3 – State-Sponsored Persecution in Iran

In Iran, an Islamic court on May 28 acquitted Christian lay pastor Hamid Pourmand on charges of apostasy and proselytizing, though he continued to serve a three-year jail sentence for “deceiving the Iranian armed forces” by not reporting his conversion to Christianity. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, a military tribunal had ruled him guilty, dishonorably discharged him and handed down the maximum three-year prison sentence. Though he has not suffered physical mistreatment since his acquittal for apostasy, the 48-year-old Pourmand has been subjected to repeated pressure to recant his Christian faith and return to Islam. Such government-sponsored persecution tends to pave the way for vigilante “religious police” and acts of violence among Muslim extremists; on November 22, an Iranian convert to Christianity was arrested from his home in Gonbad-e-Kavus and stabbed to death, his bleeding body thrown in front of his home a few hours later. The death of Ghorban Dordi Tourani, a 53-year-old house church pastor of Turkmen descent, came just days after Iran’s new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an open meeting of the nation’s 30 provincial governors that the government needed to put a stop to the burgeoning movement of house churches across Iran. “I will stop Christianity in this country,” Ahmadinejad reportedly vowed. Before the end of November representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security had arrested and severely tortured 10 other Christians in several cities, including Tehran.

4 – Massive Destruction in Pakistan

In Pakistan, some 2,000 Muslims armed with iron rods, axes and tins of kerosene ransacked and looted four churches, a convent, a mission-run school and several Christian homes in Sangla Hill on November 12 after the burning of the Quran led local mosques to appeal for Muslims to “teach the Christians a lesson.” The previous day Catholic Christian Yousaf Masih was gambling with his Muslim friend Saleem Sunihara near the Sangla Hill sports stadium. To avoid paying a large gambling debt, the Muslim set fire to old pages of the Quran kept in a nearby storage room and blamed the fire on Masih. Eyewitnesses told a joint fact-finding team from Jubilee Campaign and the Lahore-based Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) that they saw Sunihara throw a burning match into the room. Several busloads of Muslim men arrived in Sangla Hill to join the mob the morning of November 12, and hundreds of Christian families, mostly poor farmers and laborers, fled the area during and after the attack. Police not only failed to protect the Christian places of worship but joined the crowd in vandalizing Catholic and Presbyterian churches. Sangla Hill police also arrested and tortured four of Masih’s six brothers, prompting the alleged blasphemer to give himself up in exchange for their release. Masih was held at the Sheikhupura jail. The homes of Masih and his brothers were burned to the ground, with no one able to confirm the whereabouts of his wife and three children. Addressing a crowd of 3,000 men at the Jamia Masjid Rizvia mosque in Sangla Hill on December 2, Muslim clerics flanked by government officials demanded the public execution of Masih.