New 2018 Report on Iran’s Violation of the Rights of Christians

By International Christian Concern
Persecution.org

A new report details how last year brought continued violation of religious freedom for Iranian Christians, cumulating in an unprecedented wave of raids targeting the underground church during the Christmas season. 

The report, which was compiled by a number of human rights groups, details the status of several imprisoned Christians, church closures, property rights violations, as well as the surveillance and harassment of Christians.

The report, which is entitled the 2018 Annual Report (on) Violations of the Rights of Christians in Iran, states:

“Religious and political leaders in Iran continue to speak out against Christianity. It is therefore unsurprising that the Christian community experiences repression in various forms. The Iranian intelligence service (MOIS) closely monitors Christian activity and, together with the Revolutionary Guard (IRCG), has raided Christian gatherings in private homes, arresting all in attendance and confiscating personal property. Those arrested have been subjected to intensive and often abusive interrogation.”

A majority of the reported violations involved Christian converts from Islam being rejected by society, and many minorities imprisoned or sentenced to long jail terms. Christian minorities encountered erratic house raids on private house gatherings, leading to a large amount of arrests, or their sentences upheld by the Court of Appeal. Also, in several cases, church properties remained under constant threat of confiscation and closure.

Website: Persecution.org

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Indian Christians Refuse to Deny Christ Despite Persecution From Hindu Radicals

"Doors are often closed to the Gospel, but God has a way of working through, and around, and over closed doors....." 

School children listen to a speech by a Christian leader during 

a protest rally in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata August 29, 2008.

By Leah Marie Ann Klett

Christian Post

Christian families in India who were forced to stop attending church after Hindu radicals threatened to beat and kill them have vowed to continue worshiping Christ in secret.

Pastor Singh, who leads a congregation in India's Madhya Pradesh State, told International Christian Concern that 15 families have stopped going to his church in recent months after facing persecution at the hands of Hindu radicals.

"The reason for this drop in the attendance is the threats from Hindu radicals," Pastor Singh told the nonprofit persecution watchdog. "The radicals say they will beat and kill my church members if they continue to attend the services."

"Prior to May this year, around 200 people used to worship regularly in my church," he continued. "But now only 50 to 60 people attend my church on Sunday. They are under tremendous pressure from Hindu radicals."

Shankar Damor, a 37-year-old from Kardubadi village near Jhabua, told ICC his family stopped attending church because they were under serious threat of physical attack.

"In a meeting last May in the village of Kardubadi, the Christians were told that we should not attend any church and should not even pray in our homes," Shankar explained. "When we complained to the village diktat, the entire village stopped associating with us. No one attended our weddings and we were totally cut off from the people of the village."

"In that same month, when my family was praying in our house, someone from the village called the police and I was taken to the police station on false charges of forced conversions," Shankar said. "The police beat me brutally and harassed me while in custody."

Despite such persecution, Shankar said his family will continue to worship Christ — in secret.

"We are on shaky ground as a family," he said. "However, we might stop attending the church, but we will not leave Jesus."

Babu Singh Damor, another Christian from Kardubadi village, told ICC that after completing his Bachelor of Theology, he wanted to serve as a pastor. However, he's forced to practice his faith in private.

"We Christians are closely monitored as to where we are going and whom are we meeting," Babu explained. "It's quite a pathetic life we are living. However, we are not going to leave Jesus, no one is going snatch Jesus from our hearts."

Pansingh Bhuriah, a 23-year-old Christian by birth and former member of Pastor Singh's church, decided to distance himself from the church and Christian activities after his sister was sent to jail on false charges of forced conversion.

"We are attacked from all corners," he said. "It affects our livelihood as we are denied work in the village. It affects our social life as nobody from the entire region attends any of our social gatherings. We have been forced to not identify with Christians and churches and live like Hindus in the village."

India ranks as the 11th worst nation in the world when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USA's 2018 World Watch List. While religious freedom is supposed to be a constitutional right in the country, several Indian states have implemented anti-conversion laws, making it illegal for anyone to use force or allurement to convert others to another religion. Such laws are often abused by Hindu radicals to file false complaints against pastors and pressure Christians not to share their faith.

Christian Post article continues here

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Christians in China Fear Persecution Will Get Worse After Authorities Bomb Evangelical Megachurch

Footage of the demolition of the Golden Lampstand Church by Chinese officials in Linfen, Shanxi province, China, on January 9, 2018.

By Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post

An evangelical megachurch was destroyed by Chinese Communist authorities Tuesday in the country's northern Shanxi province, sparking fears among Christians that the persecution they suffer will soon get worse.

China Aid said in an update Wednesday that Chinese military police detonated explosives inside Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen, destroying the $2.6 million house of worship, which was owned by the Christians who worshiped there.

