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Islamic Republic of Iran detains dozens of converts to Christianity

Dec 5, 2016 9:14 am By Robert Spencer

Obama’s cash contributions to the Islamic Republic of Iran at work.

housechurchiran

“Iran Detains Dozens Of Christian Converts As Rights Group Urge World To Intervene,” BosNewsLife, December 3, 2016:

TEHRAN, IRAN (BosNewsLife)– A group of 19 influential human rights groups have urged the United Nations and the international community to help protect Christian converts in Iran saying scores of believers were detained for leaving Islam. In a statement to BosNewsLife the activists said that the “Islamic Republic of Iran” has been “homing in on converts from a Muslim background”.

Between May and August 2016 security forces forces arrested at least 79 Christians, according to activists, family members and friends.

“The majority of those arrested were interrogated and detained for periods ranging from a few days to months.” the groups said.

“At the time of writing some of these 79 Christians remain in detention and have still not been formally charged.”

Rights groups say “the true number of Christians apprehended by the authorities could be notably higher” as “many” arrests would have gone unreported.

In 2012, Iran’s government began to bar converts from Muslim backgrounds from attending services in official churches. Instead Christian converts “are forced” to gather in informal groups known as “house churches”, the activists said. “These gatherings are considered illegal by authorities and are often raided. In August 2016 alone security agents allegedly raided at least four house churches and the house church members were arrested and interrogated.”…

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Filed Under: Apostasy, Iran, Muslim persecution of Christians Tagged With: Tehran


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Comments

  1. ermom says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 9:23 am

    Where’s the media on this outrage? Sarcasm intended.

    • Rob says

      Dec 5, 2016 at 8:32 pm

      Where?
      Busy lampooning Trump for lacking culture.

    • AmericanMe says

      Dec 5, 2016 at 9:09 pm

      The media indeed the entire left wing hates Christians and could care less about their plight. Besides showing persecuted Christians would detract from their insane islamaphobia rants. Poor fools do not realize they are siding with their own enemy.

      • Bob says

        Dec 6, 2016 at 7:55 am

        AmericanMe – the media couldn’t care less, any more than the muslim-dominated UN and the Pope do!

    • A Harris USA says

      Dec 6, 2016 at 2:19 pm

      HA HA. The media is nothing but whores.. They bow to Obama and Hillary and the Dems!! It is beyond Pravda type media.. The Christians who suffer under the Islamic hordes are of no concern to them. Remember, it the CHRISTIANS fault that all this terror and hate crimes are world wide.. The MSM worries about the poor mental cases that attack like in Orlando, and OSU, and elsewhere. Pray indeed for OUR Christian brothers!!

  2. Angemon says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 9:50 am

    In a statement to BosNewsLife the activists said that the “Islamic Republic of Iran” has been “homing in on converts from a Muslim background”.

    Apostasy is punishable by death in islamic law – I guess the Iranian government is being remarkably “moderate”…

  3. no_one says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 11:01 am

    All believing Christians should pray for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East and Africa regardless of the denomination. Only Christ can help us against the religion of satan.

    • eur says

      Dec 5, 2016 at 11:35 am

      I have already said several times … Iran despite its dictatorship is the only hope of the Islamic world. They are Persian, they can secularize or at least realize the shit that Islam is. There are young students who celebrate parties at home, they want freedom. We must press and at the same time offer a way of escape to these people. Christians, Zoroastrians, apostates, condemned by adulterers, homosexuals … all of them should have the doors of the West open, to have the status of political refugees.We should treat them like brothers, they can be Westerners perfectly. The Arabs are another matter … we have to be very careful. They are very nationalists, pan-Arabists and the racial component is very important to them, they believe that they are the pure Muslims … image and likeness of the prophet Mohammed … Religious fanatics, do not need a dictatorship, society itself enslaved and enslaved the rest.

      • davej says

        Dec 5, 2016 at 3:23 pm

        When I visited the area 40 years ago I noticed a big difference between Persians and Arabs, with the Persians having an interest in education and modernity while the Arabs were dull and tribal. There is a huge genetic component to this difference, IMO.

