Iranian Christian refugees in Sweden share frustrations at asylum process 22 June 2023 News Members of the “I Am a Christian Too” campaign group were back on the streets on Tuesday for World Refugee Day. Over the past three years, Article18 has reported on numerous occasions about a group of Iranian Christians in Sweden who have taken to the streets of Stockholm to protest about rights abuses in their home country. The “I Am a Christian Too” protesters have campaigned for Iranian Christians’ release from prison, their right to employment and a place to worship, and other issues such as the targeting of Baha’is and killing of protesters. On Tuesday this week, they were back on the streets, and this time the issue was perhaps even more personal; it was World Refugee Day, and the Christians wanted to draw attention not only to the struggles of their coreligionists back home, but also refugees like them, who continue to suffer even after being forced to flee. Article18 spoke with several of the Christians – all converts – about their struggles since arriving in Sweden, in many cases several years ago, and how many had their asylum applications rejected because of doubts regarding the veracity of their conversion claims, despite years of active involvement in their churches. Edris Afsar, who has been in Sweden since 2015, told Article18: “I applied for asylum, and after a long time, I received a rejection and deportation notice from the immigration office. “They even took away mine and my wife’s permission to work, despite the difficult conditions we have.” Kobra Yadegarpoor (left) alongside two other women protesters on Tuesday. Another asylum-seeker, Milad Motamedi, said: “My family and I have been in Sweden as refugees for almost eight years, and our asylum application was rejected. We are dealing with many problems – not having a work permit, and also not being able to study and participate in society. “We don’t even have the possibility to go on a trip and book a hotel or plane ticket, which is actually a normal thing in the life of every person. In some cases it has not been possible for my child to see a doctor; it is not possible to shop online; and the combination of all these things causes stress and problems.” “It’s very difficult to live in Sweden without residency,” said Arash Mirzaee, who has been in Sweden for over a decade. “I don’t have the permission to have a bank account, or any other right that a human being needs to live here – like getting a driver’s license, a bank card, attending classes, or getting a work permit.” Finally, Kobra Yadegarpoor provided a woman’s perspective, telling Article18: “As a Christian woman, I came to Sweden from my own country with the challenges and problems I had in society, but unfortunately, my right to asylum and work permit was taken away from me for more than five years, and there was no proper and fair handling of my case. “Single people, families, and children each have their own problems and challenges, such as the right to housing, allowances, work permits, medical treatment, etc., and in the meantime, Christians have their own problems, and their faith and belief is always ridiculed, and the courts make incorrect judgments.” Converts’ asylum claims disbelieved across Europe The “I Am a Christian Too” group have campaigned for Iranian Christians’ release from prison, and their right to employment and a place to worship, among other issues. Whether it’s Sweden, or elsewhere in Europe, there appears to be a clear similarity in how asylum claims involving Christian converts are dealt with, including their high rejection rate. Whereas in most courts of law the principle is to be believed innocent until proven guilty, in the asylum cases of converts it seems the principle is to be believed insincere until irrefutably proven otherwise. But as asylum courts across Europe will attest, there is no easy way to prove or disprove the sincerity of someone’s faith. “It is not possible to make windows into men’s souls,” noted the judges in the case of one Iranian asylum-seeker, “PS”, whose example was included in the latest guidance to UK courts on how to assess such claims. And yet, over and again, it appears that making such impossible judgements is precisely what immigration authorities seek to do. The Swedish newspaper Dagen recently visited the country’s largest asylum accommodation, and met with around 20 Iranian asylum-seekers, all of whose cases were based on their professed conversions to Christianity, and all of whose claims had been rejected. Dagen reported that they had all received the same response from the authorities: that “their Christian faith is not considered genuine, and therefore does not constitute a basis for protection”. According to the judgments that Dagen viewed, the converts’ stories were considered “vague”, unreliable and lacking “deeper reflections”, leading the judges to conclude that their conversions were “not because of a genuine religious conviction”. Edris Afsar (second left) and Arash Mirzaee (centre), during Tuesday’s protest. A common phrase that Dagen found in the rejection notices was that “the Migration Agency finds that it appears that your connection to Christianity is more about your well-being than that you have a genuine and religious conviction”. But the asylum-seekers themselves told Dagen they didn’t know what more they could do to prove the genuineness of their faith. “The Migration Agency wants me to be a ‘perfect’ Christian who follows their template,” said one, Alirez Zarei. Another, Saeed Mohamdi, put it this way: “The Swedish Migration Agency does not believe me, and it is because I find it difficult to put into words what is in my heart.” This was also the point put to Dagen by lawyer Rebecca Ahlstrand, who has represented several converts in their asylum claims: “You must be able to show that you have reflected