Iran

An unnamed person arrested in Iran for protesting the government has been sentenced to death, making them the first arrested protestor to receive such a sentence.

Police allegedly beat an Iranian schoolgirl to death after they found a torn picture of a former Iranian leader in one of her schoolbooks.

Two Christians imprisoned in Iran for their church leadership roles were released a few days after a fire broke out in Tehran’s Evin Prison on Oct. 15, but rights advocates were mystified about why they were freed.

When authorities in Iran summoned a Christian couple in Tehran on Aug. 13, the house-church members supposed it concerned the return of their confiscated belongings. Instead, Homayoun Zhaveh and his wife Sara Ahmadi were detained in Tehran’s Evin Prison, notorious for its harsh treatment of people deemed political enemies of the state, rights organizations say.

More than 40 people have reportedly been killed during anti-government protests in Iran, stemming from what many say was a deliberate beating death of a woman.

We are exploring this week the biblical mandate, “Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). “Whatever you do” applies even to those times when we have nothing to “eat or drink.” In those moments, if we turn to our Father in the knowledge that we have nowhere else to turn, we find that “God is able to make all grace abound to you” (2 Corinthians 9:8). 

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says the Iranian government is encouraging “derogatory public opinion” against Christianity and other faiths using Iranian media outlets.

Many Christians saw a link between Vladimir Putin’s meeting with one of the few world leaders who approves of his invasion of Ukraine and a passage from the book of Ezekiel.

The Revolutionary Court of Tehran has sentenced an Iranian-Armenian Christian man to 10 years in prison for founding a house church and spreading “propaganda contrary to and disturbing to the holy religion of Islam.”

On Sunday, Iran took credit for firing ballistic missiles near the U.S. consulate in Erbil, Iraq. Erbil is the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region.