Where there’s political strife, there’s religious strife, and in Iran, the two are inextricably intertwined.
Ever since the Iranian elections a few weeks ago, the political climate there has been tenuous at best. There have been massive protests, violence on the streets and even some deaths. Here in the United States, we’ve been inundated with Youtube videos and round-the-clock reporting. It’s definitely a situation that will take months to unravel, and the turmoil is showing no signs of slowing down.
Mission Network News is—as always—dutifully reporting on the situation. A few days ago they published an article about Christians joining in on the social networking activity that’s been coming out of Iran:
Yet, Christians are joining the Twitter Revolution and using Facebook to get information out of Iran. Open Doors learned through its contacts that voters are frustrated and have lost trust in Iran’s democracy in other cities outside of Tehran.
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In other districts of this southwest city of Shiraz, the situation is more grim as Daryush explains: “Friends told me that young people in Shiraz are being arrested and that they’ve seen young men and women being beaten, or worse. A friend who lives near the university and student dorms told me she heard screaming, shouting and gunfire in the early hours of the morning.
“The predominately young demonstrators are calling Ahmadinejad a dictator, and they yell chants like ‘Ma dolate zoor nemikhaim,’ meaning ‘We don’t want a government of force.’ They also yell at the security forces and call them traitors and vote-stealers. A friend said that within the security forces are pro-Mousavi followers, saying ‘beechareh shodim!’ or ‘We are without hope.’”
Daryush continues: “The majority of people I spoke with consider the elections a fraud and don’t accept the results at all. A friend of our family lives in Shahe Cheragh, which is a predominantly religious and conservative district of Shiraz. He said that even in that district, a huge numbers of votes went to Mousavi.”
And here’s an excerpt from a recent article about the church in Iran:
However, many Christians have fled Iran because of persecution. Those who commit the crime of apostasy, or leaving Islam for another religion, are often arrested and tried in court. These charges are of particular concern since a draft law proposed in early 2008 that would mandate the death penalty for apostasy has passed several stages of Iran’s legislative process.
Even so, Penner says there is a growing church in Iran. Recent years have seen a growing appetite for political reform among the Iranian people. There is also a growing openness to considering the claims of Christianity, especially among the young.
Prayer is needed. “The situation for Christians worsened under Ahmadinejad’s previous term of presidency. That’s certainly going to deteriorate in the middle of this political chaos. We certainly need to be remembering our brothers and sisters in prayer during this time.”
Please pray for Iran and the world as this situation progresses.
For more information on what’s happening here’s CNN’s page on the Iran Elections.