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Islamic Tolerance Alert from Iran, via Compass Direct:
September 29 (Compass Direct News) – Iranian secret police arrested a Christian couple in the northeastern city of Mashhad three days ago, forcing them to leave behind their 6-year-old daughter and holding them incommunicado ever since.Plainclothes policemen who declined to identify themselves demanded entrance into the apartment home of Reza Montazami, 35, and his wife Fereshteh Dibaj, 28, at 7 a.m. on Tuesday (September 26).
Claiming they had “permission” from the proper authorities, the men conducted a complete search of the family’s home. The couple’s computers and various other personal items were confiscated, along with all the Christian literature in the house.
When it became clear that both he and his wife were going to be physically detained, Montazami managed to telephone his mother, asking her to come quickly to pick up their daughter Christine.
Shortly after the grandmother arrived, Montazami and his wife were taken away in an unmarked car. When the grandmother went into the apartment to get Christine, she found two men still searching the premises.
Asked where Christine’s parents were being taken, the men named a local police station. But when Montazami’s relatives went to the designated place, the police on duty declared they knew nothing about any such detention.
So the family continued to search and inquire, going from one office to another around the city. Finally near the end of the day, authorities at a local intelligence branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) admitted that they were holding the couple there for questioning....
Despite repeated inquiries, officials would only say that interrogations were continuing, with documents being prepared on the “exact charges” against them....
“They are just lying to them,” said one Iranian Christian who himself fled persecution in Iran several years ago for abandoning Islam and becoming a Christian. “It is psychological warfare, to keep their families uncertain and try to make them afraid.”
From a well-known Mashhad family, Montazami converted to Christianity in his 20s. He now goes by the first name Amir among his friends and family.
His wife Fereshteh is the youngest daughter of the Rev. Mehdi Dibaj, an Assemblies of God minister who was martyred for his faith 12 years ago. A Christian for 45 years, Dibaj spent more than nine years in prison, where he was given the death penalty for committing apostasy. A few months after international protests prompted his release, he was abducted and assassinated on the way to his teenage daughter Fereshteh’s birthday party.
Montazami and his wife lead an independent house church in Mashhad, the only known remnant of two active Protestant Christian congregations worshipping in the city before Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1976.
Both churches were closed by government order in the 1980s. Then in December 1990, the government executed a Mashhad pastor, the Rev. Hussein Soodmand. A former Muslim who had become a Christian 24 years earlier, Soodmand refused to recant his faith after four months under extreme physical and psychological mistreatment in prison....
Posted by Robert at September 30, 2006 8:26 AM
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When I was a boy in school I learned that people were not executed for their faith anymore. Now I find that it has been happening a lot in the last 50 years. How awful and why has it taken everyone (including me) so long to notice. I feel guilt through inaction.
Posted by: payingattention![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 30, 2006 9:08 AM
"paying attention"......
i know exactly what u mean, i was in ignorance till 2-3 years ago.
"Foxes Book of Martyrs" states that around "43 million Christians have been martyred in the past 2000 years..........over 50% of these have occured in the past centuru alone"
That is an amazing statement if there ever was one.
Posted by: W_D_J_D at September 30, 2006 9:39 AM
"From a well-known Mashhad family, Montazami converted to Christianity in his 20s. He now goes by the first name Amir among his friends and family."
This guy is intelligent.
Posted by: FedUp at September 30, 2006 10:53 AM
Christians have got to learn to start fighing back. They have got to start doing the same dirty crap that the muslims do. That family should get some men together and break into one of those policemans familys homes and pull exactly the same crap. Tit for tat.
They have got to stop being the victims.
at September 30, 2006 11:54 AM
From Article: Soodmand refused to recant his faith after four months under extreme physical and psychological mistreatment in prison...
Islam is so unattractive that someone has to be beaten and intimidated to accept it. What do they mean...'There is no compulsion in religion'...Soodmand refused to revert even after torture, so they killed/murdered him. Accept Islam as a convert, a dhimmi or die. Soodmand was a brave and faithful man...Satans minions murdered him for it...
Posted by: duh_swami at September 30, 2006 12:19 PM
el greco,
In Iran the percentage of Christians vs muslims is overwhelming. If they fought back at all, it would mean slaughter of all Christians, who live in peril as it is.
But I know what you mean. I am a Christian, and I am ready for what comes to the US.
