The “persecution of Christians with a Muslim background” has “drastically” increased around the world, according to a report released Tuesday, February 3, by a leading Christian rights group.
The top official of Hamas publicly thanked Iran Monday, February 2, for helping his militant group to achieve “victory” over Israel in the Gaza Strip but said his group would need more support to “liberate” all Palestinians and Jerusalem.
Israeli forces appeared to withdraw from the Gaza Strip Tuesday, January 20, in time for the inauguration of Barack Obama as the United States’ 44th president, but militant group Hamas said it would rearm, suggesting its conflict with Israel was not over.
The militant group Hamas has rejected a cease fire with Israel and Iran said the country has no “right to exist,” after Israeli forces killed a Hamas minister and struck a United Nations compound in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has rejected a European Union request for a 48-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, saying Israel will uphold its commitment to provide basic foodstuffs and medicines to the residents of the Hamas-controlled region.
At least 40 people were killed and over 50 injured when the Israeli Air Force struck a United Nations-run school in the Gaza Strip in what it said was a response to repeated mortar and rocket attacks from militants of the Hamas group.
Signs that Hamas has isolated itself in the world have merged from two fronts. Iran, on Tuesday, pledged that Hezbollah will not open a front against Israel along Israel’s northern border. Israel had been concerned that Hezbollah, in an act of solidarity with Hamas, might initiate a war along the Lebanese border; thus, dividing Israel’s attention and its forces.
Iran says tens of thousands of students are preparing themselves for suicide attacks against Israel, in revenge for the Israeli offensive against militants of the Hamas group in the Gaza Strip.
As Israel continued its ground assault into the Gaza Strip Monday, January 5, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were on high alert along the country’s northern border amid concerns the militant Hezbollah group would fire rockets from Lebanon in revenge for the offensive.
On Saturday, January 3, Israel launched a ground assault against Gaza on what was the eighth day of its aerial assaults against the seaside strip of desert. Israel’s stated objective for the ground confrontation is to end all rocket attacks. The immediate objective of the ground operations, according to Major Avital Leibovitch, a military spokeswoman, “is to destroy the Hamas terror infrastructure in the area of operations.”
A Pakistani Christian boy’s quarrel with a Muslim policeman’s son has led to his father’s imprisonment, torture, paralysis, and five-year prison sentence.
Christians in Colombia were still searching for a Christian leader Wednesday, November 12, more than six weeks after he disappeared amid reports that several fellow pastors were killed by leftist rebels.
Concerns about the health and safety of the son of martyred Iranian pastor Hossein Soodmand are swirling around Ramtin Soodmand as he awaits trial for “promoting anti-government propaganda.”
An association of Christian agencies and individuals advocating human rights of Christians in the Middle East and North Africa, remained concerned Wednesday, October 22, over the situation of several Christian prisoners, some of whom may be executed under recently adopted legislation.
Without international pressure there is little to stop the Iranian government from ratifying a bill that will make “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, a capital crime, say human rights groups and experts.
The Iranian Parliament voted on Tuesday in favour of a bill stipulating the death penalty for apostasy. The bill was approved by 196 votes for, seven against, and two abstentions.
Two Iranian Christians from Muslim backgrounds may receive the death penalty on charges of apostasy, according to prosecution documents published Tuesday, September 9.
Five arrests in three cities across Iran in August suggest a continued crackdown on Iranian Christians by authorities, sources told Compass.
Widow Zeenat Javed was still awaiting justice Sunday, August 10, four months after her Christian husband was killed for refusing to vote for a Muslim candidate in elections in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
Local Pakistani police declared the death of a young Christian man in May to be a suicide requiring no investigation, but a high inspector has reopened the case and taken two Muslim suspects into custody.