Tag Archives: Christian Persecution

Naghmeh Abedini Tells Congress Jesus Hasn’t Abandoned Her Family

The wife of Saeed Abedini, the American pastor imprisoned in Iran for being a Christian, told Congress that Jesus has not abandoned her family despite her husband’s continued illegal captivity.

Naghmeh Abedini spoke to the House Foreign Affairs Committee Tuesday during a hearing about Americans wrongfully imprisoned in Iran.

“Most mornings like today, I wake up in a new hotel in a new city or country and am reminded of my new reality — a reality that includes lonely airports and empty hotel rooms,” Abedini explained in her testimony. “This pain of this journey without my husband has only increased as I have had to frequently leave my children to advocate for my husband’s release. The reality is, we are a family torn apart.”

“Over the last three years, I have had to watch my two children, Rebekka (who is 8 years old) and Jacob (who is 7 years old), suffer daily as they have grown up without a father or a mother,” Abedini continued. “I am here today as single mother who is trying to be strong for her children, and as a wife who humbly admits, I need your help. I cannot bear to look at my children’s longing eyes one more time and explain to them why their daddy is still not home.”

Abedini told the Congressmen that time is running out for the U.S. to have leverage to demand the release of her husband and others held captive.

“I can’t make foreign policy but I know that this is a crucial time and we have to bring Americans home while we can,” she told CP. “This is the time we have leverage. I know that we have a few weeks. I think after a deal is made or not made, it will be much more difficult to get Saeed out.”

The Committee passed a resolution at the end of the hearing calling for the immediate release of the captive Americans.

Naghmeh Abedini Asks European Officials For Help

The wife of wrongfully imprisoned pastor Saeed Abedini is turning to European leaders for help in her quest to free her husband.

Naghmeh Abedini visited with German officials and the European Parliament to speak with lawmakers who are committed to religious freedom around the world.  The German Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights quickly supported Naghmeh’s mission.

“I call upon Iran to quash Pastor Abedini’s sentence – and the sentences of all those imprisoned merely on account of their religious belief – without delay,” the commissioner said in a statement following the meeting. “Until he is released, I appeal to all those responsible in Iran to grant him urgently needed medical treatments, including outside the prison.”

A vigil at the Iranian Embassy in Germany was held by Naghmeh and German freedom advocates.

The meetings were arranged by the American Center for Law and Justice along with the German rights group Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte.

Tiffany Barrans of the ACLJ traveled with Abedini.

“This opportunity was invaluable to raise the plight of Pastor Saeed and the Christian community that suffers in Iran,” Barrans said.

The ACLJ has been advocating for Abedini’s release for years.

“Continued international pressure has helped free persecuted Christians before and we pray that it will again,” ACLJ said.

Muslims Force Christian Man Off Land To Build Mosque

An Ethiopian Christian fled his land in fear for his life after a Muslim mob ignored a court order protecting the Christian’s property rights.

The International Christian Concern reported that Fikere Mengistu built a home for his 93-year-old mother on land that he owned.  The Muslims then came in and destroyed the home along with his fence.  They looted the mother’s possessions from the home.

BosNewsLife reported that the Muslims acted in fear of Christians meeting.

Fearing that the village’s 38 Christians would use the house to gather for prayer,” BNL reported, “dozens of Muslims began to occupy his land and would remain for weeks at a time shouting “Allahu akhbar.”

The Muslims say they’re going to build a mosque on the Christian’s land.

“Their first plan was to kill my husband,” Mengistu’s wife, Haregewoyan, said in a statement to the ICC. “Now, he has escaped from the area. We are fasting and praying for God to rescue us from this forceful action.”

The land has been in Mengistu’s family for 90 years.

The head of the International Christian Concern in Africa is calling on the government to enforce the judge’s rulings.

Two Pastors Face Death Penalty In Sudan

Two pastors in Sudan are facing the death penalty as their trial begins on charges of espionage and blasphemy.  Sudan, a Muslim-dominated and controlled nation, regularly charges pastors with charges of blasphemy.

“This is not ‘something new’ for our church,” says the Rev. Tut Kony, pastor of the South Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church. “Almost all pastors have gone to jail under the government of Sudan. We have been stoned and beaten. This is their habit to pull down the church. We are not surprised. This is the way they deal with the church.”

Rev. Yat Michael and Rev. Peter Yen Reith were detained illegally in December 2014, released, and then recaptured in January.

David Curry of Open Doors USA said both pastors are married and have children.

“I’m fearful that they will execute these pastors for practicing their faith,” Curry said, according to Fox News.

Sudan is ranked sixth on the Open Doors list of the worst nations for persecution of Christians.