      • gravenimage says

        Dec 5, 2016 at 4:33 pm

        eur wrote:

        I have already said several times … Iran despite its dictatorship is the only hope of the Islamic world.
        ……………………..

        With all respect, eur, I keep hearing this–that Iranians are not really Muslim, that they all despise Islam, that they are poised, any minute now, to oust the Mullahs and become a democratic, secular nation.

        And yet they continue, decade after decade, to be one of the most appalling Shari’ah states in the world, hanging gays and stoning women to death.

        I have no doubt that some young Iranians like to party–but this is a thin read to hang a hoped-for rejection of Islam on.

      • Carol says

        Dec 5, 2016 at 4:48 pm

        It isn’t the ethnicity of the group whether Persian or Arab, but what they believe and accept. Shiite Islam is little different from Sunni Islam. I saw the pictures of young Iranians before the Islamic revolution and they do like to party. Likewise, there are those who are Arabian who are highly educated and rich. It is a lie that the Jihadis are poor and uneducated. Many of the leaders have university degrees. Right?

      • Rob says

        Dec 5, 2016 at 8:35 pm

        I reluctantly agree with you. Iranians do have a sense of coming from a civilisation.
        Arabs do not – and it shows.

    • Debi Brand says

      Dec 5, 2016 at 9:03 pm

      “All believing Christians should pray for our brothers and sisters in the Middle East and Africa regardless of the denomination. Only Christ can help us against the religion of satan.”

      Amen. And that is for darn sure.

    • fudge says

      Dec 7, 2016 at 9:14 am

      Prodestant Christians are always praying for Christians all over the world

  4. Peter Buckley says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 11:29 am

    Atheism and Christianity are both booming in Iran. The only way the mullahs can stop this is by more repression and intimidation. This in turn will make good people who happen to have been born into Islam, turn away from it. Those alive now are witnessing the beginning of the end of Islam:

    https://en.qantara.de/content/turning-away-from-shia-in-iran-a-tsunami-of-atheism

    • DFD says

      Dec 5, 2016 at 12:46 pm

      Thanks for the link. I noticed for quite a while by now that there seems to be a steady, if not increasing, stream of conversions to Christianity, and to some extent to atheism, in Iran.

      Iran seems to be the best hope for the Mulim world, in the sense of ditching it in the long run – correction: *very* long run.

      Though the Christians in Algeria seem also to be fighting back, the Berbers in particular, and gaining converts.

      Actual numbers are of course hard to come by, but that could be a good thing. Sad as this statement is.

    • Carol says

      Dec 5, 2016 at 4:50 pm

      It has been said that the blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the church. I pray that many come to Messiah in Iran.

  5. Anke L. says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 12:09 pm

    Atheism is the way to go….Religion has brought trouble for mankind
    from day 1, so to speak.

    • peanut says

      Dec 5, 2016 at 5:49 pm

      pretty ignorant comment. people bring trouble anywhere for any reason, but it’s so fashionable to blame Christians.

      look toward Communism or Socialism for countries of people who truly suffered. just short of 100 million people were killed under Communism. no religion can match those numbers, and only Islam seems to even have the potential.

      my point is people will kill for any and all reasons, blaming religion is a cop out.

  6. Kiel says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 12:28 pm

    The SSState (ShittyShariaState) risks to place itself in a very precarious situation. The Western world – well the United States of America – has time and again regretted that Nazi-Germany got the long line during their persecution of the European Jewry. This time around, I’m not sure that Donald Trump in 2017 will allow the Islamonazis to continue their harassing of Christians in Iran. – Watch out you SOB, before you can spell out “nuclear” you can wake up in ashes.

  7. Shmooviyet says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 1:10 pm

    How tragic that these groups have none other, with the power of the UN, to turn to with their appeals.
    The UN will look it over and get back to them.

    • Rob says

      Dec 5, 2016 at 8:38 pm

      Yep.
      Right after they finish cementing Jerusalem as an exclusively Islamic city.
      Where that puts Christians I don’t know?

      • gravenimage says

        Dec 5, 2016 at 8:55 pm

        It would leave Christians where they always are under Muslim rule–oppressed and under threat of kidnapping, forced conversion, and murder.

  8. Walter Sieruk says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 1:23 pm

    First, the reason the mullahs in power in Iran attempt to use force to “convert” Christians to Islam is because Islam contains no actual valid logic based reason to believe in it. Therefore the mullahs try to use force and coercion. Second,why so many Muslims strongly dislike Christians. Some Muslims even hate Christians so much that they even become violence against them and burn their Bibles. One reason for this is that in the mosques and madrasas the Muslim clerics, as the mullahs who speak many awful and unproven terrible things against Christians and Christian doctrine. So much so the many Muslims get all worked up against Christians and Christian teachings and some those Muslims commit violent actions against Christians. Such false religious teachers, as those Muslim clerics, who speak to people unfounded and invalid evil things about Christians and Christian doctrines have been described in the Bible. For the Bible informs the reader in Second Peter 2:12. “They speak evil of things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption.” [N.K.J.V.]
    It also should be make clear that in this specific above Bible verse, as well as in John 3:16. The word “Perish” does not mean loss of being but loss of well-being. As in going to ruin by ending up in languishing in torment in a terrible place of suffering that the Bible calls hell. Luke 16:19-31.

  9. miriamrove says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 2:52 pm

    The Armenians in Iran have churches. But on Sunday the Elite guards are always at the doors to make sure no Muslim is going to go in. That is how much they worry about it. m

    • Veka Fitzfrancis says

      Dec 5, 2016 at 3:37 pm

      Makes one wonder how strong the mullahs faith must be, that they must guard fellow Muslims against the Gospels.

      • miriamrove says

        Dec 5, 2016 at 4:17 pm

        They have no faith. Islam is not a religion. but rather a murderous ideology. m

  10. gravenimage says

    Dec 5, 2016 at 4:29 pm

    Islamic Republic of Iran detains dozens of converts to Christianity
    ……………………

    These poor people!

    And where is “Christianblood” to tell us that Shi’ites do not persecute Christians?

  11. Jack Holan says

    Dec 6, 2016 at 1:11 am

    It is clear to all who open their eyes that the UN EU And US STATE & WHITE HOUSE don’t care one iota about Christians in Muslim Countries. If they did they would give them highest Refugee Priority to leave and survive not only ISIS but the Muslim Brotherhood and all the other Islamistentities including the Governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran. Instead 97% of Refugees are Muslim and at most 3% are Christian &others who suffer also from the hands of their neighbors and local police. The UN knows The EU Knows and The us knows. Also small numbers of Jews live in these countries whom are totally unseen by Ban Moghreni and Obama

  12. Charles says

    Dec 6, 2016 at 6:29 am

    The (Satanic) republic of iran, putting Christians in prison? Again?
    Where do I sign up? For the America Invasion Force? I can bring my own guns AND ammo!
    And I even pay for my own Airline tickets! Plus! There are about 10 million just like me waiting in the wings!
    Lets Roll America!

  13. dumbledoresarmy says

    Dec 6, 2016 at 8:51 am

    You knwo what is the good news here? That there *are* ‘dozens’ of EX-MUSLIMS, now Christians, in Iran.

    These are the Saints, Martyrs and Confessors of the Church in Persia.

    The remnant church – the Christian communities that hung on by teeth and toenails during the horrible centuries of repression as dhimmis – are now being reinforced by people who are actually leaving the Death Cult.

    Those of us who are Christian must pray, pray, pray for all those who, in Iran, are leaving Islam. Pray that they may persevere. Pray for their protection. Pray that there will be *so many* of them that the avalanche will be unstoppable… too many to arrest, too many to kill.

    (The exodus of many Persians from Islam is also happening *outside* of Itan; I recall Rev Dr Mark Durie, Australian scholar of Islam, and also a parish priest in an Aussie capital city, remarking that in his particular home city, the local Bishop was preparing some forty Iranian catechumens for confirmation).

  14. Anke L. says

    Dec 6, 2016 at 11:53 am

    When I said Religion has brought mankind into trouble from day 1 I mean in essence any perverse ideology.. And..that includes religious dogmas of any kind as well..

  15. Enrique says

    Feb 20, 2017 at 5:02 am

    I understand the fear and all that goes with it..Resist. Good food. Justice. Know the laws in your commuinty.

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