Globe Trot: Iran releases Pastor Farshid Fathi in time for Christmas

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IRAN: Pastor Farshid Fathi has been released after five years in an Iranian jail. The Christian convert was detained as part of Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei’s 2010 crackdown on house churches, which Fathi led. About 90 Christians currently are detained in Tehran for their faith.

SOMALIA has banned celebrations of Christmas, even though there are “almost no Christians left” living there, according to AFP. (That’s not true, by the way.) During the Dec. 19 Democratic presidential debate, Gov. Martin O’Malley cited Somalia as an example of a country where intervention against Islamic militants had helped to “stabilize” the country.

INDIA: In 2015 there has been an average of one violent episode every week against Christians, as ruling Hindus increasingly feel threatened by the growth of the Christian community. This is a good overview by John L. Allen Jr. of the state of affairs in Asia.

IRAQ: My hat is off to Globe Trotters who use their Christmas holiday to serve the persecuted and war refugees. William Murray, chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, reports from Iraq on “an amazing Christmas event for refugee children” last night. Volunteers brought together 326 children from three different camps to the Al-Amal Center, an unfinished hotel outside the Kurdistan capital city Erbil (I reported on it here), where displaced families from Nineveh Plain are celebrating their second Christmas. Bill writes, “We had a great time with the children. The only sad moment is when a couple of small girls cried and did not want to get on the bus to go home.” Bill stayed across the street from St. Elias Church, which oversaw the departures of about 150 Christian refugees to Slovakia last week: “It is the only empty place here. The rest are breaking at the seams.”

Turkey had 150 troops and about 22 tanks stationed just north of Mosul, the northern Iraqi city held by ISIS, until Iraq kicked them out this week. It’s an open question why they were there, and why they and others haven’t moved against ISIS in Mosul. It seems evidence Turkey and related allies (possibly including the United States) are less interested in “defeating ISIS” than perhaps using the chaos to reshape the map to their liking.

I’M READING some of the “best of” articles at Longreads, Robert Dallek’s Nixon and Kissinger bio, and In the Garden of Beasts by Eric Larson (plus looking forward to any readable gifts and ideas).

NOTE: Globe Trot will be taking a Christmas holiday, returning Jan. 4, 2016. I leave you the Apostle Paul’s ending in 2 Corinthians 13:11-14 as a fit conclusion to 2015:

“Finally, brothers,rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another,agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.”

Mindy Belz

Mindy, a former senior editor for WORLD Magazine, wrote the publication’s first cover story in 1986. She has covered wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Africa, and the Balkans and is author of They Say We Are Infidels: On the Run From ISIS With Persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Mindy resides in Asheville, N.C.

@MindyBelz