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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Iranian Moslems Unable to Debate Christians, So They Arrest Them |
| 2004-06-01 |
| From Compass Iranian police arrested a Protestant Christian pastor in northern Iran three days ago, jailing him along with his wife and two teenage children. Pastor Khosroo Yusefi and his wife Nasrin were arrested on May 23 in Chalous, a town along the Caspian Sea coast in Mazanderan province. Together with their 18-year-old son and a daughter age 15, they remain imprisoned without known charges. Today [May 26] sources in Iran confirmed to Compass that the Yusefi family, together with four other local Christians arrested three weeks ago, have been moved to an unknown prison location outside Chalous. .... Pastor Yusefi is responsible for overseeing a number of unregistered Assemblies of God congregations in northern Iran. Now in their late 40s, Yusefi and his wife were members of the Bahaâi religion before they came to faith in Christ nearly 20 years ago. Reportedly dozens of believers from two of Yusefiâs church groups were arrested and jailed in the first week of May, when police threatened and beat them for refusing to renounce their Christian faith. The majority of these Christians meeting in secret house-church groups are former Muslims. .... Last week most of these Christian prisoners were released, although police announced that four of the groupâs âkey personsâ would remain imprisoned. .... Credible reports have come in from northern Iran since the beginning of 2004, documenting the arrests of a large number of individual Christian converts in the region. But Sundayâs arrest marks the first time that the entire family of a Christian leader has been taken into custody. ... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |