Tag: Converts

Iranian Christians sentenced, verdict says ‘claiming Jesus is Lord is attack against Islam’

October 2, 2018 Iran Church of Iran, Converts, House churches, Iran, Mohammad Reza Omidi, Rasht, Saheb Fadaie, Yasser Mossayebzadeh, Youcef Nadarkhani

Two Iranian Christians have been given prison sentences for “spreading propaganda against the regime”, reports Middle East Concern. Saheb Fadaei and Fatimeh Bakhteri, who belong to the non-Trinitarian “Church of Iran”, were sentenced to 18 and 12 months, respectively. Middle East Concern noted that in the verdict it was written . . . Read More

India: 271 Christians charged with converting Hindus through lies and drugs

September 18, 2018 India BJP, Converts, Hindu nationalism, India, Minorities, Narendra Modi, Uttar Pradesh

Two hundred and seventy-one Christians in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have been charged with a range of crimes including attempting to convert Hindus through the use of drugs and by spreading lies about Hinduism. Of the 271, just three were named – pastors Durga Prasad Yadav, Kirit . . . Read More

Iranian convert marries in Sweden but still waiting on asylum claim

August 15, 2018 Aideen Strandsson, Asylum seekers, Converts, Iran, Sweden

The marriage of an Iranian Christian asylum-seeker to a Swedish pastor last month will not have any impact on her case for the next two years, reports CBN News. Aideen Strandsson, 37, married Cai Berger on 10 July, but though the marriage is legally recognised, under Swedish law the couple . . . Read More

Nine-year-old Indian girl from convert family reported raped, then murdered

August 8, 2018 India Andhra Pradesh, Anti-conversion law, Chhattisgarh, Children, Converts, Gujarat, Gurdaspur, Himachal Pradesh, Hindu nationalism, India, Jharkhand, Ludhiana, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Rape, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Women

A nine-year-old girl from an Indian family that had recently converted to Christianity was murdered (and possibly raped before that) on Sunday, 5 August, in Punjab state. The girl was playing with her friends in the city of Gurdaspur, near the Pakistan border, when a 15 year old boy is reported to . . . Read More

We’ll close one church every week, Indian Christians told

August 6, 2018 India Churches, Converts, India, Maharashtra, Proselytism

church Maharashtra (World Watch Monitor)

Christian villagers in a rural district of India’s Maharashtra state have been told that one church will be closed down every week because they have been “destroying” local tradition and culture by “luring” others to convert to Christianity. Since June, over a dozen houses belonging to Christians have been attacked . . . Read More

Hindu extremist violence on the rise in southern Indian states

August 3, 2018 India Andhra Pradesh, Bajrang Dal, BJP, Caste, Churches, Converts, Dalits, Hindu nationalism, House churches, Hyderabad, India, Narendra Modi, Police, Religious freedom, RSS, Telangana

Good Fruit Ministries church in Sangameshwar village of Siddhipet District, Telangana state was demolished by a bull dozer on the directions of uppercaste Hindus who follow Vaastu shastra.

Religious freedom advocate ADF India has noted a rise in incidents of religiously motivated violence in India’s two Telugu language-speaking southern states, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, including the brutal murder of an elderly Christian woman. So far this year, ADF India says it has verified 17 incidents of anti-Christian persecution . . . Read More

Afghan convert to Christianity flees, but persecution follows him

August 2, 2018 Afghanistan, Converts, Delhi, India, Kabul, Minorities, Refugees, Taliban, UN

An Indian newspaper has highlighted the story of an Afghan convert to Christianity who fled Afghanistan on account of the persecution he received for his faith, only to find that it followed him to India. “AP”, a man in his 60s who arrived in India three years ago, now lives . . . Read More

Sri Lankan Christian: ‘They took everything from us’

July 31, 2018 Sri Lanka Converts, Minorities, Sri Lanka

This is the story of a Sri Lankan brickmaker who received death threats after his conversion to Christianity, which is often seen as a “foreign” religion, even though it arrived in the Indian sub-continent almost two thousand years ago. Nimal is illiterate, but attended Bible school. He says when he talks . . . Read More

Jail for Iranian pastor’s son found guilty of ‘acting against national security’

July 18, 2018 Iran Assyrians, Converts, Iran, Ramil Bet-Tamraz, Victor Bet-Tamraz

Ramil Bet-Tamraz was one of the Christians arrested during a picnic in the Alborz Mountains north of Tehran last August. His father, Victor, was arrested on 26 December 2014 for celebrating Christmas.

The son of an influential pastor silenced by the Iranian government has been handed a four-month jail sentence for his involvement with illegal house churches, World Watch Monitor has learnt. Ramil Bet Tamraz’s lawyers were informed of the sentence for “acting against national security” on 8 July. One of the . . . Read More

Attack on seven Iranian Christians exposes religious minorities’ ‘extreme vulnerability’ in refugee camps

July 10, 2018 Converts, Greece, Iran, Minorities, Refugees, Religious freedom, Switzerland, UN

Refugee camps in Greece are "microcosms of the Middle East with all the same ethnic and religious tensions" which are being intensified here, causing violence. (Photo: Photo by Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images)

Five Christian converts and two children from Iran were attacked last month in a refugee camp in Greece and told to leave as “this is a Muslim camp”. Following the incident, which took place on Sunday 24 June in a camp near the city of Larissa, about 360km northwest of . . . Read More

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