Anooshavan Avedian 24 June 2022 Case Studies (Last updated: October 2024) Case referenced by Article18, Iran International, The Christian Post, Asia News, International Christian Concern, Info Chrétienne, Church in Chains, Middle East Concern, Stefanus Alliance, Barnabas Fund, The Baptist Paper, Voice of the Martyrs Summary Iranian-Armenian Christian Anooshavan Avedian, who is in his sixties, was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the amended Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code for his leadership of a house-church, or what the Revolutionary Court judge referred to as “propaganda contrary to and disturbing to the holy religion of Islam”. Case in full Anooshavan was first arrested on 21 August 2020, when approximately 30 agents of the Ministry of Intelligence Service (MOIS) raided a private gathering at his home in Narmak, north-eastern Tehran, where around 18 Christians, including members of Anooshavan’s family, had gathered to pray and worship. The agents confiscated all the Christians’ Bibles and communication devices, and demanded that everyone fill out forms providing their personal information, including passwords to their phones and social-media accounts. Several of the Christians were then transferred to Tehran’s Evin Prison, including Anooshavan and Christian converts Abbas Soori, 45, and Maryam Mohammadi, 46. Maryam and Abbas were released two days later, but summoned again the following week and detained for a further 26 days in solitary confinement. They were also subjected to psychological torture during several intense interrogation sessions. The three Christians were eventually released on 23 September 2020 after depositing property deeds to cover bail demands of 1 billion tomans ($50,000) for Anooshavan, and 500 million tomans ($25,000) each for Abbas and Maryam. Others present at the gathering were also summoned to the offices of the MOIS for interrogations in the days and weeks after the raid, and many were forced to sign commitments to refrain from attending any further house-church meetings or even making any further contact with other Christians. On 10 April 2022, Anooshavan, Maryam and Abbas Soori were summoned to the 26th Branch of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran to face charges of “propaganda activity against the system” and “acting against the country’s security through organisation and leadership of an Evangelical Christian house-church”. On 11 April 2022, Judge Iman Afshari sentenced Anooshavan to 10 years in prison and the two converts to a range of non-custodial punishments. In addition to his 10-year sentence, Anooshavan was also sentenced to 10 years’ “deprivation of social rights” after his release, for example by restricting the types of employment he can have. Abbas and Maryam were also handed this 10-year deprivation, as well as two-year bans on any travel abroad, membership of any political or social group, and also of residence in their home province of Tehran or any adjacent province. The two converts were also fined 50 million tomans ($2,000) each and told they must regularly report to the offices of the MOIS. All three Christians appealed. In his sentencing, Judge Afshari found Anooshavan guilty of “establishing and leading an illegal group with the aim of disrupting the security of the country through educational and propaganda activities contrary to and disturbing to the holy religion of Islam, through the dissemination of false claims … as well as contact with foreign countries, or organisational guidance from abroad”. This wording was taken predominantly from the amended Article 500 of the penal code, under which several other Christians have already been convicted for their religious activities since the amendments were passed early last year. Maryam and Abbas were also convicted under the same article for membership of Anooshavan’s “illegal” group (house-church). The Christians’ defence was met with disrespectful remarks towards their character, and insults to their faith. The only “evidence” brought against them were the reports compiled by MOIS agents, including “confessions” extracted under duress. The charges against the three Christians blended elements of Articles 498, 499 and 500 of the penal code, relating to organisation (498) and membership (499) of “anti-state” groups, and propaganda (500) “contrary to Islam”, though only Article 500 was mentioned in the court document. On 29 May 2022, Anooshavan’s lawyer was informed that an appeal court had upheld his 10-year prison sentence. Despite repeated requests by the lawyer, Iman Soleimani, for the appeal hearing to take place in person, the ruling was made in absentia. In the verdict, Judge Abbasali Hozan of Branch 36 of Tehran’s appeal court upheld Anooshavan’s 10-year sentence, as well as the subsequent 10 years’ “deprivation of social rights” after his release. However, Abbas and Maryam’s own 10-year deprivation of social rights was removed and their fines for being in possession of satellite receivers were reduced from 50m tomans ($2,000) to 6m tomans ($190) each. According to Mr Soleimani, at least seven folders, including around 600 pages of documents each, had to be thoroughly studied and an extensive defence bill detailing numerous legal challenges considered, before the ruling could be passed. Therefore, the lawyer argued, the fact that the verdict was issued in less than 10 days “demonstrates insufficient study of the case by the appeal judges, dismissal of the defence, and unjust process”. Mr Soleimani added that as Anooshavan was not permitted to have a lawyer in his initial trial at the Revolutionary Court, he was unable to defend himself adequately against the volume of accusations built up against him by interrogators. His case was then passed on to the court responsible for executing judgements, meaning that Anooshavan could be summoned to serve his sentence at any moment. On 2 August 2022, Anooshavan and Abbas were informed that their appeal for a retrial with the Supreme Court had been rejected. Maryam’s had been rejected two weeks prior. A year later, on 13 September 2023, two plainclothes Ministry of Intelligence officers visited Anooshavan at his home and told him he must begin his prison sentence. He handed himself in five days later. Anooshavan’s summons came on the very same day that another Iranian-Armenian pastor, Joseph Shahbazian, was released from his own 10-year prison sentence, leading Article18’s director, Mansour Borji, to note that “the general policy of the Iranian government towards Christians has not changed”. “Although we have seen a number of Christians released this year,” he said, “the fact that somebody has now gone to prison on the same charges or for the same activities for which others have been pardoned or released, or had their sentences reduced, shows the arbitrary nature of the judicial system in Iran.” Mr Borji added that it was not clear why Anooshavan’s summons had taken so long, but that “the human effect of this long wait cannot be underestimated”. “While people appreciate enjoying as much time as possible with their family and loved ones, the constant threat of imprisonment hovering over your head is in itself a kind of torture,” he said. On 24 September 2024, Anooshavan was released from prison after being acquitted during a hearing that same day at Branch 21 of the Appeal Court of Tehran. This came after the Supreme Court accepted his latest petition for a retrial, lodged in April 2024, having previously denied all other petitions. Recommendations Article18 requests that the international community and Christians worldwide: Call for the immediate release of all Christians detained on charges related to the peaceful practice of their