The wife of an Iranian-Armenian pastor who has been in Evin Prison since February last year has now been summoned to begin her own prison sentence. 

Lida Alexani, a grandmother who recently celebrated her 58th birthday, is the wife of Joseph Shahbazian, who is serving a 16-year sentence related to his leadership of a house-church.

Lida was sentenced last October, alongside Joseph and three Christian converts, who were collectively ordered to serve over 70 years in prison on charges related to their religious meetings.

Lida, who spent a month in prison last April – much of it in solitary confinement – was given a 13-year sentence on charges of “deviant proselytising contrary to the holy religion of Islam”, and of “gathering and collusion”.

The three Christian converts in the case are Aida Najaflou, Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, and a third unnamed woman.

Nasser, like Joseph, has been in prison since February last year, while the other two women are currently out on bail.

Aida was detained from February to December last year, but has been on medical leave since fracturing her spine by falling out of her prison bunk bed.

For Joseph and Nasser, their rearrest in February 2025 came just a few years after being “pardoned” and released from 10-year prison sentences on similar charges.

In Iran, Christians of Assyrian or Armenian descent, like Joseph and Lida, are permitted a degree of freedom to worship, but this does not include the freedom to share their faith with others, even though this right is enshrined in Article 18 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory.

Since 2009, churches that once offered services in the Persian language have been forcibly ordered to cease this provision, while the leaders who refused, or who kept ministering to Christian converts in their homes, have faced arrest and imprisonment, alongside the converts themselves.

Recent examples include Assyrian couple Victor Bet-Tamraz and Shamiram Issavi, who fled Iran after being summoned to serve combined 15-year prison sentences, and Armenian pastor Anooshavan Avedian, who was summoned to serve his own sentence on the day of Joseph’s previous “pardoning”.

Another Christian from Armenia, Hakop Gochumyan, remains in Evin Prison over three years after his arrest, alongside his wife, while visiting Iran with their two young children. 

Article 18 of the ICCPR, from which our organisation derives its name, states:

1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.
   
   
2. No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.
   
   
3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.
   
   
4. The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

Article18’s director, Mansour Borji, commented: “We call on Iran to adhere to its obligations under international law by ceasing its systematic persecution of Christians, releasing all Christian prisoners of conscience and providing all Christian citizens – whether converts, or those of Armenian and Assyrian descent – with a place in which they may worship, free from fear of arrest and imprisonment.”