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A 37-year-old Algerian woman, Habiba Qawider, faces a possible three years in prison for abandoning the Islamic faith without government permission. Her court case is being held in Tiaret, 400 kilometers west of Algiers. Qawider was arrested during a police spot check of bus riders in April and found to be carrying 10 copies of the Bible. She didn't have a special permit to follow Christianity as required by law nor did she have the authorization to change her religion. Six other Christians face the same charges in a separate court case. Their trial starts on May 27............
ALSO
Police in the southern Iran city of Shiraz this month cracked down against known Muslim converts to Christianity, arresting members of three Christian families and confiscating their books and computers. The arrests began at 5 a.m. on May 11, when two couples were taken into custody before boarding their flights at the Shiraz International Airport and sent directly to jail. All four were subjected to hours of interrogation, questioning them solely “just about their faith and house church activities,” an Iranian source told Compass. Two days later, local police picked up two more former Muslims involved in a separate house church in Shiraz as the Christian converts were talking together in a city park. Both men, Mahmood Matin and a second man identified only as Arash, are still jailed. Still another arrest incident was reported last month in the northern city of Amol, in Mazandaran province near the Caspian Sea. Two of the arrested converts to Christianity, one a pregnant woman, are still imprisoned, with no news of their whereabouts. Over the past two years, Iran’s harsh Shiite Muslim regime has continued to arrest, harass and intimidate dozens of citizens involved in the nation’s mushrooming house church movements. One such movement confirmed last month that its indigenous groups of Iranian converts to Christianity are doubling in size every six months. Converts from Islam are routinely subjected to both physical and psychological mistreatment while being held for days or weeks, usually in solitary confinement. Huge bail amounts are demanded for their release, under the threat of further detention or formal criminal prosecution if caught worshipping or spreading their faith. The large number of Iranians embracing Christianity has been attributed in part to a number of radio stations and satellite television channels launched in the past five years broadcasting Christian programs in Farsi into the country 24 hours a day. In January of this year, the Iranian parliament drafted a proposed criminal code that would make the death penalty mandatory for “apostates” who leave Islam for another religion.....