faith. Call for the swift application of due process in the cases of all who are detained and/or awaiting charges, trials, sentences or appeal hearings on account of their Christian faith and activities in Iran. Encourage Western countries to prioritise human rights in negotiations with Iran, especially freedom of religion or belief, and urge the government of Iran to recognise all minority-faith adherents, including converts to Christianity, as full citizens before the law, enjoying their full human rights. Call the international community to hold the Iranian government accountable for failing to uphold its international and constitutional commitments to protect the freedom of Christians in its territories. Closing churches, appropriating church property, arresting church leaders and threatening churchgoers are violations of freedom of religion or belief, as prescribed in Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory, without reservation, and therefore legally bound to uphold. Meanwhile, Article 13 of Iran’s Constitution states that Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians are recognised religious minorities, who are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies. And Article 23 says “investigation of individuals’ beliefs is forbidden, and no-one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief”. Background Though Christians are one of three recognised religious minorities in Iran, in practice only ethnic Armenians and Assyrians are permitted a degree of freedom to worship, but only within their own ethnic tongues, and not the national language of Persian. Over the past decade, the Iranian authorities have closed down almost all churches that offered services in the national language of Persian, or insisted they teach only in the ethnic minority languages. But the vast majority of Christians in Iran today are converts from at least nominally Islamic backgrounds, and therefore these Christians (who are thought to number several hundred thousand) have no official place to worship. As a result, many now meet in their homes, in what have became known as house-churches. Judge Afshari even admitted in his verdict that Anooshavan’s house-church had only been created because of the forced closure in 2013 of the Central Assemblies of God Church in Tehran. But even though the house-churches set up in the wake of such closures are no different in practice from any other Christian worship meetings around the world, they have been outlawed by the authorities, which referred to them in an official response to the UN last year as “enemy groups” of a “Zionist cult”.Thousands of house-church members across the country have been arrested in recent years, and hundreds sentenced to years in prison on charges of “acting against national security” – only as a result of their religious faith and activities, in spite of the repeated claims of Iranian regime officials that no-one is detained in Iran on account of their beliefs.
Malihe Nazari, Joseph Shahbazian and Mina Khajavi 24 June 2022 Case Studies (Last updated: April 2025) Case referenced by Article18, International Institute for Religious Freedom, Christian Today, Info Chrétienne, HRANA, Church in Chains, International Liberty Association, Asia News, Mohabat News, Middle East Concern, Barnabas Fund Summary Iranian-Armenian Christian Joseph Shahbazian and Christian converts Mina Khajavi and Malihe Nazari were sentenced to a combined total of 22 years in prison solely for practising their Christian faith, including through attending and organising house-churches. Case in full Joseph, Mina and Malihe were among at least 35 Christians arrested or interrogated by intelligence agents belonging to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in a coordinated operation over two days and across three cities in the summer of 2020. The arrests took place on the evening of 30 June and the morning of 1 July in Tehran, its sister city Karaj, and Malayer, 400km southwest of Tehran. Dozens more Christians were ordered to provide their contact details and told they would soon be summoned for questioning. The first arrests took place at around 8pm on the evening of 30 June, in western Tehran’s Yaftabad district. Ten intelligence agents – eight men and two women – raided the home of a recent Christian convert, where around 30 Christians had gathered. The agents, who were armed and wore masks, were reportedly polite as they filmed the raid and separated men from women, but later turned the cameras off and treated the Christians harshly. All those present were taken down to the building’s car park, where a van with blacked-out windows awaited, as well as several cars. All cars belonging to local residents seemed to have been moved to make space for the agents’ cars and for the garage to become a quasi interrogation room. The agents then proceeded to read out a list of names written on an arrest warrant. The six present whose names were read out – including Joseph and Mina – were handcuffed, blindfolded and taken away, and prevented from contacting their families to tell them where they had been taken. The others whose names were not read out – many of them recent converts – had their mobile phones confiscated and were ordered to fill out forms providing information of another method by which they could be reached, and told not to follow-up on the confiscation of their phones for at least 72 hours. They were also ordered to write down that none of their property had been confiscated, even after the confiscation of their mobile phones and despite their protestations. The agents then drove the six arrested Christians, as well as some of those whose names were not on the list, to their homes in Tehran and Karaj to carry out searches of their properties, looking especially for Bibles, other Christian literature and communications devices. According to the reports of witnesses, some of the Christians were beaten, as well as some of their non-Christian family members. The agents later went to the homes of the three Christian converts whose names were read out but had not been present, and arrested them. Meanwhile, on the same evening, Malihe was arrested at her home in the Sadeghiyeh district of Tehran. During the raid, Malihe’s house was searched and several of her personal belongings were confiscated, including her computer, mobile phone and a number of books. The agents then took her away, and told her family she would be taken to Evin Prison. When they went to visit her at the prison the next day, they found Malihe’s name on the list of detainees, but weren’t able to see her, although the following day she was able to briefly call home to say that she was OK. Also on the evening on 30 June, three Christian converts were called in the city of Malayer and told to report to the Revolutionary Guard intelligence office the next day for questioning. The three Christians were arrested the next morning, before they had the chance to turn themselves in. They were then detained, but released the next day after posting bail of 30 million tomans (around $1,500) each. It was reported that the concurrent raids were coordinated with the help of an informant, who had infiltrated the group within the past few months and gained their trust. This individual was reported to have accompanied the intelligence agents in their raid on the Tehran house-church, and to have even stood next to the judge as he later read out his bail demands. Following the arrests, Revolutionary Guard intelligence agents summoned many contacts of the Christians for questioning, including some who had not been in contact with them for years. On 15 July 2020, Article18 reported that at least 10 of the Christians had been charged with “acting