before converting, and that you have thought about the risks of the conversion, and preferably be able to describe the process leading up to the conversion and what thoughts preceded it. But this is often difficult for applicants, and at the same time, one must take into account the individual’s personal ability to verbally tell about their conversion – due to their education, culture, social status and so on – which is rarely done. “When assessing whether a conversion is genuine, it is primarily the oral information and the story that is judged on the basis of certain criteria, but we think that this can be very arbitrary.” And meanwhile, “the churches and the Migration Agency sometimes have different views on what is genuine faith and what is not”, noted Christian Mölk, the pastor of the local Pentecostal church that supports the asylum-seekers and has attested for the genuineness of their faith at multiple hearings. “Generally speaking, the Swedish Migration Agency wants people to be able to reason about their conversion, while the churches rather focus on various forms of spiritual experiences, such as healing, answers to prayers, hearing God’s voice, experiencing inner peace, or seeing Jesus in a dream,” he said. Some of the converts told Dagen they became Christians after witnessing miraculous changes in themselves or others, like Pegah Foroughasharagi, who said she noticed a transformation in her husband, who himself converted after seeing a colleague’s daughter recover from cancer following prayer. But the Swedish Migration Agency judged that Pegah was unable “to account for the thought process that led her to distance herself from Islam”, and “the inner spiritual journey that this distancing should have meant for her”. Once again, it seems we’re back to peering into a person’s soul. And all the while, converts like those from the “I Am a Christian Too” campaign group remain in a state of uncertainty, and fear of deportation. “My whole life – days and nights – is spent in stress and anxiety about the future and what will happen to me,” Arash Mirzaee told Article18. “For these 12 years, I could have studied, had a good job, and peace, but I haven’t had any of these things; only stress and anxiety.”
‘Critical need’ for new resettlement opportunities for Iranian Christian refugees in Turkey – report 20 June 2023 News There is a “critical need” for new resettlement opportunities and sponsorship programmes for Iranian Christian refugees in Turkey, says a new joint report published today on World Refugee Day by Article18 and three partner organisations. The report, which is a collaboration with Open Doors, CSW and Middle East Concern, notes that resettlement often takes many years, and “meanwhile, most Iranian Christian refugees exist in survival mode, overwhelmed by their precarious living conditions … [with no] stable jobs or incomes, and [the] risk of being deported”. The report includes first-hand testimonies from dozens of refugees to answer the following questions: What drives Christians to flee Iran? Why is Turkey a preferred first destination? What is the procedure for those seeking international protection in Turkey? What challenges do Iranian Christian refugees, and their children, face? Do they suffer discrimination? And what are the opportunities for resettlement in a third country? The majority of the report is dedicated to highlighting the challenges the refugees face, under seven headers: “Lack of employment, exploitation, and financial challenges”; “Health insurance withdrawal”; “Discrimination, racism, societal hostility and security threats”; “Children’s welfare and education”; Uncertainty and procedural inconsistencies”; “Threat of deportation”; and “Psychological pressure”. The report also highlights the few current opportunities for resettlement: sponsorship programmes to Canada, Australia and, most recently, the United States. “Traditionally, many refugees in Turkey have been resettled through the UN mechanism,” the report explains. “However, the process has slowed significantly in the past few years. In contrast to the situation a few years ago, only a small percentage of those relocated are Iranians, and an even smaller percentage are Iranian Christians.” The report applauds the recent establishment of a new sponsorship programme in the US, as well as the Canadian parliament’s decision to resettle 10,000 Uyghurs fleeing persecution in China, and calls for “the establishment of a similar initiative to expedite the resettlement of refugees from Turkey, including Iranian Christians”. “According to UNHCR statistics, in mid-2022 there were 32.5 million refugees worldwide, 3.7 million of whom were hosted by Turkey,” the report says. “In the first six months of 2022, just 42,300 refugees were resettled globally, with or without the assistance of the UNHCR. If resettlement continues at this rate, it will take nearly 400 years to resettle the existing refugees throughout the world.” The report concludes with recommendations for: Turkey to provide access to basic healthcare beyond the first year of registration for protection, and to regulate and facilitate employment opportunities for refugees, thereby ending exploitation in the workplace; the Turkish immigration authorities to clarify the application procedure, providing a timeline within which claims will be processed, and to undertake and illustrate due diligence in assessing refugee claims, including those of Iranian Christians; the UNHCR to ensure the resettlement process is transparent, and to intervene swiftly to assist refugees and asylum-seekers who are in imminent danger of refoulement; refugee-receiving governments to provide resettlement opportunities and develop sponsorship programmes to expedite the resettlement process for Iranian Christians and other refugees in Turkey. You can download a copy of the full report here.
