Iran

A new report by the Article 18 persecution watchdog draws attention to the plight of “faceless” Christians facing intense government persecution in Iran.

Cracking down on Christianity it perceives as a threat to its authoritarian power, Iran’s Islamic regime last year arrested a record number of Christians across the country, targeting Bible distributors in particular, the Christian Post (CP) reports. 

Thanks to Bible translators who risk their lives for the work, Christians who live under Iran’s hostile Islamic regime are now able to read the New Testament in 12 more of their nation’s 62 languages, Christianity Today reports.

An Iranian has begun the New Year behind bars after being detained for converting from Islam to Christianity and related activities, Worthy News learned Tuesday.

A 60 year-old Christian woman in Iran has been summoned to begin a six-year prison sentence for promoting “Zionist Christianity” through leading a house-church, Article 18, a London-based group that monitors persecution in Iran, reports.

Recent comments by a senior Iranian cleric that around 50,000 of Iran's 75,000 mosques are closed highlight the growth of Christianity in Iran and disillusion with “the regime’s use of Islam to justify its authoritarian rule,” a prominent human rights activist told Worthy News on Monday.

An Iranian-Armenian pastor began a 10-year prison sentence in Iran yesterday, after being found guilty of engaging in “propaganda contrary to and disturbing to the holy religion of Islam” through his leading of a house church in Tehran, the Article 18 religious freedom NGO reports.

A court in Baghdad, Iraq, sentenced four Iraqi militia members and one Iranian national to life imprisonment last week for the killing of American Christian Stephen Troell last year, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. 

Iran has detained scores of Christians ahead of the first anniversary of the death in custody of a young Kurdish woman, Christians said as more details on the crackdown emerged Friday.

More than 50 Christian converts have been detained over the past week in five Iranian cities, and Christians said the number could rise.