against national security by promoting Zionist Christianity”. By this stage, eight had been released on bail, four remain detained, one had been released without charge, and another four had been released pending a decision on their case. Families of the detained Christians had been anxiously asking for an update about them, but despite some family members going to Evin Prison and the local courts on a daily basis to find out about the whereabouts and wellbeing of their loved ones, they were not even afforded the usual opportunity to have short telephone calls with them. On 20 July 2020, Mina was released on bail after 20 days’ detention. Mina had been blindfolded throughout her detention, so that she didn’t know where she was being held. When she was finally released, she was put in a car and dropped off on an unknown Tehran street, without either phone or money, so that she had to borrow a phone from a passerby to contact her family and ask them to find her and bring her home. On 23 July 2020, Article18 reported that Joseph’s family had been told they must deposit 3 billion tomans (around $150,000) for his bail – twice the previous highest amount demanded to secure the release of a Christian prisoner of conscience. Joseph’s family were initially told the figure was ten times lower – 300 million tomans – and that, unusually, they must pay in cash. Not possessing such an amount, they asked whether they could instead submit a property deed as a guarantee, as is common practice, but this request was denied. Then, having managed to cobble together the originally stated amount, they deposited it at the court, only to be called later and told the required amount was actually ten times higher. The family later returned to the court with two property deeds – one for the Shahbazian family home and the other belonging to Joseph’s elderly mother, who lives in the apartment below them. However, the total value of both properties, combined with the 300 million tomans they deposited in cash, was still some way short of the required bail. Malihe’s bail was also set at 3 billion tomans after she was transferred to the notorious Qarchak women’s prison, where there were fears for her health as a result of a Covid-19 outbreak in the prison. On 18 August 2020, Joseph’s wife and son were finally able to visit him for the first time, seven weeks into his detention. It remained unclear where he was being held, as he was driven, blindfolded, to the courthouse where they met and had been blindfolded every time he had been let out of his cell. On 22 August 2020, Joseph was finally released on bail after nearly two months in detention, after his family submitted property deeds to cover a reduced bail amount of 2 billion tomans (around $100,000), as they were not able to raise the initially demanded 3 billion tomans. Malihe was released two weeks later, on 5 September, also on reduced bail. A year later, on 16 October 2021, Joseph, Mina and Malihe, and two other Christians, were summoned to give their final defence before a Tehran prosecutor. According to their lawyer, Iman Soleimani, the charges read out to them at the prosecutor’s office included: “promoting ‘Zionist’ Christianity”, “weakening faith in Muslim clerics”, “membership in opposition groups” to “disrupt national security”, “weakening the foundation of the family”, and “attracting Muslims to house-churches”. They denied all the charges. Mina told the prosecutor the interrogators had thrown away her actual testimony and said to her: “You must write what we want you to write!” Her lawyer said the accusations against all the Christians were based only on the allegations of the Revolutionary Guard intelligence agents, and not on any evidence. Mr Soleimani added that Mina was asked by the prosecutor about the history of Protestantism and how it is connected with Zionism, to which she responded that she had no knowledge about such things. She was also accused of converting her husband and child to Christianity. She responded that she had not forced anybody to convert, but that her family members had decided to convert after seeing the profound change her new faith had made to her life. Mina was then told that another member of her house-church had brought charges against her. In December 2021, Mr Soleimani complained that the property of his clients remained confiscated more than a year after their arrest, despite the law stipulating they should be returned at the “earliest possible opportunity”. Mr Soleimani said that he went to the court again on 18 December 2021 to once more request the return of the items, but was not even permitted to enter the building and was told the judge was “too busy”. The lawyer added that the judge had previously sent two letters asking Ministry of Intelligence officials to return the belongings, but that these had had no effect. Mr Soleimani said some of the confiscated items did not even belong to the Christians but to their family members. On 29 May 2022, Joseph, Mina, Malihe and four other Christians were tried at Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, on charges of “acting against national security by promoting Zionist Christianity” through either leadership or membership of a house-church. During the four-hour hearing the defendants and their lawyers were threatened, intimidated and ridiculed by the judge, Iman Afshari, and pressured to recant their faith as an incentive for a reduction in their sentences. Judge Afshari also attempted to persuade the other defendants to blame Joseph for their conversions, with the promise of lighter sentences should they comply. When they refused, the judge threatened to increase their sentences. Judge Afshari also used harsh and sarcastic language against the Christians to humiliate them and denigrate their beliefs, and when their lawyer objected, the judge replied that he was “only joking”. The judge not only failed to act impartially, but even spoke in defence of the charges and failed to ask the prosecutor’s representative even one question about the legality of the case against the defendants and their activities, despite the repeated objections of the Christians’ lawyer to this effect. On 6 June 2022, Joseph was sentenced to 10 years in prison and Mina and Malihe to six years each. Joseph was also sentenced to a two-year term in exile in a remote province in the southeast of Iran following his incarceration, and a two-year ban on travelling abroad or membership of any social or political group. Joseph must also report to the offices of Iran’s intelligence service for two years after his release on an unspecified “seasonal basis”. The four other Christian converts in the case – Salar Eshraghi Moghadam, Farhad Khazaee, Somayeh (Sonya) Sadegh and her mother Masoumeh Ghasemi – were sentenced to between one and four years’ imprisonment for membership of house-churches, but permitted to pay fines (equivalent to between $800-$1,250 each) instead of going to prison. However, there was no such clemency for Joseph, nor for Mina or Malihe, who could not attend the court hearing on 29 May because she was visiting her son, who has leukaemia, in hospital. Judge Afshari, who is fast building a reputation for harsh sentences against Christians, was particularly scathing towards Joseph in his verdict, stating: “The papers of this case file indicate that this person, who considers himself an Armenian [an ethnic group recognised as Christian in Iran] and has travelled abroad several times and attended a gathering in Turkey, having established a group to attract Muslims, and under the cover of religious programmes for prayer, has propagated Evangelical Christianity, and with illegal activities and unfounded claims has abused people’s inner weaknesses and