Iran

“[The] death penalty for Apostasy from Islam, has been hanging over the collective head of all new converts to Christianity since the 1979 revolution,” Farsi Christian News Network writes to the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran.

“Concerns are growing over health condition of Pastor Farhad Sabokroh who was arrested together with two other Christian converts [in Iran]. They have now been in custody for over 40 days,” Mohabat News reports.

 Our colleague, the former New York Times reporter Clifford D. May, writes that "persecution of Christians in numerous Muslim-majority countries is the most important international story not being told by the mainstream media.”

The Royal Gazette Online reports on Christian persecution in Iran and ways you can help.

“With the Arab Spring and the recent revolution, it is clear that younger Iranians are actively seeking alternatives to Islam. Muslims in Iran are more open to the Gospel than ever before,” Mission Network News reports.

“A commission in the German Parliament gathered signatures from Parliament members on a petition for the release of Yousef Nadarkhani. In this petition Parliament members asked the Iranian Government to overturn Nadarkhani's death sentence,” Mohabat News reports.

“Pressures and threats [in Iran] as well as heavy sentences cause Christian converts with an Islamic background to flee their homeland and seek refuge through the UNHCR office in Ankara. However, interviewers and decision makers at the UNHCR fail to understand their grievous situations and often turn down their asylum appeals,” Mohabat News reports.

“Even though the arrested Christians in the Church of ‘The Assembly Of God’ in Ahvaz were freed a few hours after their mass arrest; none are allowed to leave the city and all live under the threat of re-arrest,” Farsi Christian News Network reports.

“More than one month has passed since security authorities attacked the AOG church of Ahwaz and arrested a number of believers and the church's pastor. The whereabouts and health condition of three of the detainees is currently unknown,” Mohabat News reports.

“A Dutch attorney who defends cases of Iranian Christian refugees pointed out that an Iranian Christian's life would be in danger if deported to Iran,” Mohabat News reports.

“Iran is continuing its relentless attempt to force persecuted Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani to recant his faith in Jesus Christ. New reports state that Iranian officials are still pressuring the pastor, who has been sentenced to death for his Christian faith, ‘to renounce his faith in Christ and accept the prophet Muhammad as his savior,’” the American Center for Law and Justice reports.

“The judicial system of the Islamic Republic of Iran sentenced 597 Iranian citizens to a total of 302 years of deprivation of their social rights. In addition, Iranian religious minorities were sentenced to a total of 3776 months in prison,” Mohabat News reports.

“To better understand the plight of Christian prisoner of conscience in Iran, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) sat down for an interview with the director and editor of Farsi Christian News Network.”

“The Chairman of the Committee for Human Rights in the German Parliament, Tom Koenigs who had travelled to Iran to investigate the conditions of Abdolfatah Soltani and Yousef Nadarkhani, returned to Germany without being allowed to meet the named prisoners,” Mohabat News reports.

"After Heidar Moslehi, Iranian Intelligence Minister desperately pleaded with seminaries to stop the spread of Christianity, an Islamic cleric stated that evangelical Christianity is the most horrifying intelligence and security organization in the world," Mohabat News reports.

“Pastor Yusuf Nadarkhani recently refused an offer to secure his own release by agreeing to state that the Muslim prophet Mohammed was a messenger sent by God,” Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports.

Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani remains “languishing in an Iranian prison – a violation of Iranian and international law,” the American Center for Law and Justice reports.