Iran: 62-year-old Christian Convert with Parkinson’s Disease faces Prison for Belonging to a Church

An Iranian Christian convert with advanced Parkinson’s disease and his wife have been told to expect a summons any day to begin their prison sentences for belonging to a house-church

March 22, 2021

Iran

The persecution of Homayoun Zhaveh and Sara Ahmadi is not unique. The Iranian government often targets converts to Christianity as apostates, which is a criminal offense in Iran. That is why Zhaveh and Ahmadi were charged with “actions against national security,” solely for practicing the Christian faith. The laws in Iran that grant some limited freedoms to the Christians are generally not considered applicable to converts from Islam to Christianity, who are all too often considered enemies of the state, as we see in this case. The U.S. State Department has classified Iran as a “country of particular concern” for “having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”

The Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, requests that the government of Iran grant full religious freedom to all of its citizens, not interfering with their freedom of worship in any way, and immediately clear these seven converts.

For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of Iran, see here.

“Iranian Christian convert with Parkinson’s disease faces prison,” Article 18, March 16, 2021:

An Iranian Christian convert with advanced Parkinson’s disease and his wife have been told to expect a summons any day to begin their prison sentences for belonging to a house-church.

Homayoun Zhaveh, who is 62, and his wife Sara Ahmadi, 42, were sentenced in November 2020 to two and 11 years in prison, respectively, for membership and leadership of the church, though their case has not been made public until now.

They were also banned from foreign travel or membership of any social or political group for two years after their release, and given six months’ community service at a centre for the mentally disabled.

Their appeals were rejected in December – though Sara’s sentence was reduced to eight years – and on Sunday, 14 March, they were informed that their case has been forwarded on to the government body responsible for enforcing judgments, which may therefore summon them at any moment.

Homayoun and Sara were arrested by agents from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence in June 2019 as they holidayed with several other Christian families in the city of Amol, near the Caspian Sea.

The other Christians were also questioned, but only Homayoun and Sara were detained – first in Sari, near Amol, and then in the notorious Evin Prison back in their home city of Tehran.

Homayoun was released a month later, but Sara was held for a total of 67 days, including 33 days in solitary confinement – mostly within the Intelligence Ministry’s Ward 209 – during which time she was subjected to extreme psychological torture.

Their sentences were pronounced by Judge Iman Afshari on 14 November 2020, following a hearing three days earlier at Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran.

They appealed the verdict, but though the judge, Ahmad Zargar, slightly reduced Sara’s sentence in his 30 December verdict, the other aspects of their sentences were upheld.

The couple’s lawyer had argued in his appeal that the law was “unclear” on how meeting as a group of Christians could be construed as membership of an “illegal organization”.

Christian Persecution report continues

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Chinese Authorities Seize Church Property Days After Raiding House Church

The U.S. State Department has labeled China as a “country of particular concern” for “continuing to engage in particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”

A cross is seen behind a poster with the logo of Communist Party of 
 China near a Catholic church on the outskirts of Taiyuan,North China's  
 Shanxi province, December 24, 2016. REUTERS/Jason Lee

By Anugrah Kumar   
Christian Post

Communist authorities in China removed all the belongings of a house church in China’s Chongqing municipality without showing any legal documents, days after raiding the building during a worship service, according to reports.

More than 30 officials, including local police, state security and local district administration, came with trucks and took away all the property, including chairs and books, at Mt. Olive Church in Chongqing on Wednesday, the U.S.-based advocacy organization International Christian Concern reports.

The Texas-based non-governmental organization China Aid reported the same group of officials, led by the Yuzhong District Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau, raided the church during its worship service last Sunday. The authorities sent the members home and sealed the church without showing any papers to prove official authorization.

Pastor Zhu Dong and several leaders were said to have been brought to the police station.

In January 2018, Mt. Olive Reformed School, founded by the church, was also raided, sealed and charged with being an “illegal venue for proselytization.”

China Aid suspects that the recent crackdown against house churches, which targets especially reformed churches, could be a “gift” to the upcoming 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party.

The Chinese government also continued its campaign against Christianity during the country’s coronavirus outbreak by destroying crosses and demolishing a church while people were on lockdown.

On February 28, authorities raided the Chongqing Living Fountain Church during one of its Sunday services and arrested two Christians, one of whom preached that day. According to China Aid, officers confiscated a computer belonging to the church and told those attending the service not to come on the church grounds again because the church is not registered and "there’s the potential risk of spreading the COVID-19 virus."

In January, police officers, education bureau officials, national security officers and urban management officers raided a house where homeschooled children of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu were playing together, the church said in a Facebook post.

“The police are now raiding the home. There are a large number of police officers outside and inside of brother Liang Huali and Sister Shu Qiong’s home, and they are currently removing brother Liang’s personal belongings. Please pray!” the church wrote.

Open Doors USA, which monitors persecution in over 60 countries, estimates that there are about 97 million Christians in China, a large percentage of whom worship in what China considers to be "illegal" and unregistered underground home churches.

China ranks as the 17th-worst country in the world when it comes to the persecution of Christians, according to Open Doors USA’s 2021 World Watch List.