attracted some of them to the membership of his group.” The judgment even acknowledged the Christians’ charitable activities “to both Christians and non-Christians” – such as handing out food parcels during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic – but this did not save them. Their appeals were rejected on 17 August 2022. Judges Abasali Hozavan and Khosrow Khalili Mehdiyarji of the 36th Branch of the Appeal Court of Tehran said the defence had failed to meet the necessary criteria for the appeal to be considered. But their lawyer, Mr Soleimani, told Article18 the judgment had been reached “without an actual hearing, and with a complete disregard of the extensive and well-reasoned defence offered”. The court proceedings showed a “disregard of absolute legal and juridical principles, such as the principles of equal opportunity [to dispute accusations], legality of crimes and punishments, and right to a defence”, he said, adding that the copy of the verdict he had received came without any letterhead. Article18’s advocacy director, Mansour Borji, explained: “This is a common practice in cases of prisoners of conscience, where the Islamic Republic does not want to officially own the unlawful decisions they have taken, for fear of social and political backlash.” The judgment also made a passing reference to “the extent of the activities” of the accused, without giving any explanation. “Neither in the court, nor now in the appeal, has there ever been any mention of what ‘extensive’ activities they’re talking about,” said Mr Borji, “so it’s a claim without any substantiation.” He added: “It fits the pattern of complete disregard to the law, and clearly shows that they’ve not engaged even in the slightest way with the extensive legal reasoning the defence lawyer has provided. “None of this has even been considered in the verdict, nor responded to. This clearly displays Iran’s sense of impunity, as the international community continues to stand by and watch Iran’s blatant disregard of human rights.” On 30 August 2022, Joseph began serving his 10-year sentence, having the day before been given 24 hours to hand himself in to the authorities at Tehran’s Evin Prison. Malihe also began serving her sentence in August 2022, while Mina also received the summons but after presenting herself at the prison was told she could return home until she had recovered from a badly broken ankle. Masoumeh and Sonya were also summoned to pay their fines within 24 hours. On 25 February 2023, the 9th branch of Iran’s Supreme Court ruled that Joseph should be granted a retrial. Two months later, on 24 April 2023, Malihe was released from prison, reportedly after another Supreme Court decision to free her owing to her son’s ill health. Then, on 24 May 2023, the 21st Branch of Tehran’s Court of Appeal reduced Joseph’s sentence to two years. The court did not find “enough evidence to determine the maximum punishment specified in Article 498 of the Islamic Penal Code”, which relates to the organisation of groups that “threaten national security”. The two-year sentence of exile was also thrown out. Joseph then applied for furlough, or to be released to serve the remainder of his sentence at home with an electronic tag. Then on 13 September 2023, the pastor was summoned to the Evin Prison office and informed that he had been “pardoned”. He was then given an hour to collect his things, and then finally released from Evin Prison and able to return home to be with his family, including a nine-month-old granddaughter – Joseph’s first grandchild – born during his imprisonment. Joseph suffered ill health during his 13 months in prison, but for several months was denied a medical appointment, and even afterwards was not told of his diagnosis. He later discovered, by chance, that he was suspected to be suffering from a serious illness, though it was not clear whether his “pardoning” related to this fact. Joseph was eligible for conditional release, having served more than one-third of his reduced sentence, but did not apply for it, because a conditional release would in effect be pledging not to engage in the activities for which he was first arrested – namely, organising and hosting house-church meetings with Christian converts. It is also worth noting that on the day of Joseph’s release, another Iranian-Armenian pastor, Anooshavan Avedian, was visited by two plainclothes officers from the Ministry of Intelligence and told he must begin his own 10-year prison sentence. Finally, on 3 January 2024, Mina was summoned to begin her own sentence until 3 January 2024, when she was told she must submit herself to Evin Prison within five days. Mina continues to walk with a limp today and has developed arthritis, but she submitted herself to the authorities at Evin on 8 January 2024 to begin her sentence. In April 2024, it was reported that Mina was struggling with pain and unable to access the medical care she required inside Tehran’s Evin Prison. Article18’s Mansour Borji said he was “appalled” that Mina had been forced to serve her sentence, given that she was palpably not in a fit state to go to prison. He called for her “immediate and unconditional acquittal”, and for “Iran to end the harassment of the Christian community and to respect the November 2021 Supreme Court ruling that ‘the promotion of Christianity and formation of a house-church is not criminalised in law’ and should not be deemed a threat to national security”. On 6 February 2025, Joseph and fellow Christian former prisoner of conscience Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh were re-arrested at their homes in the Tehran region, and taken back to Evin Prison. On 17 March 2025, Nasser suffered a stroke in his solitary-confinement cell, having been on hunger strike since his re-arrest in protest against the continued persecution of Christians in Iran. Nasser was rushed to the nearby Bani-Hashem Hospital, where he was treated and provided with a range of exercises to help him seek to regain movement in the left-hand side of his body. Two days later, he was returned to the general ward of Evin Prison, where he and Joseph remain detained at the time of writing, without any official charge. Recommendations Article18 requests that the international community and Christians worldwide: Call for Mina’s conviction to be immediately overturned and for her to be released unconditionally. Call for the swift application of due process in the cases of all who are detained and/or awaiting charges, trials, sentences or appeal hearings on account of their Christian faith and activities in Iran. Encourage Western countries to prioritise human rights in negotiations with Iran, especially freedom of religion or belief, and urge the government of Iran to recognise all minority-faith adherents, including converts to Christianity, as full citizens before the law, enjoying their full human rights. Call the international community to hold the Iranian government accountable for failing to uphold its international and constitutional commitments to protect the freedom of Christians in its territories. Closing churches, appropriating church property, arresting church leaders and threatening churchgoers are violations of freedom of religion or belief, as prescribed in Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a signatory, without reservation, and therefore legally bound to uphold. Meanwhile, Article 13 of Iran’s Constitution states that Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians are recognised religious minorities, who are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies. And Article 23 says “investigation of individuals’ beliefs is forbidden, and no-one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief”.
