, July 3, that intelligence agencies run dozens of torture centers where detainees are beaten with batons and cables, burned with acid, sexually assaulted, and have fingernails torn out.
The rise of Christianity and the accompanying spread of its clandestine house churches in Iran is seen as a serious threat by the Islamic state’s senior clerics.
Suspected members of the Islamist Al-Shabaab killed 17 worshipers in coordinated attacks on churches in Garissa, Kenya, according to International Christian Concern.
Kazakhstan’s Supreme Court has acquitted an evangelical pastor on charges of “severe damage to health due to negligence” after praying for an ill man, but devoted Christians in another former Soviet republic, Azerbaijan, were awaiting whether a high court would ban their church.
Christians are being targeted by Muslim rebels according to the Vatican and other sources amongst besieged Syrian Christian communities.
Thousands of Pakistani Christians live like slaves in Punjab’s Muslim-owned brick kiln industry.
The city of Buffalo has agreed with a court order preventing its officials from removing a Christian from this year’s Italian Festival for speaking about his faith.
Evangelical Christians in Iran’s capital Tehran were without a church building Sunday, June 10, after Iranian security forces closed it down as part of a wider crackdown, Iranian Christians and activists told Worthy News.
Saudi officials have been making conflicting statements as to why 35 Ethiopian Christians were arrested at a prayer service in a private home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last December.
A Christian couple in Pakistan sentenced to life imprisonment for blasphemy have been cleared on appeal.
Even after his death, Osama bin Laden’s three wives remained faithful to their terrorist spouse and gave little away when they were questioned after the al-Qaida head was killed in a US raid more than a year ago, according to a Pakistani intelligence agent who interrogated them.
Iranian authorities recently told church leaders to submit the names and National ID numbers of their members, threatening the security of Christian converts.
Activists from Britain and Ireland were taking part in a protest outside the Eritrean embassy in London on Thursday, May 17, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of mass detentions of Eritrean Christians, organizers said.
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.
Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani’s Iranian attorney has been convicted of defending the rights of religious prisoners in the Islamic state and may soon begin serving a lengthy sentence.
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.
Pastor Matthias Haghnejad and eleven members of his congregation were tried in Iran during Easter for their faith in Christ and are now awaiting the verdict.