Displaying items by tag: convert

A young man who accepted Jesus in 2018 was arrested by militias and detained several times during recent years. They tried to force him to recant his faith. There is no rule of law; there are no official law-enforcement agencies. Libya has no law against apostasy, so converts are tried for treason. However, a court based its decision on a law enacted by the elected legislative body between 2012 and 2014 ,which states that an apostate from Islam must be executed if they do not recant. That law and others were cancelled by the current Tobruk-based parliament, elected in 2014. However, as part of a continuing power struggle, the Tripoli supreme court declared the Tobruk-based parliament illegal, allowing courts freedom to still apply the cancelled laws. The accused did not have legal representation during the proceedings.

Ebrahim’s ordeal began in 2013 when he was sentenced to one year in prison and two years of internal exile in the remote town of Sarbaz for ‘propaganda against the regime by establishing and organising Christian gatherings’ and ‘having contacts with anti-revolutionary networks outside Iran’. He expected to be released in 2015, but instead he was retried and sentenced to an additional five years in prison for ‘acting against national security’. On 27 September, he had to answer a further charge of ‘propaganda against the state’, carrying a prison sentence of three to twelve months. Thankfully, the next day the case closed for lack of evidence. Iranian Christians are thankful that the prosecutor did not press charges, but request prayer that Ebrahim will know the Lord’s peace during this time of increased pressure from the authorities, even while continuing to serve the internal exile sentence.

It is illegal to be anything other than a Muslim in Afghanistan, a tribal society where leaving Islam is seen as a betrayal of the tribe. Christians who are discovered may be sent to a psychiatric hospital, on the grounds that no sane person would leave Islam. Baptism is punishable by death. Radical Islamic militants rule in over 40% of the country. If the Swiss government succeeds in deporting an Afghan Christian convert (known as AA), he faces persecution, imprisonment, or death. A religious liberty advocacy group appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on his behalf on 18 October, after the Swiss authorities refused his application for asylum. The Swiss were accused of ‘turning a blind eye to the situation of religious minorities in Afghanistan’.