February 11, 2012
Iranian authorities arrested Christian converts from Islam while they were meeting for worship Feb. 8 at a home in the southern city of Shiraz, Compass Direct News reports. Officials are holding them at an unknown location, said sources, who put the number of arrested Christians at between six and 10. The sources said they knew the name of only one of those arrested, identified as Mojtaba Hosseini. In 2008, Hosseini was arrested along with eight other Christian converts on charges of being Christian. "I guess they have been watching Hosseini since then," said an Iranian Christian who requested anonymity. The Christian said that although Shiraz was not a particularly "religious" part of Muslim-majority Iran, persecution of Christians there stemmed from the government's hostility toward them more than from local sentiment.