1 – Silent Waves of Persecution in Iran

Working quietly beyond the international media spotlight, Iranian authorities followed through on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vow in November 2005 to “stop Christianity in this country.” A campaign to curb burgeoning house church growth in predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran emerged in 2006 as waves of arrests hit Christian leaders. When Issa Motamedi Mojdehi was arrested on July 24, officials told the convert from Islam that he must renounce Christianity or face years in jail and possible execution for “apostasy.” Originally facing drug trafficking charges commonly leveled at “undesirables,” Motamedi Mojdehi endured strong psychological pressures, including threats to kill his family and other Christians, as secret service agents and a professor of Islamic theology urged him to recant his faith. He refused, and on August 24 authorities released him “for the moment,” but not before a judge in the northern city of Rasht had a new accusation. He accused Mojdehi’s 8-year-old daughter Martha of trying to lead other children to Christ. Rasht police also shut down the shop of another believer in his church, as depriving converts to Christianity of employment became a common government ploy to force them to leave Iran.

In one southern city, police beat two young Christian women in their homes, arresting one for several days, and daily threatened to re-arrest her and members of her family. In September, Iranian secret police arrested a Christian couple in the northeastern city of Mashhad, forcing them to leave behind their 6-year-old daughter. Authorities released Reza Montazami, 35, and his wife Fereshteh Dibaj, 28, by order of a Revolutionary Court in Mashhad only after Montazami’s elderly parents posted bail – turning over the title deed of property worth US$25,000. In December, Iranian secret police raided and arrested leaders of an indigenous house church movement in Tehran, Karaj, Rasht and Bandar-i Anzali. Several detained Christians were released, but four of eight jailed Christians remained in custody until Christmas, facing accusations such as “evangelization activities” and “actions against the national security of Iran.”

Even progress in justice was tinged with repression. Hamid Pourmand, whom a military tribunal in Tehran baselessly found guilty of deceiving the Iranian army by allegedly concealing his conversion from Islam to Christianity, was released on July 20 – with the warning that attending church services could result in him being sent back to finish the remaining 14 months of his three-year prison term.

2 – Eritrea Tightens Noose

Defying international pressures with brazen denials, the increasingly isolated regime in the Horn of Africa tightened its stranglehold on churches in 2006, torturing Christians to death and wresting control of ecclesiastical leadership and assets. Security police killed two Christians on October 17, two days after arresting them for holding services in a private home south of Asmara. Immanuel Andegergesh, 23, and Kibrom Firemichel, 30, died from torture wounds and severe dehydration in a military camp outside the town of Adi-Quala. Seven other men and three women of the evangelical Rema Church were kept in military confinement with Andegergesh and Firemichel and subjected to “furious mistreatment.” The deaths came after officials re-imprisoned popular Christian singer Helen Berhane, who was hospitalized as a result of spending 29 months in a metal shipping container; she was released without explanation later that month. Berhane’s leg had been seriously damaged as a result of beatings she received for refusing to deny her faith while imprisoned since her arrest in May 2004.