Iran again claims ‘no-one prosecuted for merely holding an opinion’ 22 June 2022 News Embed from Getty Images Iran has once again denied imprisoning anyone because of their beliefs, in a strongly-worded response to the UN Secretary-General’s latest annual report on the the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic. “No one is prosecuted in Iran for merely holding an opinion or belonging to a particular class or group,” said a statement released yesterday by Iran’s High Council for Human Rights. The statement also claimed that the UN report, released last week, was “politically motivated, biased and unfair”. The report called on Iran to “release immediately all persons detained arbitrarily for legitimately exercising their freedoms of opinion and expression, association and peaceful assembly”, “guarantee the right to freedom of opinion and expression”, and “protect the rights of all persons belonging to ethnic and religious minorities, and address all forms of discrimination against them without delay”. However, there was no specific reference to the main victims of religious-freedom violations, other than a passing reference to the confiscation of properties belonging to members of the Baha’i faith. There was not a single mention of the plight of Christians, Jews, Gonabadi dervishes, Yarsanis, Sunni Muslims, nor any other religious-minority group. Last year, Article18 joined seven other Christian organisations in sending joint letters to the Secretary-General and Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, calling on them to “include specific reference to the main victims of FoRB [freedom of religion or belief] violations” in each of their reports. The letters acknowledged that both figures have a broader focus on human rights and religious freedom in general, and also that the Special Rapporteur focused specifically on the persecution Christian converts in a previous report; however, the letters asked for consistency in naming the main victims of FoRB violations in every report. They further noted how neither the Secretary-General’s report last year, nor the Special Rapporteur’s January 2021 report, contained a single reference to Iran’s persecution of Christians, though both called more broadly for Iran to “end discrimination” against religious minorities.
Christian prisoner of conscience awaiting results of MRI scan 22 June 2022 News There are renewed concerns over the health of a 60-year-old Christian convert, who has spent the past four and a half years in Tehran’s Evin Prison because of his membership of a house-church. Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence on trumped-up charges of “acting against national security”, was last week admitted to a nearby hospital for treatment on hearing loss in his left ear, which has also affected his mobility and led to several falls. Nasser is now awaiting the outcome of an MRI scan, with results expected this week. Nasser remains deeply frustrated at the continued refusal of Evin’s chief prosecutor to grant him either conditional release, a reduction in his sentence, or a retrial, despite repeated pleas during his imprisonment. Last year, his elderly mother recorded an impassioned video message, calling on the authorities to reunite her with her son and primary carer, but it appears her appeal fell on dear ears. And this is not the first health scare during Nasser’s time in prison, Nasser also having fallen seriously in amidst a Covid-19 outbreak within his ward, and earlier being warned his teeth may fall out as a result of advanced gum disease.
Seven Iranian Christians sentenced to total of 32 years in prison 7 June 2022 News Malihe Nazari (left), Joseph Shahbazian and Mina Khajavi face a combined 22 years in prison. An Iranian-Armenian pastor has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and two Christian women converts to six years for their leadership roles within house-churches. The Iranian-Armenian, Joseph Shahbazian, also faces a two-year term in exile in a remote province in the southeast of Iran following his incarceration, and a two-year ban on travelling abroad or membership of any social or political group. Joseph must also report to the offices of Iran’s intelligence service for two years after his release on an unspecified “seasonal basis”. The four other Christian converts in the case – Salar Eshraghi Moghadam, Farhad Khazaee, Somayeh (Sonya) Sadegh and her mother Masoumeh Ghasemi – were sentenced to between one and four years’ imprisonment for membership of house-churches, but permitted to pay fines (equivalent to between $800-$1,250 each) instead of going to prison. However, there was no such clemency for Joseph, who is 58 years old, nor for the two other converts, Mina Khajavi, who is 59, and Malihe Nazari, 49, who could not attend the court hearing on 29 May because she was visiting her son, who has leukaemia, in hospital. Judge Iman Afshari, head of the 26th Branch of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, who is fast building a reputation for harsh sentences against Christians, was particularly scathing towards Joseph in his verdict yesterday, stating: “The papers of this case file indicate that this person, who considers himself an Armenian [an ethnic group recognised as Christian in Iran] and has travelled abroad several times and attended a gathering in Turkey, having established a group to attract Muslims, and under the cover of religious programmes for prayer, has propagated Evangelical Christianity, and with illegal activities and unfounded claims has abused people’s inner weaknesses and attracted some of them to the membership of his group.” A growing reputation Judge Afshari also recently handed down a 10-year sentence to another Iranian-Armenian Christian, Anooshavan Avedian, while he was also responsible for jailing another Christian woman convert, Fariba Dalir, who is now serving a two-year sentence. Iran is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which enshrines religious freedom, including the freedom to change and to propagate one’s faith. However, as exemplified in Judge Afshari’s latest verdict, the propagation of Evangelical Christianity is often construed as “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic, and therefore an “action against national security”. Indeed, Joseph, Mina and Malihe now face prison for this very reason: that, according to the judgment, by organising and establishing house-churches they acted with “the intention of disturbing national security”. At the same time, the judgment even acknowledged the Christians’ charitable activities “to both Christians and non-Christians” – such as handing out food parcels during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic – but this did not save them. Pressured to point the finger The court hearing on 29 May lasted more than four hours, and Article18 understands the defendants were pressured by Judge Afshari to blame Joseph for their conversions, with the promise of lighter sentences should they comply. When they refused, the judge reportedly threatened to increase their sentences. Article18 also understands that Judge Afshari used harsh and sarcastic language against the Christians to humiliate them and denigrate their beliefs, and that when their lawyer objected, the judge replied that he was “only joking”. Another Article18 source reported that the judge not only failed to act impartially, but even spoke in defence of the charges and failed to ask the prosecutor’s representative even one question about the legality of the case against the defendants and their activities, despite the repeated objections of the Christians’ lawyer to this effect.