A November 2020 report from the Pew Research Center showed that restrictions on religion in China had risen to a record level. Researchers found that China continued to have “the highest score on the Government Restrictions Index out of all 198 countries and territories in the study.”

In addition to Early Rain Covenant Church, the Chinese Communist Party has forced several well-known churches to shut down, including Rongguili Church in Guangzhou and Xunsiding Church in Xiamen.

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Arkansas Governor Signs Law to Protect Religious Conscience of Healthcare Providers

The bill contends that the conscience of medical practitioners, healthcare institutions and healthcare payers has been increasingly threatened in recent years.

Getty Images/Science Photo Library

By Emily Wood
Christian Post

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed legislation Friday to provide conscience protections for the religious objections of healthcare providers, payers and institutions.

Sponsored by Sen. Kim Hammer and Rep. Brandt Smith, both Republicans, “The Medical Ethics and Diversity Act,” S.B. 289, will protect medical professionals from providing services that go against their moral, religious or ethical beliefs, such as performing abortions or sex-change surgeries.

Hutchinson said in a statement that he “weighed this bill very carefully” before signing.

The governor originally opposed the legislation in the 2017 legislative session until it was changed to ensure the ability to exercise the right of conscience is limited to “conscience-based objections to a particular health care service.”

“Most importantly, the federal laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender, and national origin continue to apply to the delivery of health care services,” Hutchinson said in the statement.

The governor said he supports this legislation as long as emergency care is exempted and conscience objections cannot deny general healthcare services to any class of people.

“This bill is about elective things, things you can take time to find a provider who’s willing to offer the service rather than a force a provider who doesn’t believe in doing it,” Hammer said about the bill, according to the Associated Press.

Stephanie Nichols, legal counsel for Alliance for Defending Freedom, a religious freedom legal advocacy group that has argued numerous cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, commended the governor’s signing for protecting the right of “health care heroes” to serve according to their ethical and religious briefs.

“Patients are best served by doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals who are free to act ethically and consistent with their oath to ‘do no harm,’” Nichols said in a statement. “The MED Act ensures that no medical professional is compelled to breach this oath by being forced to participate in procedures or treatments that violate their conscience.”

“Driving out doctors, nurses, and other medical providers because of their faith or ethical convictions means fewer health care options for patients at a time when our nation’s health care system is overstretched and experiencing a dire shortage of providers,” Nichols continued.

Christian Post article continues

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School Teaches Kids to Stop Using 'Mom' and 'Dad': Why This Story Matters and the Rock on Which We Must Stand

This threat of internal compromise in the body of Christ is growing exponentially today.

By Jim Denison, Opinion
Denison Forum on Truth and Culture

A private school in Manhattan is encouraging its students to stop using the terms “mom,” “dad,” and “parents” because the words make “assumptions” about kids’ home lives. Instead, children are encouraged to use the terms “grown-ups,” “folks,” “family,” or “guardians” as substitutes.

In its push for gender inclusion, the school wants its students to substitute “people” for “boys and girls.” Rather than lining up as boys and girls, they are to line up alphabetically or by types of shoes. If someone says, “a boy can’t marry a boy,” they are encouraged to respond by saying, “People can love and commit to whomever they please, it’s their choice who they marry.” Instead of wishing each other “Merry Christmas!” or even “Happy Holidays!,” they are to say, “Have a great break!”

When I saw the story, I assumed it was about another highly secularized school at war with Judeo-Christian morality. Multiple examples of such conflicts are in the news these days. For instance, a curriculum being considered in California seeks to displace Christian culture and recommends that teachers instead lead students in a series of songs and chants to the Aztec gods (whom the Aztecs traditionally worshiped with cannibalism and human sacrifice, by the way).

It turns out, the school in Manhattan is Grace Church School. A school official explained their language policy: “As part of our Episcopal identity, we recognize the dignity and worth common to humanity.”
WHY WE MUST BE SPIRITUAL "FRUIT INSPECTORS"

There are two kinds of threats in our fallen world: those we can identify and those we cannot.

Examples of the former abound: a New York bill that could force schools to teach sex education to kindergartners and gender identity to second graders; the escalation of forced marriages and physical violence against Christian women around the world; and the Biden administration’s push for taxpayer-funded abortions, for instance. Like an Eiffel Tower-sized asteroid that missed our planet on March 5 but will return in eight years, we can see these threats coming.

Other threats are not obvious until they are dangerous, like a meteor that caused “Earth-shaking booms” over Vermont on March 7. Such threats are especially insidious because, by the time we know we are in a conflict, it can be too late to respond.

This is true medically of cancer, heart disease, and other ailments. It is true geopolitically with rising threats from China and elsewhere. And it is true spiritually as well.

In fact, I fear threats from within the body of Christ far more than those from without.

Jesus warned us to “beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15). How are we to identify them? He told us, “You will recognize them by their fruits” (v. 16). Ultimately, our Lord assured us, “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (v. 19).