Someone wrote (here or at LGF) that Jesus would let muslims crucify him again. Wrong! Jesus has done the sacrificial lamb duty. IT IS FINISHED! Now he comes back as the Roaring Lion of Judah
at September 30, 2006 12:24 PM
http://www3.telus.net/thegoodnews/judah.htm
Posted by: Carolyn2 at September 30, 2006 12:31 PM
While I agree that all Non-Muslims have to start fighting back, It is basically POLITICALLY INCORRECT to do so. The current thinking is that "...we cannot stoop to their level..." or some such drivel. This thinking forgets that self-defense allows deadly force if necessary, and I cannot think of a more pressing need for self defense than being subjected to "...voluntary conversion to Islam...".
Posted by: Codekeyguy at September 30, 2006 12:59 PM
As I recall, the happy Islamic Republic was founded in part because of the terrible things the Shah's secret police did. This article implies 2 different security organs hassled these people. Was Khomeini trying to do the Shah one better? It must be reassuring to know that as the mad mullahs create more enemies they create more security organs to ensure domestic tranquility. Yeah, a theocractic republic is a better place to live in than a monarchy.
Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS at September 30, 2006 1:11 PM
Curse the evil Islamic beasts.
Posted by: US_infidel at September 30, 2006 4:14 PM
The Shah maybe had a reason for treating the Iranian fundies like he did, they are not reasonable people and have the personality of Frankenstein's monster.
I agree that we need to forget all this rubbish about not stooping to their level. If we don't fight back in the same way as they are fighting us, maybe up the ante a little for good measure, we would be having to stoop to their level soon enough because the way things are going, they are winning. There is no doubt about that.
I would rather lose my moral high ground than to lose to that lot any day. What moral high ground is in defeat and condemning our future generations to the beard, the mosque and the veil.
Posted by: IceDragon at September 30, 2006 5:09 PM
I can only state that I am in absolute awe of anyone who has the courage to convert to Christianity (or any other religion) if they are unlucky enough to be living in a stinking muslim pigsty such as Iran. The bravery and integrity of such people makes me feel quite worthless by comparison.
Let us all hope or pray that, just for once, this story has a happy ending. For the six-year-old girl's sake, if not for anybody elses.
C'mon God, a happy ending, JUST FOR ONCE!!!
Is that too much to ask for?
Posted by: enemyofislam at September 30, 2006 6:22 PM
Despite much blah nlah, the fact is that
the plight of converted Christians in Muslim countries only provokes yawns even this site.
I posted this the day before yesterday and I didn't get a reply, in fact no one took notice:
Quijybo:
You asked a very good question:
Why this issue of the persecution of Christians is not taken up more strongly by western leaders?
Leaders are going to do nothing as long as the majority of the population is lukewarm towards Muslims who have converted to Christianity.
My wife was a Muslim (I prefer to keep the country secret, for there are practically no Christans there, ony Muslims) and converted 17 years ago. We almost never talk about it to anyone because they don't understand it or often even show negative reactions, like: Why would you break away from your traditions? Or stuff to the same effect.
People in the West (my people) are assumed to be broadminded and well-informed but when it comes to the issue of conversions from Islam they are not.
And they are not ready to give friendship, shelter or sympathy, except for a few Christian believers and some churches who are aware of this problem.
So why blame the leaders when the general public in the "freedom-loving countries" is so apathetic and stupefied.
Posted by: rocky at September 30, 2006 02:20 AM
But don't worry I am sooo used to this.
at September 30, 2006 10:29 PM
A Maldivian Christian is apparently languishing in the drug rehabilitaion center for heroin addicts. To confuse and to decieve the world, the authorites now appear to have changed their tactics from incarceration and torture to detaining them with the heroin addicts.
The tourists who visit the islands and come mostly from Christian majority countries see a completely different picture.
at October 1, 2006 6:37 AM
It really is very disturbing to me as a Christian that our religious leaders, especially, seem so indifferent to the plight of our incredibly brave fellow Christians who live daily under physical threat for their faith. Rocky, you have my utmost respect.
I am Catholic, and this morning's homily (from a visiting priest), was about how Muslims worship the same God, his name is allah because they speak a different language,Mohammed revered Jews and Christians in his earlier days, blah, blah, blah.
What nearly made my head explode was his comment that Christian crusaders killed every man, woman, child, and dog that they came across in Jerusalem, and that "the pope did not know this, and that is why he made such a terrible mistake." IN A CATHOLIC CHURCH!!!!!