A demolition crew broke apart the remaining pieces of the church after the explosion with diggers and jackhammers.

Lampstand's head Pastor, Yang Rongli, had previously spent seven years in prison on charges of assembling a large crowd to disturb traffic order, and has been under police surveillance since his release in October 2016.

Describing the demolition, the pastor was quoted as saying that at first, police surrounded the church.

"Patrol wagons guarded the church. Workers smashed the church's glass. At this point, excavators are digging into the church, but we are not allowed to enter or watch," she said.

"The village head and the police from the local police station warned all the believers against entering the church. Now, we really have no idea what is going to happen."

The order to demolish the church reportedly came from China's top officials, who control the military police.

"The repeated persecution of Golden Lampstand Church demonstrates that the Chinese government has no respect for religious freedom or human rights," said ChinaAid President and founder Bob Fu.

"ChinaAid calls on the international community to openly condemn the bombing of this church building and urge the Chinese government to fairly compensate the Christians who paid for it and immediately cease these alarming demolitions of churches."

The Guardian reports that a Catholic church in the neighboring province of Shaanxi was also demolished in a similar fashion last month, which is stoking fears among Christians that the widespread crackdown on churches continues in full force.

As many as 1,200 crosses have been removed from churches in Zhejiang province since 2015, with officials arguing that many of the demolitions have been down to building code violations.

A local pastor, who asked not to be named, said that he saw "more police than I could count" at the site, preventing worshipers from approaching.

"My heart was sad to see this demolition and now I worry about more churches being demolished, even my own," he said. "This church was built in 2008, there's no reason for them to destroy it now."

The Associated Press noted that the evangelical megachurch had a congregation of 50,000, and had been targeted by police on a number of occasions. Officials reportedly hired thugs to smash the church and take its Bible during the crackdown in 2009, when Rongli was arrested.

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Christians Face Worse Persecution Than at Any Time in History, New Report Claims

A woman holds a cross during a rally organised by Iraqi Christians in Germany
denouncing persecution by the Islamic State terror group against Christians living in Iraq.

By Harry Farley

Christian Today

Persecution against Christians is the worst it has ever been in history, a new report from a Catholic charity is claiming.

Looking at 13 countries where Christians face the worst abuses the study by Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), released on Thursday, found the outlook has worsened in all of them with the one exception being Saudi Arabia 'where the situation was already so bad it could scarcely get any worse', the report says.

Persecuted and Forgotten? warns Christians in many countries will not survive if violence against them continues and highlighted 'unspeakable atrocities' around the world including in North Korea where believers face 'enforced starvation, abortion, and reports of faithful being hung on crosses over a fire and others being crushed under a steamroller'.

It issues a scathing attack on Western governments as speakers lined up to criticise their response at an event in the House of Lords on Thursday night to launch the research.

Lord Alton of Liverpool, a cross-bench peer and religious freedom campaigner, said there was a need 'to separate propaganda from the reality' when hearing about money governments have donated as ministers said UK had promised £169.5 million of support to Iraq since 2014

Father Salar Kajo, a priest on the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq where many Christians used to live, said: 'We Christians see very little of this aid. In reality there is nothing.

'I am there, I am working there, I know there is nothing. It is the church that has rebuilt the houses. UNICEF come just to paint the walls,' he told the audience of MPs, officials and journalists.

The ACN report says: 'Governments in the West and the UN failed to offer Christians in countries such as Iraq and Syria the emergency help they needed as genocide got underway.'

John Pontifex, spokesman for the charity and editor of the report said: 'In terms of the numbers of people involved, the gravity of the crimes committed and their impact, it is clear that the persecution of Christians is today worse than at any time in history.

'Not only are Christians more persecuted than any other faith group, but ever-increasing numbers are experiencing the very worst forms of persecution.'

Christian Today continues 

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Persecuted Middle Eastern Christians Facing ‘Tragedy’: Church

By Breitbart, Jerusalem

JERUSALEM (AFP) – A leading church figure in the Middle East said Monday Christians across the region were facing a “tragedy,” and accused the international community of failing to act.

“The situation of Christians, especially in Syria and Iraq, is a tragedy,” said Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, in a press conference ahead of the Christmas holidays.

The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem heads the Roman Catholic Church in the Holy Land.

He said up to two-thirds of Christians have left in those two countries, citing in particular Aleppo — the previously mixed city in northern Syria which has been devastated by more than five years of civil war.

“In Aleppo, before the war there were 300,000 (Christians).  Now it is about 50,000 maximum.”

He accused world governments of failing to act to help stabilize the region, instead resorting to “slogans.”

“The international community now limit themselves to slogans and some economical support. Nothing more than that — it is very weak.”

While he said attacks on Christians killed specifically due to their religion were relatively rare, there have been examples of persecution by the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

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