‘If we could go back in time, we’d walk the same path’ 6 June 2022 Features When the Shekoohi family converted to Christianity, it was a decision for which every member would pay a heavy price. For the father, Esmail, it meant more than three years in prison. It also meant nine months in prison for the mother, Fariba, while their son, Nima, had to endure 38 days in solitary confinement at the age of 17, and, like his mother, was later handed a suspended prison sentence. For the daughter, Helma, who was just 12 years old when intelligence agents raided the house-church service taking place in their home, the impact was mostly felt at school, and also in having to live with other relatives and friends for the months when both her parents were in prison. For the first year of Esmail’s imprisonment, Helma wasn’t able to visit him even once. She says it even took “three or four months” to be able to see her mother for the first time, while for the first month of their detention she had not even been able to speak to them over the phone. Esmail was in his late 40s when he converted to Christianity in 2006, having battled against a drug addiction for the three decades prior. Fariba, who came from a religious Muslim family, converted nine months later, having seen the dramatic change in her husband, despite initially threatening to divorce him for his decision to follow Christ. But even after uniting over their faith decision, life was far from easy for the newly converted couple and their children, even before their arrest. There was pressure from family members regarding their decision to turn their backs on Islam; there was derision for Helma at school; and even in practical terms, the life of a Christian convert in Iran was far from straightforward. It took three months after his conversion for Esmail to even get his hands on a Bible, and several more months to find a place in which he could worship with other Christians. Esmail explains that there was just one church in their city, Shiraz – the same church in which another convert, Arastoo Sayyah, had been murdered just a week after the Islamic revolution of 1979 – but that this church was heavily surveilled and banned from accepting new members. “In such an atmosphere, it becomes difficult to even pray in that place,” Esmail says. “That’s why we never went to that church, because there was a heavy security atmosphere.” He adds: “The desire for worship comes from a basic need to express a belief that you have, whether Islamic, Baha’i, or Christian. But the reality in Iran is that most of the churches have been closed down, or we [converts] are forbidden from attending their meetings. So you can’t talk about your faith; you can’t have fellowship with other Christian believers; and you can’t be educated [about your faith] and as a result grow in the faith your heart has accepted.” Ultimately, the converts found they had just one place in which they could worship with other Christians: in their homes, where Esmail says that “at least our meetings were hidden from the eyes of government officials”. But, as they would soon discover, even this choice was not without consequences. Just two years after Esmail’s conversion, in May 2008, he and Fariba were arrested for the first time as they attempted to board a plane for Dubai, where they were to attend a Christian conference. On that occasion Fariba was released later that day and Esmail two weeks later, but only after being forced to sign a pledge to have no further contact with other Christians. The threat, should he fail to comply, was made clear: lifetime imprisonment, or even execution. So when, two years later, the couple were arrested again, it was clear from the outset that the cost would be greater, even if the agents’ gravest threats weren’t realised. Of the family of four, only Helma wasn’t arrested that night in February 2012. But the tearful 12-year-old girl was forced to watch as her father, mother and brother were taken away, then placed in separate solitary cells for more than a month. Fariba explains how she hadn’t even been aware that their 17-year-old son had also been arrested until one day she heard his voice in the interrogation room to which all three had been brought. “The fact that my son, who was a minor at the time and was in the middle of his exams, had also been arrested and sent to prison was in itself a kind of torture for me,” Esmail says. Nima’s parents were then told that if their son didn’t “cooperate”, he would be flogged, and beaten in front of their eyes. Fariba recalls that the interrogator also said: “Of course, we have also been very kind to him by beating him many times.” “Suddenly, Nima started to cry and said: ‘Mum, they beat me a lot; they beat me every day!’” she adds. But even after the months or, in Esmail’s case, years in prison were finally over, the challenges continued for the Shekoohis. Esmail says that one of the hardest things for him was regularly seeing his daughter returning home from school in tears, because of the comments made by teachers or other pupils about her Christian faith. Meanwhile, their home was attacked by members of the Basij, a paramilitary group of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who smashed the windows and tossed rubbish and lit cigarette lighters into their yard. But perhaps hardest of all, Esmail says, was that the family now really had no place at all in which to worship. “When I was released from prison, it wasn’t possible to hold church meetings in our home anymore, because we were under surveillance,” he says. “And not having a church or group worship was very difficult for me, and we felt that we couldn’t continue without a church.” Esmail explains how he once went to a church, but was told its doors were shut to all but members. “I stood there for about two hours, but nobody opened the door,” he says. Nima had also been forced to abandon his studies, and in the end it all became too much for the Shekoohis, and in late 2015 they took the hard decision to flee their homeland, and seek asylum elsewhere. After five years in Turkey, the Shekoohis are now based in Canada, but Esmail and Fariba fear the trauma their children were forced to endure has left lasting scars. And while Esmail expresses gratitude for the support he and his family received during his time in prison, he says he did wonder at one point what had happened to the wider Church body. When his wife became sick during his imprisonment and couldn’t afford her treatment, Esmail says that he cried out: “God, I’m in prison for believing in you, and I’m willing to do anything for my faith, and even accept the death penalty. But why doesn’t someone help my family? Where is the Church?” But he adds: “While it’s true that the Church didn’t do its duty and didn’t support us at that time, the main point I’d like to make is that I had always done what was right and what my faith had told me, that this faith is worth the suffering we endured, and if we could go back in time, we’d walk the same path.” You can read the Shekoohi family’s full Witness Statement here.
