Mark's Notebook


	Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

In Iran, religious freedom means keeping your mouth shut

National Review

Tuesday 20 December 2005, 7:11 pm
Keywords: Christian Topics , News Articles

By Kenneth R. Timmerman

A few weeks ago in Iran, an Iranian convert to Christianity was kidnapped from his home in northeastern Iran and stabbed to death. The vigilantes who took him tossed his bleeding body in front of his home a few hours later, a stark warning against any who would follow his example.

Ghorban Tori is the fifth Protestant pastor assassinated in Iran in the past eleven years. Three of the five were former Muslims, making them subject under Iranian law to the death penalty for having committed apostasy.

Tori's murder came just days after Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called an open meeting with the nation's 30 provincial governors, and vowed to crack down on the burgeoning movement of house churches across Iran.

"I will stop Christianity in this country," Ahmadinejad reportedly said.

http://www.nationalreview.com/voices/timmerman200512150838.asp