Today’s Headlines:

IRANIAN SECRET POLICE ARREST CHRISTIAN HOUSE CHURCH COUPLE

ANTI-CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE ON 2 IRAQI CHURCHES CAUSES MANY CASUALTIES

PASTOR IN BELARUS FINED FOR CONDUCTING ‘ILLEGAL BAPTISMS’

CHRISTIAN MAN STABBED AS INDONESIAN RELIGIOUS TENSIONS REMAIN HIGH

Today’s Top Stories:

IRANIAN SECRET POLICE ARREST CHRISTIAN HOUSE CHURCH COUPLE

Iranian secret police arrested a Christian couple in the northeastern city of Mashhad on Tuesday, Sept. 26, forcing them to leave behind their 6-year-old daughter and holding them incommunicado ever since. Plainclothes police raided the apartment of Amir Montazami, 35, and his wife, Fereshteh Dibaj, 28, at 7 a.m., confiscating computers, Christian literature and other items. Montazami was able to call his mother, asking her to come and take their daughter Christine. By the time the grandmother arrived, the couple was already locked in a police car, and two men remained searching the apartment. Montazami is from a well-known Mashhad family and converted to Christianity in his 20s. His wife is the youngest daughter of Rev. Mehdi Dibaj, an Assemblies of God minister who was martyred for his faith 12 years ago. He spent more than nine years in prison for his faith before being assassinated while on his way to Fereshteh’s birthday party soon after his release. The couple led a house church that is a remnant of two Protestant churches that were active before Iran’s 1976 Islamic revolution. Montazemi has reportedly been allowed to call his family, but there has been no word from his wife, raising fears she has been tortured or killed. (Pray for Iran Team/Compass Direct/Elam Ministries)

ANTI-CHRISTIAN VIOLENCE ON 2 IRAQI CHURCHES CAUSES MANY CASUALTIES

Largely unreported in the Western media, anti-Christian violence in Iraq claimed lives outside a cathedral in Baghdad as well as two other church attacks in Mosul. On the morning of Sunday, Sept. 24, a double bombing, apparently intended to maximize casualties, began with a small car bomb exploding under the minister’s car as worshipers were leaving the church.

Shortly after a crowd had gathered to help, a second, larger car bomb exploded on the other side of the narrow street. The two explosions resulted in the deaths of both a church security guard and a child while injuring at least 17 others. The cathedral itself was badly damaged.

On the same day in Mosul, armed men fired around 80 shots into a church building about 11:15 a.m. No service was in progress and no injuries were reported. Christians courageously gathered in the same building for an evening service later the same day.

Two days later on Tuesday, Sept. 26, the same church was attacked with rockets, and an explosive device detonated outside a door. There were no casualties. “Whether in the north, the center or the south of their country, Iraqi Christians are facing hostility and violence,” said Barnabas Fund International Director, Dr Patrick Sookhdeo. (Assist News Service)

PASTOR IN BELARUS FINED FOR CONDUCTING ‘ILLEGAL BAPTISMS’

The pastor of one of the largest Pentecostal churches in Belarus has been fined the equivalent of 150 times the minimum wage for performing baptisms in a local lake. On July 2 Pastor Sergei Poznyakovich of the Salvation Pentecostal Church baptized some 70 people in a local lake near the church in Baranovichi. The pastor, whose son was among the baptized, did not see any state observers at the event, but noted police officers subsequently visited the church on July 16. On Aug. 30 Judge Oksana Kusheva fined Poznyakovich the equivalent of US$2,171. In addition, the church’s regional bishop was fined the equivalent of US$298. State officials cite a “higher than permitted level of bacterial pollution in the water” as the reason for denying repeated requests for permits for the event, and claim they offered alternative sites. Poznyakovich said the lake is “the cleanest in town” and confirmed he had been fined for a baptism in the same lake last year. The Salvation Pentecostal Church was founded in the 1920s and has about 1,500 adult members. (Forum 18 News Service)

CHRISTIAN MAN STABBED AS INDONESIAN RELIGIOUS TENSIONS REMAIN HIGH

Religious tensions in central Indonesia caused by the execution of three Christian militants and years of fighting between Muslims and Christians remain extremely high. On Sunday, October 1, about 20 masked men blocked a road near the main battleground in the 1998-2002 fighting in Poso. They stopped a bus, forcing five passengers to get out, stabbing one Christian man before police arrived. The victim was hospitalized with wounds to his back and was described by one nurse as remaining in “serious” condition. On the same night, two small bombs were detonated, causing no injuries. Soon after, a Muslim mob set fire to a partially-constructed church. On Friday, Sept. 29, about 100 Christian youth torched a police station and threw rocks at a helicopter carrying the police chief. (WorldWide Religious News)