The Plight of Iranian Christians Claiming International Protection in Türkiye 20 June 2023 Reports There is a “critical need” for new resettlement opportunities and sponsorship programmes for Iranian Christian refugees in Turkey, says a new joint report published today on World Refugee Day by Article18 and three partner organisations. The report, which is a collaboration with Open Doors, CSW and Middle East Concern, notes that resettlement often takes many years, and “meanwhile, most Iranian Christian refugees exist in survival mode, overwhelmed by their precarious living conditions … [with no] stable jobs or incomes, and [the] risk of being deported”. The report includes first-hand testimonies from dozens of refugees to answer the following questions: What drives Christians to flee Iran? Why is Turkey a preferred first destination? What is the procedure for those seeking international protection in Turkey? What challenges do Iranian Christian refugees, and their children, face? Do they suffer discrimination? And what are the opportunities for resettlement in a third country? The majority of the report is dedicated to highlighting the challenges the refugees face, under seven headers: “Lack of employment, exploitation, and financial challenges”; “Health insurance withdrawal”; “Discrimination, racism, societal hostility and security threats”; “Children’s welfare and education”; Uncertainty and procedural inconsistencies”; “Threat of deportation”; and “Psychological pressure”. The report also highlights the few current opportunities for resettlement: sponsorship programmes to Canada, Australia and, most recently, the United States. “Traditionally, many refugees in Türkiye have been resettled through the UN mechanism,” the report explains. “However, the process has slowed significantly in the past few years. In contrast to the situation a few years ago, only a small percentage of those relocated are Iranians, and an even smaller percentage are Iranian Christians.” The report applauds the recent establishment of a new sponsorship programme in the US, as well as the Canadian parliament’s decision to resettle 10,000 Uyghurs fleeing persecution in China, and calls for “the establishment of a similar initiative to expedite the resettlement of refugees from Türkiye, including Iranian Christians”. “According to UNHCR statistics, in mid-2022 there were 32.5 million refugees worldwide, 3.7 million of whom were hosted by Türkiye,” the report says. “In the first six months of 2022, just 42,300 refugees were resettled globally, with or without the assistance of the UNHCR. If resettlement continues at this rate, it will take nearly 400 years to resettle the existing refugees throughout the world.” The report concludes with recommendations for: Turkey to provide access to basic healthcare beyond the first year of registration for protection, and to regulate and facilitate employment opportunities for refugees, thereby ending exploitation in the workplace; the Turkish immigration authorities to clarify the application procedure, providing a timeline within which claims will be processed, and to undertake and illustrate due diligence in assessing refugee claims, including those of Iranian Christians; the UNHCR to ensure the resettlement process is transparent, and to intervene swiftly to assist refugees and asylum-seekers who are in imminent danger of refoulement; refugee-receiving governments to provide resettlement opportunities and develop sponsorship programmes to expedite the resettlement process for Iranian Christians and other refugees in Turkey.
