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.
The judge in the criminal trial of Baptist pastor Hamid Shabanov in Azerbaijan has not yet convicted him.
A diabetic Iranian Christian jailed for two months is in critical condition due to lack of medical treatment, even as new reports of arrests against Christians surfaced this week.
Christians in North-Korea have faced more persecution in 2007 than ever before, according to a major human rights report released Friday, February 1.
An Iranian Christian couple have been punished by whipping for “apostasy” from Islam in a case that has underscored concerns about widespread persecution of Christians in Iran, a well-informed advocacy group said Tuesday, November 6.
The countdown began Monday, November 5, for what organizers say will be the largest global prayer event for the estimated 200 million persecuted Christians around the world, including many who abandoned Islam.
An Islamic militant began serving a 20-year jail sentence Thursday, March 22, on charges of plotting the 2005 beheadings of three Christian girls on Indonesia’s volatile Sulawesi island. Two other militants involved in the crime were sentenced to 14 years.
One of the top Islamic leaders in Iran accepted Christ and left the country after facing death threats and imprisonment, according to an Iranian pastor living in the U.S.
Persecution of Christians in North Korea “is worse than ever”, amid fresh reports of torture and executions, Christian investigators said Friday, February 2.
Authorities in Azerbaijan have launched a crackdown on a church movement of ex-Muslims which grew from 40 to 18,000 members since the former Soviet republic gained independence in 1991, an organization supporting the reportedly persecuted Christian converts said Thursday, February 1.
An Iranian court has temporarily released an Iranian man who Christians say may be executed for converting from Islam to Christianity, reports said Monday, September 4.
For over 200 days an evangelical congregation in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has been providing “church asylum” to a Vietnamese Christian amid fears he may be deported by local German authorities, news reports said Sunday, September 3.
Seven years after Issa Motamedi Mojdehi converted from Islam to Christianity, Iranian secret police have jailed him for abandoning Islam but officially charged him with illegal drug trafficking.
On 24 July, an Iranian Christian named Issa Motamadi was imprisoned on account of his faith. French internet news site VoxDei reports that Issa Motamadi, a resident of the north-western town of Resht, the capital of Gilan Province, will soon stand trial before a Revolutionary Tribunal.