Sudan is known for the death sentence given to mother Miriam Ibrahim and forcing her to give birth while her legs were chained to the wall.

Chinese Authorities Raid Church House Gathering

Police in Heilongjiang province, China, raided a church house gathering on April 29th, and demanded those in attendance go to a government-sanctioned church.

“When we were gathering on April 29, people from the domestic security protection squad (DSPS), the local police station and the religious affairs bureau entered our building and demanded that we stop the worship service,” said a female leader, Yu, from the Home of Bodani church in the city of Yichun.

“When they entered the room, one church member was delivering a sermon. I told them that we were worshiping and that they could tell us whatever they wanted after our gathering was over. A man said no and that he wanted to talk to the person in charge.”

“Our leader is an elderly man named Dong Shiyun. He couldn’t do anything but follow the officers out of the building in order to not disturb the gathering,” Yu said. “I followed, too, and heard them say that our gathering is illegal because we don’t have a ‘site registration permit.’”

Yu said that the church has been meeting in the house for over 20 years and that the majority of the 10 worshippers inside were elderly and lived close to the house.

Xilin District Religious Affairs Bureau of Yichun and the Xilin District Public Security Bureau issued a notice stating that the church was illegal because it did not have a permit and that all religious activity had to immediately stop.

The officials said if the church continued to meet, they would be classified as a cult and further legal action would be taken against them.

Nevada Teacher Bans Student Using John 3:16 In Assignment

A Nevada public charter school is under the microscope after a teacher refused to allow a student to reference John 3:16 in a project asking the students to describe themselves using a series of slides.

Mackenzie Frasier, a sixth-grader at Somerset Academy, is the daughter of a pastor and said she was proud of her Christian faith and its importance in her life.  She didn’t tell her parents about the incident until April when she discussed a leadership class assignment and said she was told not to use Christian references.

Her father, Pastor Tim Fraiser, wrote to the school asking for clarification on what his daughter had been told by her teacher.

“Can you please explain if this is true? Perhaps, she misunderstood you? Since I am certain you understand that this clearly infringes on my daughters/your students right to freedom of speech, I want to make sure we understand your instructions,” he wrote on April 29.

The school responded with a defense of blocking Christian expression from their school.

“When Mackenzie created the project with the expectation she would present the Biblical saying to the class, the matter became one of having a captive audience that would be subject to her religious beliefs. Had the assignment been designed to simply hand in for a grade, this would not have been an issue. Therefore, considering the circumstances of the assignment, Miss Jardine appropriately followed school law expectations by asking Mackenzie to choose an alternate quote for the presentation,” Assistant Principal Jenyan Martinez wrote.

The Liberty Institute is now involved in the situation and demanding the school allow Mackenzie’s Constitutional rights and to allow resubmission of the project with her Bible verse included in the presentation.

The charter school management company that runs Somerset Academy said they are investigating the situation.

“We consider the civil liberties of our students to be of utmost importance,” said Colin Bringhurst of Academica Nevada. “As such, we strive to comply in every way with the directives set forth by the U.S. Department of Education with regard to religious expression in public schools.”

Mackenzie told the Last Vegas Review-Journal she’s standing up for her rights to be a good example to her younger brothers.

Marine Officer Court Martialed For Refusing To Remove Bible Verse

A U.S. Marine has been found guilty of disobeying a “lawful order” of a superior officer because she would not remove a Bible verse that she had taped onto her computer and desk.

Former Marine Lance Corporal Monifa Sterling has posted Isaiah 54:17, “no weapon formed against me shall prosper,” on her computer along with other Bible verses that she used for inspiration.

Her staff sergeant ordered her to remove the verses but Sterling refused, saying she had the First Amendment right to have those verses at her workstation.  The next day, they had been removed by someone else.

She defended herself at trial and was found guilty of showing disrespect toward a superior commissioned officer, four instances of disobeying a lawful order of a noncommissioned officer, and failing to go to her appointed place of duty.

An appellate court said because she shared the desk with another Marine, she cannot claim the order violated her religious freedom.

“The military judge found that the signs verbiage was biblical in nature, that the desk was shared with another Marine, and the signs were visible to other Marines who came to the appellant’s desk for assistance,” the court ruling states. “The implication is clear — the junior Marine sharing the desk and the other Marines coming to the desk for assistance would be exposed to biblical quotations in the military workplace.”

“It is not hard to imagine the divisive impact to good order and discipline that may result when a service member is compelled to work at a government desk festooned with religious quotations, especially if that service member does not share that religion,” the court ruling continued.

The Liberty Institute has now stepped in and is defending the rights of Sterling.