House-church members still detained, families told upcoming appeal doomed 17 May 2022 News Left to right: Ahmad Sarparast, Morteza Mashoodkari, and Ayoob Poor-Rezazadeh. Three house-church members already facing five-year prison sentences remain in detention more than a week after they were re-arrested. Ayoob Poor-Rezazadeh and Ahmad Sarparast were arrested following raids by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence agents on their homes on 8 May. Morteza Mashoodkari, who was not present when his home was raided, was detained two days later after being ordered to hand himself in. The families of the three men are concerned for their safety and wellbeing, having heard nothing from them since they were detained. Furthermore, after demanding news from the 4th Branch of the Prosecutor’s Office in Rasht, the families were told their loved one’s appeals against their five-year sentences had been rejected, even though the official hearing has yet to take place. That hearing is scheduled to take place at Branch 18 of the Appeal Court of Gilan Province on Monday (23 May). Ayoob, Ahmad and Morteza, all members of the “Church of Iran” in the northern city of Rasht, were sentenced last month under the amended Article 500 of the penal code to five years in prison for “engaging in propaganda and education of deviant beliefs contrary to the holy Sharia” and “connections with foreign leaders”. At least nine house-church members have now been sentenced under Article 500 since its controversial amendment last year. Three are already serving three-year prison sentences – reduced from five years – and three more were sentenced last month, including an Iranian-Armenian Christian, Anooshavan Avedian, who was given a 10-year sentence. Article18 calls on the international community to ask Iran to explain how its use of Article 500 to prosecute house-church members is in line with its obligations as a signatory of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which enshrines religious freedom, including freedom to choose and to change one’s beliefs.
‘Europe should seek new relationship with Iran grounded in human rights’ 13 May 2022 News ‘Challenging Minority Discrimination in Iran’ was the title of a conference held at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday. The two-hour discussion was hosted by Italian MEP Fabio Massimo Castaldo, and jointly organised by Minority Rights Group International, The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), and the Centre for Supporters of Human Rights. The discussion focused on the human rights situation in Iran, the structure of the government’s religious ideology, the situation of ethnic minorities, and violations of their rights. Some references were also made to religious minorities, including Baha’is, Dervishes, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Jews. The Italian representative to the European Parliament, who was the first speaker, noted that human rights activists in Iran are risking their lives by speaking out. He added: “Europe should seek to forge a new relationship with Iran that is grounded in human rights. Overall, by promoting human rights and security we can also achieve goals that benefit us all.” The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, and Raha Bahreini from Amnesty International were among the other speakers. Mr Rehman pointed out that the Islamic political ideology of the Iranian government, which is neither accountable for its actions nor respects the rights of individuals, has created a discriminatory situation against minorities in Iran. He referred to his reports, which have explicitly addressed the situation of minorities in Iran, including Christian converts, and human rights violations against them. Ms Bahreini also highlighted a recent Amnesty International report documenting the deaths in custody of 96 prisoners as a result of deliberate deprivation of medical care. Ms Bahreini noted that many of the victims were members of ethnic minorities. Discrimination and repression against Balochi and Kurdish minorities was highlighted by two other speakers. During a question-and-answer session, Article18’s representative, Fred Petrossian, challenged the suggestion of one of the speakers that Christians have the right to worship, whereas Sunnis, even though they share the same Muslim faith as the regime, do not. Mr Petrossian highlighted the “Place2Worship” campaign, launched by a group of persecuted and imprisoned Christian converts in Iran, which has shown that this is not the case for Persian-speaking Christians, who are sent to prison for peacefully gathering to pray and worship. “Although Europe’s efforts to raise the issue of religious minorities with the Iranian authorities are highly appreciated, why do European countries refuse to grant asylum to members of religious minorities such as Christian converts?” Mr Petrossian asked, highlighting the regular protests of a group of Christian converts in Stockholm who among other things have complained that their asylum claims have not been dealt with fairly. Javid Rehman replied that his mission was related to the policies and practices of the Islamic Republic, and not those of other countries.
