Iran:Disabled Mother of Iranian Prisoner of Faith Begs for the Release of Her Son

Disabled Mother of Iranian Prisoner of Faith Begs for the Release of Her Son

In an article by Stoyan Zaimov, in the August 24 Christian Post, he writes about the plight of a disabled mother of a Christian prisoner in Iran.  Her son is held in Rajaei-Shahr prison, and she has been unable to visit him because she is visually impaired.

As reported by Mohabat News on Tuesday, Ebrahim Firouzi, is one of several people imprisoned because of their Christian faith. Because he was not allowed access to his defense documents, he refused to attend his appeals court hearing. His appointed judge was not present, so the hearing has been postponed for four months.

According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Firouzi was arrested in August 2013, and sentenced to five years in prison in 2015. he was charged with "acting against national security," a charge often given to prisoners of faith in Iran.

Firouzi's mother pled with officials to handle her son's case fairly and to release him.  "Crying as she delivered the message to the authorities, Mr. Firouzi's elderly mother said that she is visually impaired and there is nothing she can do and has no one to help her. She said she doesn't have the ability to go from court to court and follow up on her son's case," Mohabat News reports.  "She added that she misses her son and because of her disability she has not been able to visit her son in prison. She pleaded with the authorities to release her son so he can come home.”

Iran regime plans to forcibly turn Tehran church grounds into mosque

church-iran

Authorities in Tehran are planning to transform illegally-confiscated church grounds into an ‘Islamic prayer center.’

The land belonging to the Iranian Assyrian community’s Chaldean Catholic Church in Tehran’s Patrice Lumumba Street (in Western Tehran) was illegally confiscated two years ago under the pretext of constructing an Islamic prayer hall and the authorities have refused to hand it back, a member of the regime's Majlis (Parliament) was quoted as saying by the state-run newspaper Sharq on Wednesday, December 30.

Repeated complaints about the illegal confiscation of the church grounds have fallen on deaf ears despite repeated pleas by the representatives of the Christian minority, said Jonathan Bet-Kelia, a member of the regime’s Majlis.

Bet-Kelia told Sharq that he had approached Ali Younesi, special assistant to the regime's President Hassan Rouhani on ethnic minorities affairs, on this matter but was told that nothing could be done about it. Younesi is a former Minister of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and is personally responsible for ordering numerous arrests and assassinations of dissidents.

Commenting on the regime's admission that it had usurped church grounds to build its own prayer hall, Ali Safavi of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said: “The brazen admission displays first and foremost the discriminatory and sectarian policies of the regime vis-à-vis Iran’s religious minorities. At the same time, it speaks to the failure of Western policy to accommodate the regime in the futile hope that it will promote moderation and tolerance on the domestic front.”

Iran’s regime arrests Christians on Christmas day

#Iran’s regime arrests #Christians on Christmas day

Iran's fundamentalist regime arrested a group of practicing Iranian Christians onChristmas Day at an in-house church in the city of Shiraz, southern Iran.

The group of Iranian Christians had gathered together last Friday, December 25, to celebrate Christmas when plain-clothes agents of the Iranian regime's notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) raided the in-house church.

Armed MOIS agents ransacked much of the place and confiscated personal items and satellite dishes, according to eye-witness reports, which also said that the agents behaved 'offensively' towards those detained.

Among those arrested were:

Mohsen Javadi,

Elaheh Izadi,

Ahmad Golshani-Nia,

Reza Mohammadi,

Mahmoud Salehi,

Moussa Sari-Pour,

Alireza Ali-Qanbari,

Mohammad-Reza Soltanian,

And a ninth person whose identity was not established.

Separately on Wednesday, December 23, MOIS agents in the central city of Isfahan arrested Iranian Christian Mr. Meysam Hojjati in a raid on his home.

Mr. Hojjati was beaten and handcuffed while his home was searched and ransacked by four plain-clothes MOIS agents. His books, computer, mobile phone and even his decorated Christmas tree were confiscated. Mr. Hojjati was previously arrested by agents of the intelligence ministry in March 2012.

On the news of the Christians’ arrests, Shahin Gobadi of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) on Tuesday said: “There has been a steady deterioration of human rights abuses in Iran during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as president including executions and suppression of religious and ethnic minorities. This is just another case in point. Actually the clerical regime is one of the top violators of rights of religious minorities including Christians in the world. The regime has institutionalized repression of the Iranian people as the main tool of its survival.”

In her New Year and Christmas greetings to Christians in Iran and around the world on December 24, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said: "I wish that 2016 would be a year of unity and victory over Islamic extremism and especially the religious fascism ruling Iran and its evil allies in the Middle East who sow the seeds of enmity in the world."

"Muslims and Christians can rely on their common values to stand up to those who pervert their religions."

"Let us hope for the relief of converted Christians in Iran from the oppression of ruling mullahs and for freedom of the whole Iranian nation from this religious dictatorship."

"On this occasion, I call on the world community to form an international front against the religious dictatorship in Iran and its proxies and militia in Syria and Iraq and to fight Islamic extremism, the enemy of true Muslims, Christians and all followers of other divine religions," Mrs. Rajavi added.