THE BIBLE IS AN ANVIL

Grace Church School is an example of this challenge. I wholeheartedly agree that we should “recognize the dignity and worth common to humanity.” Every human is created in the image of our Creator (Genesis 1:27), someone for whom Jesus died (Romans 5:8) and therefore a person of sacred worth.

However, we do not “recognize the dignity and worth common to humanity” by violating God’s word and will for humanity. Scripture not only tells us that we are loved by God (John 3:16)—it also tells us how to live our best lives and how to relate to others in truthful, redemptive ways. When we alter or reject biblical revelation on sexuality or any other issue, however kind our motive might seem, we do far more harm than good.

The Bible has been likened to an anvil—we do not break God’s word; we break ourselves on it.

Christian Headlines continues

Wife of Pastor Arrested for Holding In-Person Worship Services Details Her Husband’s Time in Jail

We are gravely concerned that COVID-19 is being used to fundamentally alter society and strip us all of our civil liberties.

By Amanda Casanova
Christian Headlines

The wife of a Canadian pastor who is in jail for holding in-person worship services says her husband spent “the majority of” his first two weeks “alone.”

Canadian pastor James Coates was originally quarantined for two weeks and only allowed two 15-minute blocks outside of his cell. The GraceLife Church pastor has since been moved to general population, Coates’ wife, Erin, said.

“Now, he gets about three hours out, in one-hour chunks,” Erin said. “He is able to be with the inmates on his unit during this time. I still can’t visit him because of COVID restrictions.”

Coates was arrested for “exceeding the 15 percent allowable capacity for the services held on Feb. 21 and Feb. 28, 2021.” His trial is set for May 3-5.

Previously, the church was fined $1,200 in December for violating capacity limits set due to the ongoing pandemic.

Last week, a judge ruled to deny bail to Coates because the pastor has said that he refuses to agree “to the condition of release and multiple noncompliance with the stated intent to continue concerns public safety.”

Coates has said he will not stop holding in-person services and will not put a cap on how many people can attend services.

The church also released a statement, saying holding in-person services is a “civil liberty.”

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India: Christians attacked, beaten at prayer meeting by radical Hindu mob wielding weapons

Christians in Chhattisgarh state, the majority of whom are from tribal or indigenous people groups, have witnessed a rise in attacks since last September.

                                                                                                                              Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

By Anugrah Kumar

Christian Post

A mob of about 70 people carrying weapons attacked a group of Christians who were praying at a believer’s home in India’s eastern state of Chhattisgarh this week, burning Bibles and vandalizing furniture, according to a report, which said at least six Christians sustained serious injuries.

The Christians were attending a prayer meeting at the house of a fellow believer in Surguda village in the state’s Bastar District on Monday night when some of the men in the mob surrounded the property and the others entered the house to attack, according to the U.K.-based group, Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

The men, believed to be Hindu nationalists, verbally abused and physically assaulted the Christians, burning Bibles, furniture, bicycles and a motorcycle, CSW reported Thursday, adding that at least six Christians had to be admitted to the hospital due to severe injuries.

“This brutal attack on a prayer meeting is yet another example of the rise in crimes against religious minorities in several Indian states,” CSW’s Chief Executive Scot Bower said. “When private prayer gatherings are seen as soft targets for mob violence it is evident that states are failing to uphold an individual’s right to manifest their faith, which is a central aspect of freedom of religion or belief and protected by the Indian constitution.”

Christians in Chhattisgarh state, the majority of whom are from tribal or indigenous people groups, have witnessed a rise in attacks since last September.

The persecution is taking place amid radical Hindu groups’ campaign to stop the country’s tribal people from converting to Christianity. These groups have been demanding that the government ban those who convert from receiving education and employment opportunities.

Most tribals do not identify as Hindus; they have diverse religious practices and many worship nature. However, the government’s Census deems them to be Hindu. Radical nationalist groups, which have been working in tribal-majority areas to compete with Christian workers, have influenced some groups among the tribal population.

In three separate attacks in Chhattisgarh’s Kondagaon district in September, tribal villagers vandalized 16 houses belonging to Christians from the same tribe and attacked at least one tribal Christian woman, forcing all male family members to flee into jungles for safety at the time.

The Christian men were able to return to their homes days later after the Bilaspur High Court passed an order in a Public Interest Litigation filed by 12 Christians to seek security for the displaced Christians.

Chhattisgarh is one of the states where an “anti-conversion” law is in force. These laws, which presume that Christians use money or other fraudulent means to convert Hindus, have been in place for decades in some states, but no Christian has been convicted of “forcibly” converting anyone to Christianity. These laws, however, allow Hindu nationalist groups to make false charges against Christians and launch attacks on them under the pretext of the alleged forced conversion.

“Since the current ruling party took power in 2014, incidents against Christians have increased, and Hindu radicals often attack Christians with little to no consequences,” noted Open Doors’ World Watch List last year, which ranked India as the 10th worst country for Christians.

Christian Post continues

Persecution Unveiled has been called to prick the consciences of our nation and all free people to pray for, speak up and act on behalf of those who are persecuted for their faith. Follow us on Pinterest.