BAPTIST PRESS: ISTANBUL (BP) -- Iranian authorities in early February arrested Christian converts from Islam while they were meeting for worship at a home in the southern city of Shiraz, according to sources.
Officials are holding the Christians at an unknown location, they told Compass Direct News.
The sources put the number of the arrested Christians, who belong to one of Iran's many underground house churches, at between six and 10. Authorities often detain, question and apply pressure on converts from Islam, viewing them as elements of Western propaganda set against the Iranian regime; as a result, the converts are forced to worship in secret.
The identity of only one of those arrested on Feb. 8, Mojtaba Hosseini, was known. Authorities arrested Hosseini in 2008 along with eight other Christian converts on charges of being Christians, according to Mohabat News.
"I guess they have been watching Hosseini since then," an Iranian Christian who requested anonymity told Compass.
Shiraz is not a particularly "religious" part of predominantly Shiite Islamic Iran, the Christian explained, but persecution against Christians in Iran stems from the government more than from local religious sentiment. The families of the victims have requested information about their whereabouts, but authorities have refused to provide it, according to Mohabat News. » | Staff/Compass Direct News | Monday, February 13, 2012
