By Amber Holloway
On Thursday, December 27, while approximately 50 newly converted, Persian Christians had gathered to celebrate Christmas,
Underground believers
government security forces began a coordinated and pre-planned raid. It resulted in the immediate arrest and interrogation of all individuals present for several hours. This incident resulted in the arrest and detention of an Armenian pastor whose whereabouts and condition remain unknown at this time.
Filed under Muslim conversions, persecution
By International Christian Concern
Underground believers in Iran
Reports of Iranian authorities arresting Christians for their faith are pouring in, indicating that the Islamic nation is running a massive campaign targeting house churches.
Officials from Iran’s Cyber Police force raided the home of a Christian convert, Alireza Ebrahimi, in the northern city of Gorgan, Mohabat News reported on Nov. 16. The officials had an arrest warrant for Ebrahimi, who was apparently not at home at the time and it remains unclear if he was being held in prison. The Christian man is a blogger who uses social media for evangelism.
Filed under persecution
They refuse to recant their faith in Jesus
Iranian Christian beaten by police
By Dan Wooding
The mass arrests and disappearance of 40 Christians in Shiraz and Cavar by the state security agents of the Islamic Republic in late September was confirmed in the semiofficial media of Islamic Republic, reports the Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN).
In a massive operation conducted by the agents of the Ministry of Islamic Information (Intelligence) in various parts of Shiraz in the last days of September, some 30 Christians were arrested and transported to the ministry’s infamous detention center, locally known as “Number 100,” while others had already been detained, according to FCNN.
Filed under persecution
Arrested for his faith
Vahid Zarday
By Jeremy Reynalds
A Christian artist with an Islamic background was temporarily released October 9th after four months in prison, according to Mohabat Christian News Agency.
The Christian convert spent 136 days in the notorious Vakil-Abad prison, where he was interrogated. According to the latest reports, he has been temporarily released and is now awaiting his trial.
Filed under persecution
Fourteen Iranians converted to Christianity on August 5 in the same church in Berlin. Fifty Iranian Christian converts attended the
Baptism in Germany
ceremony, in addition to fifty other German attendees.
One of the Iranian attendees, Farid Shad, told a reporter of Spiegel Online that although he had become a Christian in Iran, he had never attended a church there because of fear of the security authorities. He said, “We used to gather secretly in private homes to read the Bible or practice our faith. We were gathering there and worshiping.”
Filed under evangelism & outreach, missions, Muslim conversions
By Mark Ellis
Underground believers
As a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard he witnessed appalling human rights abuses that caused him to question his faith in Islam and the current regime. He became a CIA spy and later escaped to the West. His contacts on the ground in Tehran tell him Islam’s days are numbered there.
“Many have lost faith in Islam,” says Reza Khalili, a pseudonym taken by the ex-spy for safety reasons. “In the streets of Tehran, people are cursing at Mohammad,” he reports. “Millions wake up to text messages they send each other every day mocking the regime and the religion.”
Filed under evangelism & outreach, missions, Muslim conversions
By Michael Ireland
Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is well-known for his denial of The Holocaust.
Iran’s leader
Now, in a speech during the Women and Islamic Awakening Summit held in Milad Tower in Tehran, Ahmadinejad claimed that God has never sent any religion into the world called Christianity or Judaism, “But He appointed the prophet of Islam, Mohammad, as the prophet for all mankind, from Buddhists to Christians and Jews.”
Filed under end times, persecution
By Mark Ellis
Reza Khalili in disguise
As a member of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard he witnessed horrific acts that caused him to question his faith in Islam and the regime he served. After he became a CIA spy and later escaped to the West, he found a new revolutionary to follow who offered a love that overwhelmed his soul.
Filed under evangelism & outreach, missions, Muslim conversions, testimonies
By Pastor Pooyan Mehrshahi, Parsa Trust
Pastor Youcef with family
Youcef Nadarkhani has been reported in both the secular and Christian media and periodicals to be under a death sentence for his conversion from Islam to evangelical Christianity. He was arrested on 12th October 2009 in the city of Rasht in the northern part of Iran, where he had been the pastor of the underground church there.
Filed under persecution
Heydar Moslehi, Minister of Intelligence of Iran, announced that house churches are a threat to youth and acknowledged a new series of efforts to fight the growth of the house church movement in Iran.
Heydar Moslehi
It seems that regime-dependent media has motivated the Iranian authorities to attempt to stop a growing Christian youth movement.
In the past, some in Iran’s media, in a coordinated plan to tarnish the image of Christianity and churches of Iran, have warned of the growth of Christianity in Iran by writing: “It seems that the cultural and publishing organs of the country need a coherent plan to confront the above named movements, especially the Christian evangelizing movement.”
Filed under persecution
