Posted on 12/04/2005 7:44:18 PM PST by Hunden
An Iranian convert to Christianity was kidnapped last week from his home in northeastern Iran and stabbed to death, his bleeding body thrown in front of his home a few hours later. Ghorban Tori, 50, was pastoring an independent house church of convert Christians in Gonbad-e-Kavus, a town just east of the Caspian Sea along the Turkmenistan border.
Within hours of the November 22 murder, local secret police arrived at the martyred pastor’s home, searching for Bibles and other banned Christian books in the Farsi language. By the end of the following day, the secret police had also raided the houses of all other known Christian believers in the city.
According to one informed Iranian source, during the past eight days representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested and severely tortured 10 other Christians in several cities, including Tehran. All the detainees have since been released.
One of the arrested Christians was reportedly interrogated about his involvement in relief work after Iran’s deadly Bam earthquake in December 2003. Another working with a legal organization defending human rights was accused of using it as a “cover” for church activities.
In addition, MOIS officials have visited known Christian leaders since Tori’s murder and have instructed them to warn acquaintances in the unofficial, Protestant house fellowships that
“the government knows what you are doing, and we will come for you soon.”
A former Muslim of Turkmen descent, Tori had converted to Christianity more than 10 years ago, while in Turkmenistan.
After he returned to his native Iran in 1998, Tori began to share his new Christian faith with friends and relatives. Within two years, a small fellowship of 12 believers was meeting in his home.
But not all welcomed his message; at least one relative attacked Tori, scarring his face. In the past year he received several threats from Islamic extremists vowing to kill him if he did not stop sharing his Christian faith.
Tori is survived by his wife and four children, ages 3 to 23.
He is the fifth Protestant pastor assassinated in Iran by unidentified killers in the past 11 years. Three of the five were former Muslims, under Iranian law subject to the death penalty for having committed apostasy.
Tori’s murder came just days after Iran’s new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called an open meeting with the nation’s 30 provincial governors. During the session, an Iranian source told Compass, Ahmadinejad declared that the government needed to put a stop to the burgeoning movement of house churches across Iran.
“I will stop Christianity in this country,” Ahmadinejad reportedly vowed.
“This was apparently a green light from the president of Iran to go out and start killing Christians,”
the source said.
Slurring Non-Muslims
Last week a Zoroastrian representative in the Iranian Parliament protested a slur against non-Muslims on November 20 by a top aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
According to the government-run Entekhaab website, in a public speech Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told youthful Basidjis (members of a volunteer militia formed to enforce strict Islamic codes) preparing to join suicide missions that “non-Muslims are sinful animals who roam the earth and engage in corruption.” Jannati, who is secretary general of the powerful Guardian Council, is known to be a mentor and close advisor to Ahmadinejad.
Iranian Member of Parliament Kurosh Niknam declared the comment, “an unprecedented insult to religious minorities.”
Over the past month, Ahmadinejad has conducted a broad shake-up within the government establishment, replacing hundreds of governors, ambassadors and senior ministry officials with young and mostly inexperienced Islamists. Yesterday students at Tehran University protested noisily when a religious cleric without even a high school diploma was appointed rector of the nation’s oldest university.
In November, the new director of prisons also transferred a number of political prisoners of conscience into criminal wards with convicted murderers and drug dealers. At least one of these political prisoners has been killed by fellow inmates, sparking the fears of Iranian Christians for the security of Hamid Pourmand, serving a three-year sentence at Tehran’s Evin Prison for refusing to renounce his conversion to Christianity.
A friends wife some years ago was attending the university in Tehran and was set on fire and badly burned. Her crime? She's a Christian. Wonderful people, that "religion of peace." The practice of persecution of Christins is nothing new for these swine.
Psalm 2
The Messiah’s Triumph and Kingdom
1 Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
2 The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces
And cast away Their cords from us.”
4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
5 Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
6 “Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion.”
7 “I will declare the decree:
The LORD has said to Me,
‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
8 Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.
9 You shall break them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”
10 Now therefore, be wise, O kings;
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
11 Serve the LORD with fear,
And rejoice with trembling.
12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
And you perish in the way,
When His wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
predict the downfall of the imams is coming soon...and it will be the Lord Himself who will bring them down.
TROP ALERT
Still waiting for that outrage?
Well we're suppossed to invade their country and kill thier leaders AND THEN CONVERT THEM TO CHRISTIANITY!
Geez, I sound like a muslim huh? That's scary!
What's a TROP?
The Religion of Peace tm.
You are correct. I believe in a pre-tribulation rapture after which (quite possibly before) the seculars will side with the Islamists and summarily be co-destroyed after 3 1/2 years.
And don't forget the MSM! I know we'll be seeing an expose on "60 Minutes" really, really soon.../s
That's ok Iran.........................no problem.........................you are NEXT!!!!
There is nothing new under the sun. The whole "feed the Christians to the lions" thing ended up spreading Christianity faster than it ever previously had spread.
Watch for the "lightening in the East." Coming soon, I pray.
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