‘I didn’t know worshipping and praying in Jesus’ name was illegal’ 12 June 2023 Features When he was arrested, Vahid Hakani told his interrogator he hadn’t known until that day “that gathering and worshipping and praying in the name of Christ is not legal in Iran”. His interrogator wanted him to confess that he was part of a “deviant Christian sect”, and pledge to no longer have any more interactions with other house-church members. Vahid said he couldn’t promise not to see the other members – “they are my whole life!” – and added: “We aren’t a deviant sect. We’re Christians!” “The official churches of Iran don’t accept you,” the interrogator responded. And on this point, at least, the interrogator wasn’t entirely wrong; after becoming a Christian, Vahid had soon found out that there is no place for converts in the churches of Iran today. “There are many churches in Iran, some of which are considered historical monuments, and for many years many people entered these churches and worshipped God,” Vahid explains. “But the government of the Islamic Republic doesn’t allow Persian-speakers to become members and participate in the meetings in the church buildings. “They have ordered and threatened the leaders of the churches that they must not allow Christian converts to enter.” Vahid says he tried “several times” to enter the church building in his city – Simon the Zealot Church in Shiraz – and even once, through an Armenian friend, got in. But the process was far from easy, and he couldn’t become a member. “Church buildings are controlled by the government, and the Shiraz church building is between the offices of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice,” Vahid explains. “A camera has been installed in that alley, and all entrances and exits to the church are under the authorities’ control. “The sermons also aren’t in the Persian language, and for this reason Persian-speaking Christian converts are forced to gather secretly in their homes, and pray and have Christian fellowship with other Christians in house-churches.” But for this, as Vahid was soon to find out, there can be a heavy price to pay. “As the number of our members and house-churches grew, we knew we ran the risk of one day being arrested by the Ministry of Intelligence,” he says. “Sometimes, we felt that we were being followed, or that our phones were being tapped, and later on we found out that our suspicions were correct.” Before his arrest, Vahid was twice interrogated and threatened by agents from the Ministry of Intelligence. Then, on Wednesday 8 February 2012, his house-church gathering was raided, and he and seven other members were taken away. Vahid and three of the others would spend the next three years in prison. ‘Everything was black’ One of the hardest parts of his initial detention, Vahid says, was being blindfolded: “I didn’t know where they were taking me, or who was holding my hand. Everything was black, and dark. It was the first time I’d ever had to go anywhere while wearing a blindfold, and it caused me to experience a lot of negative thoughts. “I had seen some videos of the killing of students in the protests of 2009, where students were thrown, blindfolded, from the roof. Sometimes, I imagined that they were going to throw me down from a high place, like a cliff.” Vahid endured many other challenges during his time in prison, not least 12 months of intestinal bleeding. Vahid was examined by numerous doctors over this period, but says the whole process was humiliating. “With handcuffs on my hands and feet, and accompanied by four armed officers, they would take me out of prison back into the outside world, and to the hospital,” he explains. “In my release note, they would write: ‘Under strict protection!’ One of the officers even asked: ‘What did you do that they have written that you are under strict protection?’ I said: ‘I’m a Christian!’ “The sound made by the chains on my legs made people look at me suspiciously, and distance themselves from me. They must have thought I had committed a serious crime. I felt very humiliated.” Vahid describes how the doctor who operated on him, during their first meeting, “was afraid when he saw the shackles on my legs and the officers by my side carrying guns” and “examined me with fear, at a distance, and clearly not feeling at all comfortable”. When this doctor finally found out his patient’s true “crime”, he apologised and admitted: “With the way they brought you in, I thought you must be a dangerous prisoner.” Vahid also underwent two hunger strikes during his three years in prison, for 85 days in total, and says that afterwards he “lost about 35 kilos and was extremely weak and emaciated”, and “years later, I still suffer from the physical effects of those hunger strikes”. ‘I had nowhere to go’ Even after his eventual release, life was far from easy for Vahid. “I had no place to live,” he explains. “I had lost my home and shop; I didn’t have a job; I didn’t even have money to rent a room. “Before prison, I had a good job and my business was booming. Now, I had lost my job and had been forced to sell many of my belongings. When I got out of prison, I sometimes said to myself that ‘I wish I hadn’t applied for conditional release’, because I had nowhere to go outside prison. “My family wasn’t waiting for me [Vahid’s mother died when he was 13, and he didn’t know his father]; I was a single young man and, due to my age, I didn’t feel comfortable about staying long-term with other people.” Meanwhile, other church members were afraid to meet, knowing Vahid was likely still under the surveillance of the Ministry of Intelligence. One of Vahid’s friends suggested he travel to Turkey to lighten his move. Vahid did so, and he never returned. “More Christians were being arrested, and after evaluating the situation, I decided not to,” he explains. “But I felt very lonely in Turkey, as I didn’t have any close friends there. I had no money, no job, and I didn’t know Turkish. I had left my country and was a stranger in this country. The first months in Turkey were very bitter for me, and I had nightmares of prison for a long time. Once, I even decided to commit suicide. “I decided to ask everyone who knew me to pray for me, and after about three or four months, my mental condition changed.” Today, Vahid is married with two children, and works with an organisation that supports other Christians suffering from persecution. You can read Vahid’s full Witness Statement here.