There were quite a few conversations about this over coffee and donuts, and I can tell you that there are a lot of people who are becoming more aware of the actual situation we face. But not nearly enough.
The bishop will hear about this little incident. If the POPE can't speak the truth, who CAN????
at October 1, 2006 1:22 PM
phil413,
People often try to put the Crusades down but the fact is that they came in the wake of Muslim harrassment and agressions against Cristians. This aggressions had been going on for centuries until the Crusades came.
We are being lied about the Crusades and swallow whole the Muslim version without bothering to check the historical facts.
It is noteworthy that almost eight centuries ago Ramon Llull, a Catalan saint who had a vision of sharing Christianity peacefully and through dialogue with the Muslims, was a supporter of the Crusades.
Below is quite a balanced articled you could quote to your friends:
The Denver Catholic Register
by: Archbishop Chas. Chaput
In Christian-Muslim relations, peace not served by ignoring history: healing of conflict requires honesty, repentance from both parties.
Over the past few decades, studies have shown again and again that Americans tend to have a poor grasp of history. In fact, the scholar Christopher Lasch once wrote that Americans love nostalgia, because we see it as a form of entertainment. But we dislike real history, because real historical facts are inconvenient. Yesterday helps shape today. Real history places annoying obligations of truth on our present and future, and gets in the way of re-inventing ourselves.
As a result, quipped a teacher friend, “history is whatever we say it is, as long as we can get away with it.”
I remembered her words recently as I read a news story. The story reported an Islamic leader as suggesting that it was European Christians, never Muslims, who tried to root out those who didn’t agree with them.
Perhaps the reporter misunderstood the speaker. Perhaps the speaker made an honest mistake. Both Muslims and Christians have committed many sins against each other over the centuries. In the United States, we have an opportunity to overcome that difficult history and learn to live with each other in mutual acceptance. But respect can’t emerge from falsehood.
Catholics who do know history may remember the following:
Islam has embraced armed military expansion for religious purposes since its earliest decades. In contrast, Christianity struggled in its divided attitudes toward military force and state power for its first 300 years. No “theology of Crusade” existed in Western Christian thought until the 11th century. In fact, the Christian Byzantine Empire had already been resisting Muslim expansion in the East for 400 years before Pope Urban II called the First Crusade — as a defensive response to generations of armed jihad.
Much of the modern Middle East was once heavily Christian. Muslim armies changed that by imposing Islamic rule. Surviving Christian communities have endured centuries of marginalization, discrimination, violence, slavery and outright persecution — not always and not everywhere; but as a constant, recurring and central theme of Muslim domination.
That same Christian suffering continues down to the present. In the early years of the 20th century, the Muslim Ottoman Empire murdered more than 1 million Armenian Christians for ethnic, economic, but also religious reasons. Many Turks and other Muslims continue to deny that massive crime even today. Coptic Christians in Egypt — who, even after 13 centuries of Muslim prejudice and harassment, cling to the faith — continue to experience systematic discrimination and violence at the hands of Islamic militants.
Harassment and violence against Christians continue in many places throughout the Islamic world, from Bangladesh, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan and Iraq, to Nigeria, Indonesia and even Muslim-dominated areas of the heavily Catholic Philippines. In Saudi Arabia, all public expressions of Christian faith are forbidden. The on-going Christian flight from Lebanon has helped to transform it, in just half a century, from a majority Christian Arab nation to a majority Muslim population.
These are facts. The Muslim-Christian conflict is a very long one, rooted in deep religious differences, and Muslims have their own long list of real and perceived grievances. But especially in an era of religiously inspired terrorism and war in the Middle East, peace is not served by ignoring, subverting or rewriting history, but rather by facing it humbly as it really happened and healing its wounds.
That requires honesty and repentance from both Christians and Muslims. Comments like those reported in the recent news story I read — claiming that historically, it was European Christians, never Muslims, who tried to root out those who disagreed with them — are both false and do nothing to help.
at October 1, 2006 10:33 PM
El Greco,
Be careful if Clinton gets in office. The Christians will be bombed-again! The media is complicit. The pollsters are complicit.
Americans don't know their own history and Europe is forgetting its own as well.
We need to get America back on the right path.
Posted by: lonewolf at October 2, 2006 12:25 PM
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