bleeding body thrown in front of his home a few hours later, BosNewsLife monitored.
Compass Direct news agency, which investigates the plight of persecuted Christians, said 50-year old Protestant pastor Ghorban Tori, was apparently targeted by security forces for his involvement in an independent house church of converts in Gonbad-e-Kavus, a town east of the Caspian Sea along the Turkmenistan border.
Within hours of the November 22 murder, local secret police arrived at the killed pastor’s home, searching for Bibles and other banned Christian books in the Farsi language, Compass Direct claimed.
HOUSES RAIDED
The next day secret police also raided houses of all other known Christian believers in the city, the news agency said.
One "informed Iranian source" was quoted as saying that since last week representatives of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) have arrested and "severely tortured 10 other Christians in several cities," including Tehran. All the detainees have reportedly been released.
One of the arrested Christians was reportedly interrogated about his involvement in relief work after Iran’s deadly Bam earthquake in December 2003. Another working with a legal organization defending human rights was accused of using it as a "cover" for church activities.
CHRISTIANS THREATENED
Other church leaders are also reported to have been threatened. Tori is survived by his wife and four children, ages 3 to 23.
He is the fifth Protestant pastor assassinated in Iran by unidentified killers in the past 11 years. Three of the five were former Muslims, under Iranian law subject to the death penalty for having committed apostasy. Tori’s murder came just days after Iran’s new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called an open meeting with the nation’s 30 provincial governors, Compass Direct recalled.
During the session Ahmadinejad apparently declared the government needed to put a stop "to the burgeoning movement of house churches across Iran." Iranian officials could not immediately be reached for comment. (With reports from Iran).