‘We use money that could feed hungry Muslims to restore Christian churches’ – tourism minister 26 May 2023 News In the week of the 10th anniversary of the forced closure of the largest Persian-speaking church in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s Minister of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism has had the temerity to claim that “the people of the world should know” that despite economic problems, the Iranian government still takes money that could be used to feed its hungry Muslim citizens to pay for the restoration of Christian churches. “Despite the economic problems of the country, we use the chicken and eggs of the Muslim people – some of whom are in need of their nightly bread – to finance the restoration of Christian churches,” said Ezzatollah Zarghami, in comments widely publicised on Iranian state media this week. The comments come in the wake not only of the anniversary of the closure of the Central Assemblies of God Church in Tehran, but also while dozens of other churches have been forced to close in recent years, and some later confiscated after years of slow decay, leaving Persian-speaking Christians with no place to worship. “The churches the minister refers to are possibly those like Vank and Khare Kelisa, which are National Heritage sites that every year generate huge revenues for the government from the tourists who visit them, but these comments will cause outrage and disbelief among the many Iranian Christians who are denied the right to have a place to worship,” explained Article18’s advocacy director, Mansour Borji. The Iranian regime regularly uses its recognised religious-minority groups, including ethnic Armenian and Assyrian Christians, for its propaganda. The majority of churches in Iran today belong to the historic Armenian and Assyrian communities, and they are afforded some freedom to worship, but strictly monitored to ensure they preach only in their ethnic-minority languages – not the national language of Persian – and do not evangelise or speak out against the government. Those churches that fail to adhere to this mandate are closed, and their pastors arrested, as happened 10 years ago in the case of the Central Assemblies of God Church in Tehran. Other examples include the Iranian-Assyrian pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, who was removed from the leadership of the Shahrara Assyrian Pentecostal Church in Tehran and later arrested after continuing to minister to converts in his home; and two Iranian-Armenian pastors, Joseph Shahbazian and Anooshavan Avedian, who were last year also given 10-year prison sentences for the same “offence”. Meanwhile, among the growing list of Christian properties confiscated and later repurposed are the former home of the Anglican bishop of Iran, which is now a museum; a church founded by the former head of the Assemblies of God denomination in Iran; and a popular retreat centre. Other Christian properties closed or confiscated in recent years include the Jannat-Abad, Adventist, and St Peter’s and Emmanuel Evangelical churches in Tehran, and the Assyrian Presbyterian Church in Tabriz, which was later reopened after an international outcry. Christian schools, hospitals and cemeteries have also been confiscated in the years since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. And yet representatives of the Islamic Republic continue to claim on the international stage that religious minorities including Christians are afforded equal rights, and full religious freedom – not to mention, apparently, money for the restoration of their churches. Truly, as the minister suggests, the people of the world should take note.
Bishop Guli calls for safe legal route for Iranians fleeing persecution for faith 23 May 2023 News British-Iranian bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani has called on the UK government to consider offering a “safe-route scheme” for Iranians fleeing persecution on account of their faith. In an oral question at the UK House of Lords this afternoon, Bishop Guli cited Article18’s annual report as she referenced the “increasing involvement” of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “in the crackdown against peaceful Christian activities in Iran”. “Other religious minorities and peaceful protesters also report violent treatment during arrest and detention, as well as the interference of the IRGC’s intelligence branch in court proceedings to ensure harsher sentences against those who are accused,” the bishop added. Bishop Guli said she “absolutely agree[d]” with those Lords calling for the IRGC to be proscribed as a terrorist group, and asked whether the government would also “consider offering a safe-route scheme for those from Iran who have suffered persecution in the form of arrest and imprisonment on account of their faith?” In response, the Under Secretary of State for the UK Home Office, Lord Sharpe, assured Bishop Guli that her views would be “taken back”, and added that the incoming “national-security bill” would “provide another significant toolkit in the fight against individuals working for state entities like the IRGC in this country” by “criminalis[ing] a wide range of hostile activities”. Several UK peers queried why the UK had yet to proscribe the IRGC, despite persistent calls for the group to be recognised as a terrorist entity, but Lord Sharpe said he could not comment, in line with the UK Home Office’s “long-standing policy of not commenting externally on prescription matters”, in order “to avoid creating expectations that the government will proscribe certain organisations; to reduce the risk that an organisation will take evasive action before any potential prescription order comes into force; to manage the risk that subsequent decisions are vulnerable to challenge on procedural grounds, and so on and so forth.”
