MIDDLE EAST – The Impossible Future of Christians in the Middle East
The Atlantic | Emma Green | May 23, 2019 The call came in 2014, shortly after Easter. Four years earlier, Catrin Almako’s family had applied for special visas to the…
RELEASE – Letter to Squire Patton Boggs Has Now Reached 5,000 on Capitol Hill
May 22, 2019 46 Civil Society Leaders Signed Letter to Urge Law Firm to Stop Promoting Interests of China, Qatar and Saudi Arabia WASHINGTON—Earlier this month, 46 civil society leaders…
SYRIA – Syriac Christians see Turkey’s safe zone plans an existential threat
Syriac Christians, a religious group in Syria, reject the creation of a safe zone Turkey plans to establish in northern Syria due to Ottoman atrocities in the past, sociologist Amy Austin Holmes said in the…
Squire Patton Boggs – Popular with Persecutors
Politics | Civic and religious leaders ask firm to stop lobbying for countries that torment people of faith World Magazine | Harvest Prude | May 9, 2019 WASHINGTON—A group of…
IRAN – Iranian intelligence minister concerned with growth of Christianity; converts summoned
CP | Samuel Smith | May 7, 2019 Iran’s intelligence minister, Mahmoud Mahmoud Alavi, openly expressed concern last weekend about the spread of Christianity in the Islamic republic and said…
MIDDLE EAST – Persecution of Christians ‘coming close to genocide’ in Middle East – report
The Guardian | Patrick Wintour |May 2, 2019 Pervasive persecution of Christians, sometimes amounting to genocide, is ongoing in parts of the Middle East, and has prompted an exodus in…
MIDDLE EAST – ACN announces million-pound aid package for Middle East Christians
Independent Catholic News | March 11, 2019 ACN project partner Sr Annie Demerjian with Lucine, 85, from Aleppo, Syria, and volunteer Fadi. © Aid to the Church in Need Source:…
IRAQ – Disabled Iraqi Christian Woman Overcomes Persecution
International Christian Concern | March 20, 2019 Although the reconstruction of Mosul is slow, following its three-year occupation by the Islamic State (ISIS), the city’s bustling university provides hope for…
PALESTINIAN CHRISTIANS – A Minority Threatened by Boycotts
Algemeiner | by Douglas Sandoval | March 18, 2019 A pro-BDS demonstration. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. For the ever-dwindling minority of Christians who remain in the Palestinian territories, many are recluses…
SYRIA – Christians face uncertain future as Syria enters possible last year of civil war
World Watch Monitor | March 16, 2019 As the Syrian civil war enters what might be its last year, Christians are trying to rebuild in the face of an uncertain…
SYRIA – ISIS Beheads 50 Yazidi Sex Slaves as Parting Gift
Clarion Project | Feb. 25, 2019 In a final act of depravity, fleeing ISIS beheaded 50 Yazidi sex slaves, dumping their heads into trash bins for coalition soldiers to find.…
SYRIA – Mass grave discovered outside of Raqqa
Feb. 21, 2019 | Straits Times RAQQA, Syria (AFP) - Sixty centimetres deep, below a plot of farmland outside the Syrian city of Raqqa, lies a large and deadly legacy…
IRAN – Iranian Cleric Warns Against Spread of Christianity
International Christian Concern | Feb. 24, 2019 Iranian cleric Hujjat al-Islam Naser Rafiei delivered a speech in Qom (home to the largest Islamic seminary in Iran) which warned against the…
IRAN – Iranian Christians refuse to renounce Christian faith in exchange for freedom from prison
The Christian Post | Jan. 19, 2019 Two Iranian Christians at their final appeal hearing were ordered by a court to renounce their Christian faith to gain their freedom but…
IRAQ – Iraqi Christian Village Withstands Turkish Airstrikes
International Christian Concern | Jan. 17, 2019 The Amedi district in northern Kurdistan was bombed by Turkey 98 times during the past year, killing at least 12 people, according to…
IRAQ – Iraqi Curriculum Issues Veiled Threat Against Christian Women
International Christian Concern |Jan. 15, 2019 Questions persist throughout Iraq regarding whether ISIS is truly defeated or will rise again, perhaps under the banner of another terrorist organization. For Iraqi…
IRAN – Iran Increased Persecution of Christian Minority at Christmas Time
The Tower | Jan. 14, 2019 The Islamic Republic of Iran has launched a brutal crackdown on the country’s Christian minority before and after Christmas, Benjamin Weinthal, a research fellow…
ALGERIA – Algeria: Update on Christians acquitted of charges
Middle East Concern | Jan. 10, 2019 On 26 December 2018, MEC reported that four Christians from Muslim backgrounds, including three from the same family, were acquitted of proselytism charges…
QATAR – Church Grows in Qatar Despite Challenges
International Christian Concern | Jan. 10, 2019 A church complex in Doha (Qatar) has become an area of Christian diversity in a country where nearly two decades ago Christians were…
IRAQ – Sale of Churches Sparks Controversy in Iraq
International Christian Concern | Jan. 8, 2019 The sale of churches and potential corruption regarding the resulting funds has sparked fresh controversy in Iraq. This comes as three churches have…
