Seven Iranian Christians were released from prison on bail on Saturday, Jan. 29. Four women were released from Tehran’s Evin prison, and two men and a woman were released in the city of Isfahan three days earlier. The seven spent one month in prison after being arrested along with 31 other Christians on Dec. 26, 2010. Some of the other 31 have since been released. All were arrested simply because they are Christians.

With the recent news coming out of Egypt with all of the violence and concerns many of us have had regarding the persecution of Coptic Christians there in Egypt, it is refreshing to see Congressman Frank Wolf introduce a new bill that would provide for the establishment of the Special Envoy to Promote Religious Freedom of Religious Minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia.

The following news is courtesy of Mission Network News.

One thing I'm very thankful for is that the Lord has brought the nation of Egypt to our awareness with more specificity so we can keep the nation in our prayers. As a result of this, Mission Network News recently did an interview with Greg Musselman from The Voice of the Martyrs Canada, about the recent financial crisis looming in the nation.

NEW DELHI, February 8 (CDN) — Christians in India’s southern state of Karnataka are preparing to file a court petition against a panel that blamed a series of anti-Christian attacks in 2008 on conversions from Hinduism. In Mangalore, which bore the brunt of Hindu extremist attacks on churches in August-September 2008, Bishop Aloysius Paul D’Souza of the Catholic Diocese said he intended to file a writ in the Karnataka High Court against the Justice B.K. Somashekhara Commission. In its Jan. 28 report on the violence, the commission absolved the state government, ruled by a Hindu nationalist party, of any responsibility in the violence. Defending the state government and recommending the enactment of an “anti-conversion law,” the commission stated that an allegation of misuse of foreign funds for “mass conversions of innocent and helpless members of the society belonging to weaker sections ... is true.” Please read the full story at Compass Direct.

Recently I came across a story about a Palm Desert High school that had a fundraiser where they asked people to buy a brick so they could add a saying and have it be apart of the pathway on school grounds.

Recently, The Voice of the Martyrs main office received an email from Jerry Low, who shared his testimony about how Tortured for Christ impacted his life, and we wanted to share those comments with you.