10 years since forced closure of Iran’s largest Persian-speaking church 19 May 2023 News This Sunday will be the 10th anniversary of the forced closure of the largest Persian-speaking church in Iran, the Central Assemblies of God Church in Tehran. The once-thriving church, built in the 1970s and re-registered in 1980 after the establishment of the Islamic Republic, was one of dozens of Persian-language churches forced to close over the past three decades, as the Iranian authorities have sought to clamp down on a sharp rise in converts to Christianity. There were once 43 Protestant churches in Iran – many of which offered services in the national language, Persian, and attracted Iranians of all ethnicities. Today, just 16 remain, only four of which are permitted to preach in Persian – Anglican churches in the major cities of Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz – and only to those who can prove they were Christians before the inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Even these four churches have not been permitted to reopen since the Covid-19 pandemic, so in reality there are now only 12 Protestant churches operating in Iran – 10 in the capital, Tehran, and one each in the north-western cities of Tabriz and Orumiyeh – and these churches can only offer services in the ethnic-minority languages of Armenian or Assyrian. Half of the 12 functioning churches are Presbyterian, while there are three Assemblies of God churches, and one each from the Assyrian Pentecostal, Brethren, and Adventist denominations. But out of all of the denominations, it is the Assemblies of God Church that has been hit the hardest, losing 13 of its 16 churches in cities across Iran – Arak, Ahvaz, Rasht, Gorgan, Mashhad, Tehran, Isfahan, Shahin Shahr, Kermanshah, Shiraz, Bushehr, and Nowshahr – while the popular AoG retreat centre in Karaj has also been confiscated. Several other Protestant-owned properties have been confiscated since 1979, including schools, hospitals, cemeteries, and even churches like the Assyrian Presbyterian Church of Tabriz and St Peter’s and Emmanuel Evangelical churches in Tehran. The first Assemblies of God Church forced to close was that of Pastor Hossein Soodmand, hosted in his home in the conservative city of Mashhad, for which the pastor was sentenced to death and in 1990 hanged for his “apostasy”. But the real tipping point, according to Article18’s director, Mansour Borji, came in 2009 with the forced closure of the Assyrian Pentecostal church in Shahrara, Tehran, pastored by Victor Bet-Tamraz. “This was when the authorities renewed their long-standing demand to all the Persian-speaking churches that they must ‘cooperate’: meaning to cease all their services in Persian and disallow non-Christians from attending their services,” Mr Borji explained, “and then the first action that showed the teeth of the intelligence service during that new phase was the closure of Pastor Victor’s church.” The Central Assemblies of God Church once attracted around 500 people to its services: predominantly converts from Muslim backgrounds. Other significant closures were the 2011 closure of the Ahvaz church, and arrest of the pastor, Farhad Sabokrooh, his wife, and two other church leaders, and the 2012 closure of the Jannat-Abad church in western Tehran. A year later, the Central AoG Church met the same fate. Once a thriving congregation of around 500 predominantly Muslim-background converts, the Central AoG Church was forced to close as a result of that very fact, and its senior pastor, Robert Asseriyan, became the latest church leader to be arrested. By then, all Persian-speaking churches had been ordered that they must cease all Persian-language services, provide the ID numbers of all members to the Ministry of Intelligence, cancel their Friday services, and hold meetings only on Sundays. (In Iran, Friday is a day off, and Sunday a working day.) The following year, St Peter’s Evangelical Church in Tehran, which had offered Persian-language services since 1876, was forced to stop this provision. In the years since the 1979 establishment of the Islamic Republic, the issue of converts has been – and remains – the central challenge for the Church in Iran. Only those churches that have agreed to close their doors to converts, and latterly – in a bid to further crackdown on any chance of converts attending – to preach in Armenian or Assyrian, have been permitted to remain. Those churches that have refused to comply have been closed, and their leaders arrested. The only churches now open to converts are the secret network of underground house-churches, which can only survive for as long as they remain secret. Once discovered, these house-churches are forcibly disbanded and their members forced to sign “commitments” to have no further engagement in Christian activities, or face prosecution for “actions against the state”. The former superintendent of the AoG in Iran, Haik Hovsepian, who was killed in 1994, was one of those who refused to commit not to preach to converts or allow them to enter his churches. Similar “commitments” were sought from the as many as 85 AoG church leaders arrested in 2004 – among them Pastors Sabokrooh and Asseriyan – as they gathered at the Karaj retreat centre that would later be confiscated. The same thread links all these incidents together: the issue of converts – anathema to the vision of an Islamic Republic. And until that vision changes, converts and those individuals or churches that aid them or evangelise to them can expect little in the way of freedom.
