Displaying items by tag: Iran

Over many years we have prayed for Iranians to receive Christ as their saviour. Christianity is illegal: yet despite facing torture, imprisonment, and execution, millions are forsaking Islam and converting to Christianity despite the regime targeting believers, spreading false information, and encouraging a negative opinion about Christianity. The Family Research Council, suggests that new Christians' witness to others is mostly shared in quiet conversations, encouraged by low-profile online Bible studies, and affirmed by visions, dreams, and miraculously answered prayers. Recent Christian converts are enthusiastically communicating about their changed lives with friends and loved ones. Their discreet, persistent witness accounts for an extraordinary number of new Iranian believers meeting in small house churches. Those involved with house churches are convinced that there are several million Christian believers there in a mass exodus from Islam. The churches of Muslim Background Believers lack clergy and church buildings. It consists of self-starting disciples and small house churches.

Praise God that Christian converts Homayoun and Sara have been acquitted and released from Evin Prison after being jailed in August 2022 for belonging to house churches, aka ‘crimes against national security’. Homayoun is particularly vulnerable, as he has Parkinson's.

Iran recently hanged two men for blasphemy, saying they had insulted the prophet Muhammad and promoted atheism. They were arrested in 2021 and spent months in solitary confinement without family contact. Iran has executed over 203 prisoners this year, but executions for blasphemy remain rare. The recent spate of executions, including members of ethnic minority groups, comes amid continuing protests over the arrest of Mahsa Amini by Iran’s morality police and her death in their custody. Over 500 people were killed and 19,000 arrested in the protests, which have been one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s theocracy since 1979’s Islamic Revolution. Today public frustration extends beyond repressive dress codes. The economy is in poor shape due to sanctions and Iran’s policy incompetence. Inflation is above 40%, currency is a record low, and unemployment tops 10%. Many believe that these anxieties mean further unrest is unavoidable.

An agreement to restore relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran has opened the possibility of peace talks between Riyadh, which backs Yemen’s official rulers, and the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels. Saudi and Houthi representatives met with Omani mediators in Yemen last week to negotiate a permanent ceasefire. Pray for further progress. The UN estimates that 4.5 million Yemenis are displaced and two-thirds of the population are in dire need of humanitarian aid. In eight years Yemen has endured terrible suffering from bombs and mines causing needless deaths. The war is fuelled by Saudi Arabia, Britain, America and the United Arab Emirates - and also Iran, which has supplied funds and weapons to Houthi rebels. There are miles of negotiations and diplomatic manoeuvrings to go, but to reach this point is a tremendous tonic for Yemenis who have seen war plunge their beautiful and naturally resource-rich country into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iranian women could vote and wear Western clothing. Religious minorities, like Christians, were protected by law. Since 1979, leaders have been doing everything according to Islamic principles, which is driving people to look for something else. Jesus is ‘something else,’ something separate from Islam, and many Iranians are finding him. Many Iranian believers also have Muslim friends and family members who are sick of Islam, are sick of what is happening in their country, and want something else. To help Iranian believers reach loved ones and neighbours for Christ, Voice of the Martyrs USA is sending 300,000 Bibles into Iran this month. When equipped with Scripture, Iranian believers can hand those (frustrated) people a Bible and say, ‘Why don’t you read this? This is a different path.’

Greek police have prevented an ‘imminent attack’ against Israelis and Jews after arresting two Pakistani nationals who are part of an Iranian terror network. The two arrests came after the police, aided by Israel’s Mossad spy agency, uncovered plans for mass-casualty terrorist attacks, one of the targets being a Jewish restaurant in Athens. It is a kosher restaurant which also hosts other religious services. The two suspects had chosen targets of ‘high symbolism’. A third man, who is not in Greece, is wanted for questioning and has been charged in absentia. A police statement said, ‘Their aim was to cause the loss of life of innocent citizens and also to undermine the sense of security in Greece, while hurting public institutions and threatening our international relations’.

Mehdi Rokhparvar, who was serving a five-year sentence for ‘acting against national security’ by ‘forming an illegal evangelical Christian group’, was released from Tehran’s Evin Prison in the same week as fellow convert Saheb Fadaie as part of a wider amnesty of prisoners on the occasion of the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Republic. However, such pardons, while welcome, do not address the original injustice of their sentencing and imprisonment as the government continues to regard rights and freedoms guaranteed in international law as crimes; including the right to freely adopt a religion of one’s choice, and manifest one’s faith in community with others.

Toxic chemical attacks across the Islamic republic are poisoning schoolgirls. Over 1,200 girls have been hospitalised so far. School authorities and government bodies deny or downplay the strange objects landing in schoolyards and loud bangs being heard. Many believe the attacks are ‘revenge’ tactics against young Iranian women leading a revolutionary movement that erupted in September. Iran's Ali Khamenei demanded punishment for the females involved in the uprising, saying the punishment for teenagers would be special because they're aware of what they are doing. Officials try to blame foreign ‘enemies’ for the attacks, but student’s families believe the real enemy is their government. Parents gathered in one school chanting ‘death to the child-killing regime.’ Meanwhile, widespread social media footage shows a concerned mother brutally attacked by plainclothes security forces for demanding answers about her poisoned daughter. Other parents demand to know why school security cameras were off when the poison gas spread.

The Government has confirmed reports that the Iranian regime plans to attack Jews and Israelis in the UK if Israel carries out a military attack on Iran. Last week the Jewish Chronicle reported Iran was mapping out the locations of Jews, Israelis and Iranian anti-regime activists in the UK. The security minister said, ‘We have very clear intelligence about the activities of hostile regimes in the UK and keep a very close eye on their agents' activities of surveillance. We know that Iranians are paying British crooks and criminal gangs to spy for them and you can be very clear that we do not issue these warnings lightly.’ He added, ‘All threats against UK people are taken very seriously and we highlight Israelis and Jewish communities because we see threats and Iranian operational activity directed against them.’

The war in Ukraine and the poor global economy have enabled dictators, regimes, and terrorists to take ad­vantage of the situation while the world’s attention was distracted. This will worsen in 2023, to the detriment of Christians. Ask God to protect China’s Christians as the crackdown on house churches accelerates. Pray for all the minorities in Myanmar, where the 2021 political coup has led to many attacks and bombings of churches. The internally dis­placed use churches as shelters. Iran has also taken the opportunity to crack down on churches, Christians, and Muslim-back­ground believers this year. Pray for Christian arrests and torture to diminish in 2023. Indian Christians need our prayers for an end to the anti-conversion laws being enforced in Hindu communities. Afghanistan has no national income and no natural resources, and all assets are frozen worldwide. Christianity is illegal. Those forced to stay or needing support to find safe havens need God's protection.