An Iranian house church Christian was spending another day in brief freedom Thursday, July 21, after he was temporarily released from jail following the payment of a bail amount of some $101,000 in local currency, Iranian Christians said.
The United States has condemned reported plans by Iran to execute an Iranian pastor if he does not abandon his faith in Christ, Worthy News established Tuesday, July 12.
A leader in China’s growing underground church movement who disappeared last month was actually in police custody.
Held on “suspicion of using superstition to undermine national law enforcement,” Shi Enhaoi is one of 150 million Chinese Christians who refuse to join the Communist Party’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement: the only officially sanctioned Protestant church on the mainland.
Iran’s secretive supreme court has reportedly overturned a death sentence handed down to an evangelical pastor for leaving Islam, surprising trial observers who were earlier informed about an execution ruling.
Chinese authorities recently expelled yet another member of Beijing’s largest unregistered house churches.
Chuan Liang was the second member of the Shouwang “keeping watch” Church to be expelled from the city since authorities compelled the congregation to meet outdoors; the first expulsion came after Shouwang Church held its fifth consecutive outdoor Sunday worship service when 15 members were taken to 10 police stations across Beijing, but most were released within 24 hours.
An Iranian pastor, convicted of apostasy and sentenced to death, may have only hours or days to live, according to a US-based Christian ministry acquainted with the facts of his case.
The general director of comparative religious studies in Iran claimed the enemies of Islam donate approximately $50,000 a year to Iranian house churches that often have memberships of only 15-20 members.
Being a Christian in Uzbekistan can be costly. Just ask Galina Shemetova who was ordered to pay a fine of 2,486,750 som, 50 times the minimum monthly pay for giving a colleague a children’s Bible. This amounts to $60,320US, four times the yearly pre-tax salary of a 40 hour-a-week minimum wage earner. Miss Shemetova not only had to pay the fine, but she was also beaten physically by police, a fact known by the Tashkent Court of Appeals.
Police detained 16 more members of Beijing’s Shouwang House Church and placed others under house arrest: two were held in protective custody while the rest were sent to 10 different police stations; most were released by Sunday morning.
The High Commissioner of police in Bejaia ordered all Christian churches closed, including places of worship still under construction; if not, the commissioner threatened “severe consequences and punishments” would result.
Five Iranian house church Christians were behind bars Wednesday, March 15, after being sentenced to one year imprisonment on charges of “crimes against the Islamic order” and there were reports that Iranian authorities have been burning Bibles.
A prayer center complex, known as “Prayer Mountain”, was destroyed in China after several elderly Christians were forcibly removed, and then watched helplessly as their building was demolished according to ChinaAid, Worthy News has learned.
A well-known Iranian pastor faces execution after two judges agreed to make him “liable to capital punishment,” as part of a crackdown on the growing Protestant church movement in the Islamic nation, Worthy News and its parner agency BosNewsLife learned Tuesday, July 13.
One of China’s best known Christian dissidents, missing for over a year and feared dead, is apparently alive and staying in mountains known for Buddhist pilgrimages, Worthy News monitored Tuesday, March 30.
Chinese security forces detained a prominent house church leader Thursday, March 4, at a restaurant in southern China where he and a dozen other Christians had lunch, Chinese Christians said.
Iranian Christians on Monday, March 1, were searching a Christian couple after they were detained by Iranian security forces for apparently leading an unauthorized house church, Worthy News and its news partner BosNewsLife learned.
Thousands of Christians are to attend an evangelical Christmas Eve celebration in Vietnam despite difficulties with authorities, the latest in a series of “historic” Christian gatherings in the Communist-run nation, organizers said Wednesday, December 23.
China has sentenced 10 Christian leaders to long prison terms and forced labor camps as part of a wider government crackdown on unauthorized worship services, Worthy News learned Saturday, December 5.
Islamic militants have killed the leader of an underground church in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, a well-informed Christian rights group said Monday, November 16.
Millions of Christians from Vancouver to Vladivostok were praying Sunday, November 8, for persecuted Christians, amid reports of increased repression in several countries around the world.