Parkinson’s sufferer and wife acquitted, released from prison 10 May 2023 News A 64-year-old Christian convert with advanced Parkinson’s disease and his wife have been acquitted and released from their combined 10-year prison sentence. Homayoun Zhaveh, whose health has deteriorated while in prison, and his wife Sara Ahmadi had been detained in the respective men’s and women’s wings of Tehran’s Evin Prison since August last year, serving sentences of two and eight years in prison, respectively, for their involvement in a house-church. They were first arrested in 2019, sentenced in 2020, and summoned to prison in 2021, only to be informed they could return home. But a year later, on 13 August 2022, they were summoned once more, and this time detained. Their first two applications for a retrial were rejected, but on Easter Day they were informed that the Supreme Court had finally ordered that their case be heard again by an appeal court. And yesterday, at the 34th branch of the appeal court in Tehran, they were acquitted and ordered to be released. Sara and Homayoun were released from Evin Prison early yesterday evening. In the ruling, the appeal-court judge said that gathering with people of one’s own faith was “natural”, and having books related to Christianity was “also an extension of their beliefs”. He added that there was “no evidence” that Sara and Homayoun had acted against the country’s security or had connections with opposition groups or organisations. “The reports by the officers of the Ministry of Intelligence about organisation of home-groups to promote Christianity, membership, and participation in home-groups, are not considered as acts against the country’s security, and the law has not recognised them as criminal activity,” the judge stated. The ruling mirrors that of the historic 2021 Supreme Court judgement that acquitted nine other converts of acting against national security. That case also ended up at the 34th branch of the Tehran appeal court, which found there was “insufficient evidence” the converts had acted against national security, referencing their lawyers’ explanation that they had only “worshipped in the house-church in accordance with the teachings of Christianity” and that Christians are taught to live in “obedience, submission and support of the authorities”. Article18’s director, Mansour Borji, explained: “This latest verdict demonstrates yet again the arbitrary nature of the ruling that has sent a considerable number of Christians to prison, many of them suffering from the effects of their trauma years later. For decades, intelligence institutions within the Islamic Republic have disregarded judicial processes and the law of the land. They have exercised authority and control over judges that they have installed in specific Revolutionary Courts dealing with such cases. They have abused and exploited vague legal precepts to criminalise peaceful and constitutionally lawful activities of these Christians. Unfortunately, not so many judges can be found who would so clearly acknowledge the rights of the wrongly accused Christians, and refute the unjust verdicts issued against them.” He added: “We welcome the ruling of the appeal court, and rejoice with Sara and Homayoun, their family members, their lawyer, and all Christians around the world who supported them through prayer and advocacy during their hardship. No-one should be subjected to the torture they have endured. But in this joyous moment, we also think of other prisoners of conscience, including Christians, who continue to be detained and imprisoned on similar charges. Let’s hope for a fair judgment for them, too.”
