An Iranian Christian convert and former prisoner of conscience remains incommunicado two weeks after her rearrest on unknown charges.

Ghazal Marzban, who spent two months in Evin Prison last winter after being convicted of “propaganda against the regime by chanting slogans”, was rearrested by intelligence agents at her home in Tehran on 14 January.

Her Bible and other Christian literature were confiscated, and she was then taken away to an unknown location, with no explanation given for her rearrest.

Two hours later, Ghazal called home to tell her husband she was being held in a Ministry of Intelligence detention centre, but she has not been heard from since.

Ghazal’s rearrest comes in the context of an ongoing Internet blackout and brutal crackdown on protests, with credible reports that tens of thousands have been murdered by the Islamic Republic’s security forces.

At least a dozen Christians are among those known to have been killed so far, with new reports coming in every day and including members both of Iran’s recognised Armenian and Assyrian Christian communities and unrecognised converts.

Ghazal was first arrested in November 2024, after protesting against the harassment she had endured since converting to Catholicism seven years prior.

After her conversion, the Islamic law graduate was prevented from taking her bar examination and pressured to leave the country, while her husband, a fellow convert, has been unable to access the medication he requires to manage his Parkinson’s disease.