Conditional release of Hadi Asgari from prison

Barnabas Fund, 19 April 2018

After a harrowing 19-month detention, Hadi Asgari, a Christian convert from Islam, was released after posting bail on 11 April.

Hadi was arrested in August 2016 when security officials interrupted a gathering of Christian families. He and pastor Victor Tamrazare are appealing ten-year sentences for “acting against national security”.

Fellow Christian convert Amin Afshari was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on the same charges.

Hearings are now expected to take place in late April or early May.

Local sources confirm that Amin and Hadi remain firm in their faith despite facing ongoing pressure to convert back to Islam.

Adult male converts from Islam are punishable by death according to sharia law in one of the countries of the world where the Islamic death sentence for apostasy is officially available, although it has not been used since 1990. 

Deteriorating health of Iranian Christian prisoner

Barnabas Fund, 12 April 2018

Naser Goltapeh, a Christian convert from Islam imprisoned in Iran, “might lose all of his teeth if he does not receive immediate medical attention”.

Naser was kept in solitary confinement for two months, while undergoing a gruelling interrogation. After sentencing, he was sent to the notorious Evin prison to serve a ten-year sentence on 20 January 2018.

In July 2017, he was during a secret police raid on a church meeting and convicted of assembling in an “illegal gathering” that “threatens the security of Iran”.

Similar accusations are often made against Christians active in ministry in Iran, especially in churches of converts.  An appeals court upheld his 10-year term on 12 November 2017, making the sentence final.

Christians in hiding as Turkish forces seize Afrin

Barnabas Fund, 22 March 2018

Christians in Afrin in northern Syrian went into hiding on 18 March and villages were reportedly “cleared” of Christians and other religious minorities as Turkish armed forces and Syrian rebels seized control from Kurdish militia.

Jihadist militants fighting with Turkish armed forces are eliminating the presence of religious minorities and “consider Yazidis ‘infidels’, while announcing that if you kill Christians, you will go straight to paradise.”

“This horror is reminiscent of the initial actions of ISIS in Iraq … This situation foreshadows ethnic cleansing and genocide,” said Nadia Murad, a Yazidi genocide survivor.

Instead of protecting Christians, Kurdish militia have been known to conscript them to fight against the Turkish army.