EGYPT – Egyptian Convert Stands Firm for Christ Against All Odds
International Christian Concern | Jan. 8, 2019 Growing up in Egypt as the son of an Islamic Sheikh, Mohamed’s life was filled with religion. As a Sheikh, his father was…
EGYPT – Egypt’s President Sisi opens mega-mosque and Middle East’s largest cathedral in New Capital
Christian Today | Jan. 7, 2019 President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi inaugurated Egypt's largest church and mosque in the New Administrative Capital on Sunday, the eve of Coptic Christmas, in a…
EGYPT – Militants kidnap Christian man in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula
New Jersey Herald | Jan. 6, 2019 Islamic militants on Thursday kidnapped a Christian man traveling in a communal taxi in the turbulent north of Egypt's Sinai peninsula, according to…
SYRIA – Christians fear Turkish attack could end Christianity in northeast Syria
Kurdistan |Jan. 5, 2019 A joint statement by Syriac Christian organizations in Syria, Europe, and the US on Thursday demanded the establishment of a no-fly zone to stop a possible…
EGYPT – Egypt police officer killed defusing church bomb: security source
France 24 - Jan. 5, 2019 A policeman was killed and two wounded in an explosion outside a church in Egypt on Saturday, a security source said. The blast took…
IRAN – Nine Evangelical Christians Reported Arrested During Christmas Week In Iran
Radio Farda | Dec. 30, 2018 Tasnim news agency connected with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reported on Sunday that nine evangelical Christians have been arrested in recent days in Alborz province,…
EGYPT – Pathway to Church Legalization Minimal in Egypt
International Christian Concern | Dec. 24, 2018 A report recently released by the Project on Middle East Democracy details how Egypt’s 2016 church legalization law has had a minimal positive…
IRAQ – The New Threat Iraq’s Christians
Real Clear Politics | Dec. 24, 2018 In March of 2017, with the battle for control of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, raging just miles away, I was driven into…
IRAQ – Iraqi Curriculum Incites Violence Towards Religious Minorities
International Christian Concern | Dec. 23, 2018 Archbishop Louis Raphaël I Sako of Iraq’s Chaldean Patriarchate of Babylon has asked the Ministry of Education to review offensive statements which exist…
EGYPT – Egyptian Policeman Complicit in Church Attack
International Christian Concern |Dec. 22, 2018 Nearly a year ago, on December 29th, ICC reported about a terrorist attack against an Egyptian church in Helwan City. One of the attackers was wearing…
EGYPT – Christians of Kom al-Raheb Wait 17 Years for Church
International Christian Concern | Dec. 21, 2018 Earlier this month, ICC reportedhow the Christians in Upper Egypt’s village of Kom al-Raheb were targeted by mob violence because they were praying in…
IRAN – Iranian Christian Couple Arrested in Front of Daughter
International Christian Concern | Dec. 20, 2018 Amir Taleipour and his wife Mahnaz Harati were arrested during a raid on their home in the city of Mashhad by Iranian intelligence…
EGYPT – Charges Filed Against Egyptian Officer Who Killed 2 Christians
International Christian Concern | Dec. 19, 2018 Criminal charges are pending against Egyptian police officer Rabi Mustapha Khalifa after he shot and killed two Coptic Christians last week. The prosecution…
SYRIA – Islamic State kills 700 prisoners in east Syria: Syrian Observatory
Reuters | Dec. 19, 2018 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday that Islamic State militants had executed nearly 700 prisoners in nearly two months in eastern Syria.…
EGYPT – Community Missing Among Egypt’s Christian Converts
International Christian Concern | Dec. 18, 2018 Isolation. For many Muslim-background believers, also known as MBBs, this is one of the first feelings they experience when their faith becomes public.…
IRAN – Disappeared Iranian Christian Found in Prison
International Christian Concern | Dec. 18, 2018 The fate of an Iranian Christian who disappeared during a massive crackdown by the authorities on the church has finally been revealed after…
IRAN – Iran: Four Christian Converts Detained
Middle East Concern | Dec. 17, 2018 About thirteen plain-clothed Revolutionary Guards conducted raids on four homes on the morning of 2 December, arresting Shima Zanganeh (27), Shokoofeh Zanganeh (30),…
IRAN – Iranian Christians Assaulted and Disappeared
International Christian Concern | Dec. 17, 2018 Earlier this month, Iranian media announced a widespread detainment of Christians across the country. ICC reported how over 100 Christians were detained by the Iranian…
IRAQ – Rural Iraq Devastated by ISIS
International Christian Concern | Dec. 16, 2018 Amnesty International has released a new report describing how the Islamic State (ISIS) used a scorched earth policy to devastate rural Iraq. This…
ALGERIA – Christian Bookstore Reopened by Algerian Court
International Christian Concern | Dec. 15, 2018 Last November, a church and a Christian bookshop was closed by authorities in the Algerian city of Ain Turk. The church was reopened…