Basima al-Safar retouches a picture of Jesus on an easel outside her house overlooking the flat Nineveh plains, 30 miles north of Mosul.

The murals she paints tell the story of her people, Christians in Iraq. But with Islamic State militants nearby, she is worried that life in Alqosh and towns like it could soon come to an end.

The Assyrian Christian town of around 6,000 people sits on a hill below the seventh-century Rabban Hormizd Monastery, temporarily closed because of the security situation. Residents of Alqosh fled this summer ahead of Islamic State militants. Around 70 percent of the town’s residents have since returned. Still, a sense of unease hangs in the air.

Below the monastery in the boarded up bazaar a lone shopkeeper waits for customers. At the edge of town local Christian fighters staff lookout posts, checking for danger. With Islamic State fighters just 10 miles away, these men and most residents of the town are scared that they may have to flee again.

In August, the Christian town of Qaraqosh, 18 miles east of Mosul, was overrun, along with neighboring villages, home to Iraqi Christian communities for centuries. Islamic State forces came close but never entered Alqosh.

Al-Safar, who has been painting murals of Christian life for 34 years, was born in Alqosh and shares her brightly painted home with her cousin and nephew. Earlier this summer, like many of the town’s residents, she fled to Dohuk, a Kurdish city on the north of Iraq.

“When I returned Alqosh was like a ghost town,” she said…Read More

Source and Original Content by BCNN1

Dozens of Christians are currently being held by the authorities in Iran and many of them because of their involvement in house churches, the UN reports.

The warning came from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, in a new 28-page report due to be presented at the meeting of a General Assembly human rights committee on Tuesday.

Shaheed said there were at least 300 people currently detained in Iran because of their religious practices, among them 49 Christians and 120 members of the Baha’i community.

The report states that pastors have been arrested for holding services in Persian or for “allegedly ministering to Iranians from Muslim backgrounds”.

“At least 49 Protestant Christians are currently detained, many for involvement in informal house churches,” the report says.

“In April 2014, security forces reportedly raided an Easter service in a private home in southern Tehran and detained six individuals.”

Also suffering persecution are lawyers who have taken on sensitive Baha’i or Christian cases, with many of them being imprisoned or having to flee the country, the report notes.

There had been hopes that religious freedom would improve under President Hassan Rouhani after he promised before being elected in June 2013 that all religions “must feel justice”.

However, Shaheed’s report suggests little has changed.

One pastor still imprisoned for his faith in Iran is American-Iranian Saeed Abedini, who is serving an eight-year sentence for supposed crimes against Iranian national security. It is believed his imprisonment is largely to do with his involvement in the house church movement prior to moving to the US with his American wife in 2005.

On the two-year anniversary of his imprisonment last month, Christians around the world took part in a day of prayer for Abedini’s release.

A letter to his 8-year-old daughter, Rebekkah Grace, was read out on the day in which he said: “You are growing so fast and becoming more beautiful every day. I praise God for his faithfulness to me every day as I watch from a distance through the prison walls and see pictures and hear stories of how you are growing both spiritually and physically.”

Another pastor imprisoned on similar charges is Behnam Irani, who Jason DeMars of Present Truth Ministries recently asked Christians to pray for because of recurring health problems behind bars.

Source and Original Content by Christian Today

As the civil war in Syria continues its fourth year, Christians who remain in the country’s capital are finding it harder just to get by – even with the help of the Maronite local Church.

“The number of people taking the sacraments is falling from year to year – very sharply,” Samir Nassar, Maronite Archbishop of Damascus told Aid to the Church in Need Oct. 24, explaining that he is unable to keep track of how many of his faithful have fled Syria. “In 2012 there were more baptisms and weddings than in 2013. The number of funerals, on the other hand, is rising.”

“There were previous plans to build a kindergarten or a school, but now we are planning for the enlargement of the Christian cemetery.”

Archbishop Nassar added, “you can die any number of ways in Damascus.”

Whether it is from snipers, shelling, or malnutrition, Archbishop Nassar said Damascenes are very much at risk in their daily lives.

“For instance, you can be shot by a sniper or blown up by car bombs. And of course there are the shells. Then again, you can die from lack of medical care if you are injured. The hospitals no longer have sufficient supplies of medicines.”

Though international attention has shifted from the Syrian civil war as a whole, to the rise of the Islamic State in both Iraq and northern Syria, Syrians throughout the country still face extreme hardships.

Although the Maronite Archeparchy of Damascus is trying to help individuals and families who remain, it is very difficult because of the toll the war has taken on the country… Read More

Source and Original Content by CNA