Christians among minority groups targeted with spyware 5 May 2023 News Researchers found that many victims’ devices were first infected near police stations or border posts. (Photo: Lookout) Intelligence officers belonging to the Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or FARAJA, are using spyware to monitor members of minority groups, including Christians, according to new research. Since March 2020, at least 487 devices have been infected with “BouldSpy”, which has the capability to extract data including photographs, screenshots of conversations, and recordings of video calls from applications including WhatsApp and Telegram, according to researchers at US-based Lookout Threat Intelligence. And most victims live in minority areas, such as Kurdistan, Sistan and Baluchestan, as well as West Azerbaijan Province, where many Armenian and Assyrian Christians live. “In particular, about 25 victim locations were gathered in the city of Orumiyeh, West Azerbaijan Province, which is historically associated with Armenian and Assyrian Christianity,” Kyle Schmittle, Lookout Threat Intelligence Researcher, explained to Article18. “Some files stolen from victims indicate Christian faith, particularly snippets or scanned sections of relevant books,” he added. Recovered exfiltration data, bearing the insignia of FARAJA, shows victims likely came into contact with Iranian law enforcement, researchers said. Mr Schmittle said the researchers were confident FARAJA was behind the infections, because “the first location collected from victim devices was in the direct vicinity of either a regional police station, a border control post, Iranian Cyber Police building, military facility, provincial police command headquarters, narcotics police station, or Islamic Republic of Iran Police Force Headquarters. Most of these categories of facilities fall under the ultimate command of the overarching Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran, or FARAJA”. “Because of the consistency in first-location collections from victim devices near police stations all over Iran, we believe the BouldSpy malware is most likely installed using physical access to the device when a victim is detained,” Mr Schmittle told Article18. “Additionally, some victims had photos of official FARAJA documents on their devices indicating that they had been arrested. While this information led us to attribute the malicious activity to FARAJA, in our opinion this is insufficient information to achieve a high confidence attribution.” There was a particular spike in infections at the height of the Mahsa Amini protests in October 2022, Mr Schmittle noted, explaining: “We saw an infection rate of roughly 23-30 devices per month from July to September 2022, with a jump to 74 devices in October, and again back to about 23 devices in November.” Mr Schmittle added that infections are “ongoing”, and that there has been another uptick in recent months. “Similar numbers of devices have been infected in March and April 2023, with 69 and 87 new infections respectively, suggesting another large increase in infection activity,” he said. The true number of victims is also likely to be higher, the researchers noted, because exfiltration data is often cleared.
USCIRF report focuses on ‘sharply deteriorated religious freedom’ in Iran 2 May 2023 News The “sharply deteriorated religious-freedom conditions” in Iran are the focus of the cover and introduction to the latest annual report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. The cover of the report, which was published yesterday, features a photograph of Mahsa Amini, alongside the names of scores of Iranians imprisoned on account of their religious beliefs, including a dozen Christians. The report begins by explaining how protests erupted in Iran following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, “because her visible hair violated the government’s religiously grounded headscarf law”. “Outraged by this flagrant denial of life,” the report goes on, “young women and girls led hundreds of thousands of fellow Iranians in peaceful protests asserting their right to freedom of religion or belief, risking severe punishment, permanent injury, and even death.” The cover, USCIRF says, “honors the many Iranians, known and unknown, held in prison in 2022 on account of their religious beliefs, activity, or identity by displaying the names of the individuals from Iran who are included in USCIRF’s Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List”. Among the names listed are a dozen Christians: Malihe Nazari, Joseph Shahbazian, Gholamreza Keyvanmanesh, Morteza Mashoodkari, Ahmad Sarparast, Ayoob Poor-Rezazadeh, Alireza Nourmohammadi, Amin Khaki, Milad Goodarzi, Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad, Zaman (Saheb) Fadaie, and Yousef Nadarkhani. The report also highlights the cases of Anooshavan Avedian, Abbas Soori, Maryam Mohammadi, Rahmat Rostamipour, Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, and Fariba Dalir, as well as the Christian converts “pressured to abandon their faith” in Dezful, and Armenian church leaders “pressured … to issue statements supporting the government”. “Iranian authorities’ repression of freedom of religion or belief has been a decades-long campaign targeting both religious minorities and members of the majority Shi’a Muslim community,” the report explains. “During 2022, in addition to its repression of protesters, Iran’s leadership continued to target members of the Baha’i, Christian, Gonabadi Sufi, Zoroastrian, Yarsani, Sunni Muslim, Shi’a Muslim, and nonreligious communities with harassment, arrests, egregiously long prison sentences, multi- year internal exiles, or bans on participating in political and social activities.” USCIRF recommends that the US State Department re-designates Iran as a Country of Particular Concern for “systematic, egregious, and ongoing violations of religious freedom”; “imposes targeted sanctions on Iranian government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom”; “continues to coordinate international action to lift the veil of impunity under which Iran’s leadership continues to operate”; and “prioritizes resettlement for survivors of the most egregious forms of religious persecution, including Iranian religious minorities”.