“If a service member has a right to display a secular poster, put an atheist bumper sticker on their car, or get a Star of David tattoo, then Lance Corporal Sterling has the right to display a small Bible verse on her computer monitor,” Mike Berry of the Liberty Institute said to the Christian Post. “If the government can order a Marine not to display a Bible verse, they could try and order her not to get a religious tattoo, or go to church on Sunday.”

“Restricting a Marine’s free exercise of religion is blatantly unconstitutional.”

The Liberty Institute noted that no one else was using Sterling’s desk when the incident took place, meaning the appellate court ruled with a false basis.  They also say that Sterling’s rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Anti-Terror Court Indicts 106 For Burning of Christian Couple in Pakistan

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court has indicted 106 people in connection with the brutal murder of a Christian couple in November 2014.

The mob had falsely accused the couple of burning a Quran.

“The challan (charge-sheet) states that Maulvi Muhammad Hussain, Maulvi Arshad Baloch and Maulvi Noorul Hassan were involved in persistent provocative speeches against the couple which led to the assembly of 400 people as a mob who then burned Shama and Shahzad alive,” the Pakistan Daily Times reported .

“After the challan was presented at the hearing, the court also held Yousaf Gujjar, the owner of the brick kiln where the couple was beaten to death, responsible.”

Guijar had been angry that the couple had not repaid him money that he claimed the couple owned and set them up for blasphemy charges.  He placed a few pages of a Quran in their trash singed as if the book had been burned.

An official with the International Christian Concern said that the incident shows the danger Christians in Pakistan face every day.

“The brutal killing of Shahzad and Shama once again highlights the extreme danger of religious fanaticism that Christians in Pakistan face on a regular basis. The accusation of blasphemy can be used for any dispute and can often prove deadly as it did today, inciting a mob to brutally murder this young couple.”

Federal Judge Partially Upholds Christian Prayer at Graduation Event

A federal judge has stated that student-led prayer at graduation events is Constitutional after an attempt by a group that targets references to religion in public events to have all prayer banned.

The American Humanist Association (AHA) filed a complaint against the Greenville South Carolina School District, saying that they needed to remove an elementary school “graduation” ceremony from a chapel at North Greenville University and also prohibit prayers at the event.

U.S. District Court Judge George Ross Anderson, who first heard the case, said the AHA was “making a mountain out of a molehill.”  On Monday, U.S. District Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks ruled that the school-sponsored prayer could not be allowed by the School District but that any student-led prayer in permissible by the Constitution.

The school district informed the court they removed an invocation from the ceremony but allowed a student prayer.

The AHA was not happy that prayer was allowed to continue in a public space and that children were exposed to prayer.

“It’s a sad day when the courts allow students to be subjected to Christian prayers during what should be a secular graduation ceremony,” executive director Roy Speckhardt said in a statement on Tuesday. “These prayers exclude kids and families of minority faiths and no faith.”

The group plans to appeal to have all prayer removed from the event.

Franklin Graham: Christians Are Being Bullied Into Silence

Rev. Franklin Graham says that atheist groups are attempting to “bully Christian into silence” after the Christian-targeting Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) demanded an Air Force general be courtmartialed for giving credit to God on the National Day of Prayer.

“Are Christians the only group of people who cannot identify themselves publicly in this country? Are we the only voices who cannot speak?” Graham asked in a Facebook post on Monday.

“I guess this group would’ve tried to court martial George Washington when he prayed at Valley Forge! Come on —whose civil liberties are really being infringed on here? They want to bully Christians into silence.”

The MRFF said that Maj. Gen. Craig Olson should be “aggressively and very visibly brought to justice for his unforgivable crimes and transgressions” after crediting God for his success during a speech at the National Day of Prayer Task Force event May 7th.

“He put me in charge of failing programs worth billions of dollars. I have no ability to do that, no training to do that. God did that. He sent me to Iraq to negotiate foreign military sales deals through an Arabic interpreter. I have no ability to do that. I was not trained to do that. God did all of that,” Olson said.

The head of the MRFF said that airmen are not allowed to endorse a faith.

“Olson’s highly publicized, sectarian speech is nothing less than a brutal disgrace to the very uniform he was wearing and the solemn oath he took to support and defend the United States Constitution,” Mikey Weinstein wrote.

“This public address was his, and the USAF’s, ‘contribution’ to this scathingly sectarian 2015 version of the [task force’s] annual shame spectacle and display of Christian supremacy and exceptionalism held in the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

Graham said that Weinstein’s actions show “in America, there has recently grown an ugly, anti-Christian bias and intolerance that is changing our nation from the inside out, opening doors for all kinds of discrimination and loss of religious freedom that we hear about daily in the news.”