2005/12/01
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 Basijis (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.
