Within the past 48 hours VOM workers have received good news about two of the prisoners that have been listed on www.PrisonerAlert.com.

One of our VOM workers was in China recently to visit with persecuted believers there, and sat down with "Rainbow," the wife of imprisoned Christian bookstore worker Wenxi Li.

On Monday Christians around the world celebrated the appeals-court victory for Meriam Yahia Ibrahim, a Sudanese wife and mother who had been sentenced to death for apostasy. But the joy of her release from prison on Monday quickly turned on Tuesday when she was detained at the airport in Khartoum as she and her husband and children were about to leave Sudan.

Wonderful news from Sudan this morning: an appeals court overturned the death-penalty conviction of Meriam Ibrahim and she has been released from prison, along with son Martin and baby daughter Maya.

On May 15, 2014, a Khartoum court sentenced 27-year-old Sudanese Christian Dr. Meriam Yahia Ibrahim to death. She was found guilty of both apostasy and adultery. Initially, Meriam was charged with adultery because of her marriage to a Christian man, and the apostasy charge was added upon Meriam's insistence that she was a Christian.

The wife of a man in prison for his work at a Christian bookstore told VOM partners that although she and her children miss their husband and father, she and her family haven’t needed anything except prayer. Cai Hong Li, wife of Christian prisoner Wenxi Li, recently spoke with workers from Release International, The Voice of the Martyrs' sister organization in the United Kingdom.

Pastor Behnam Irani has endured a number of trials and suffered during his imprisonment at Ghezel Hesar Prison located in Iran. After nearly two years of suffering from an intestinal disorder and being very ill, Pastor Behnam was finally taken for surgery on Feb. 22 and he is reported to be doing well as he continues to recuperate in his prison cell — where he was taken about four days after the operation. And as he has been in recovery, secret police seized his only Bible as well as other Christian books.

The following information has been added to www.PrisonerAlert.com allowing people around the world to send letters of encouragement to the wife of a detained Christian worker, as well as sending letters of protest to North Korean officials.

Good news from Iran: Mohabat News is reporting that Davoud Alijani, arrested in Ahvaz, Iran, during a Christmas service in 2011, has been released from prison, 20 days prior to his sentence being complete.

This week on the Persecution Blog we are reposting the most-viewed posts of 2013, starting with #5 on Monday and counting down to 2013's most-viewed post tomorrow.