‘If I no longer encourage people to use drugs, is this against Islam and Iran?’ 11 May 2022 Features Nima Rezaei, born in the year of the Iranian Revolution, was just one month old when his father died. The impact of this event on him and his mother was so profound that, as a teenager, it led him to stray onto the wrong path, culminating in a 13-year battle against drug addiction. By his late twenties, Nima was not only an addict but a dealer. But everything changed one day in 2006, when after finally overcoming his addiction with the help of Narcotics Anonymous, Nima became a Christian. According to his friends, even Nima’s face changed. For the first time in his adult life, Nima says he was “able to talk with people without embarrassment, having become a useful member of society, working, and taking responsibility for my life”. But Nima was soon to discover that not everyone perceived the transformation in his life as a positive. Just a year after joining a house-church, Nima had his first encounter with agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence Service (MOIS). After concurrent raids on the homes of his father-in-law and his wife’s two uncles, Nima and the other members of his house-church were summoned to appear at the MOIS building in Nowshahr, north Iran, the following day. Taken into separate rooms, the Christians were interrogated about their faith and religious activities. When Nima told his interrogator that his conversion had changed his life for the better, his interrogator told him he was a “toy and accomplice of Israel”, intent on “destroying Islam by using Christianity”. Nima replied: “I don’t know anything about Israel… You know very well why I’m here now; you know from my past that I was an addict and a drug-dealer. But today God has healed me and changed the course of my life. What harm can I do to this country, or Islam, that you are cursing me like this? If I no longer steal, will that be an attack against Islam? If I no longer encourage people to become addicted to drugs but instead spend time with them to help them rid themselves of the disease of addiction and turn from this way, is this against Islam and this country?” Nima added that his life-changing experience had meant that rather than being a threat, he was now “actually beneficial to society”. But his interrogator was not persuaded, threatening Nima with execution and adding: “You are infidels who are against this regime and our country!” Nima was eventually released after being forced to sign a pledge to have no further involvement in Christian activities. Ten days later, Nima received another call from the MOIS, this time summoning him to attend a “re-education” session with an Islamic cleric. “We talked with this theologian for a few hours,” Nima explains, “and it felt like the whole aim was to try to coax answers forms that would cause us further trouble if we were arrested. They filmed the whole meeting, so our conversations could be used as additional evidence on top of the pledge they had already made us sign, and so they could file a more serious case against us.” Initially, out of fear, the Christians stopped meeting together, but Nima says that “after a while, we began to consider alternatives, because as Christians we needed to go to church and be taught and grow [in our faith], but we no longer had a teacher, neither were we allowed to gather”. In the end, the Christians decided to start attending an official Evangelical church in Tehran – an eight-hour round-trip from their homes by the Caspian Sea. And even when the authorities began to demand that such churches submit the personal details of all their members, Nima and his friends were not dissuaded. They even wondered whether this might help them in the future. “If we were arrested, we could [then] prove we hadn’t done anything secretly but had only attended official services as members of the church,” they concluded. “If we didn’t [register], we knew the agents of the MOIS wouldn’t accept whatever excuse we may give them.” But just a few months after submitting a copy of his national ID card, Nima received another call from the MOIS. And this time, instead of being interrogator for a few hours and then released, Nima was held in solitary confinement for 28 days. For the first week, Nima says he was left entirely on his own in his 3×4 metre cell. “I had no idea about the passage of time, or even whether it was day or night,” Nima says. “The prison guard would pass me meals under the door, but never said a word. I wasn’t taken for questioning for the first week or so, and it felt like the interrogators had forgotten about me. There were no sounds at all, and no-one approached me or talked to me.” Nima became so lonely, the silence so deafening, that he says he began to talk with the ant in his cell. Meanwhile, he was racked with worry, and not even permitted to call his wife and young daughter to tell them he was alive. Finally, after 17 days, he was given “three to four minutes” to call home. By this point, his interrogations had begun. In his 28 days’ detention, Nima estimates that he was interrogated between 10 to 12 times, during which time he was pressured to “cooperate” by informing on other Christians, and threats were made against him, his wife and his daughter. Finally, Nima was brought before a judge, who told him he was facing charges of “acting against national security and the holy regime of the Islamic Republic by promoting Christianity”. “You were guided [in the session with the Islamic cleric],” the judge told him, “but still you didn’t become human again!” In August 2012, Nima was sentenced to six months in prison, and, in order to secure the release of the property deed submitted by a friend for his bail, Nima decided to serve the sentence, which included a period of forced labour and further run-ins with Islamic clerics. After his release, Nima says that he and his friends thought they would be left alone, but the pressure continued. “Whatever I did, and wherever I went, the spies of the MOIS chased me,” he says. In December 2015, Nima was summoned again – this time by an agent of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who told him: “We have evidence that you have resumed anti-regime activities. We have even heard that you spoke against the regime and are poisoning others against the regime!” Nima protested: “I don’t accept this at all! As a Christian, I should have the right to pray, worship and go to church, just as a Muslim goes to the mosque. This is our right as Christians. We don’t want much!” Nima was told that his words would be used against him in the court hearing that would follow, and after being ordered to appear in court when summoned, he returned home and assessed his options. Friends had been attempting to persuade Nima to flee the country since his first arrest, but he had always resisted. But this time, Nima decided he had no choice but to leave his homeland. “I didn’t know what was going to become of me,” he explains. “Exile? Long imprisonment? Execution?” So Nima fled, with his wife and daughter, and claimed asylum with the UNHCR in Turkey. But even there Nima says that he has been tracked down by agents of the MOIS, forcing him to change address four times. He adds: “It is painful for us to hear news of the identification and arrest of the Christians we knew and served in Iran. Some of them have been arrested several times, and in each of these arrests and interrogations our names and the role we played in their faith or spiritual growth are mentioned.” You can read Nima’s full Witness Statement here.
Nima Rezaei 10 May 2022 Witness Statements For a summary of Nima’s story, you can read our feature article here. Background 1. My name is Nima Rezaei and I was born in 1979 in the city of Sari, in Mazandaran province [northern Iran]. When I was 40 days old, my father died in an accident. Since my mother was born in Chalus [100 miles west of Sari], we moved to Chalus after my father died, and I grew up there. I left my secondary-school education unfinished and went into military service. My family wasn’t religious, and I didn’t believe in anything. 2. As a teenager, my mother shared with us the many hardships she had endured in the absence of my father to raise her children. The absence of my father and hearing the story of my mother’s hardships also had a devastating effect on me. This was the reason I started using drugs. At first I used them as a kind of hobby, but then I became so addicted that I needed to take them every day. During my military service, I was sent to prison for about three months for drug use, and I also had to do nine months’ extra military service. After completing my military service, my addiction worsened and I started using heroin. My addiction also caused me to be unemployed. My sleeping and waking hours were the opposite of the general public, and I just wandered around like a corpse. My drug use continued in this way for 13 years, until 2005. 3. During these years I had made many attempts to quit. Many times I had tried to stay away from drugs – either at home, or by going into the forest or to other cities. But every time, after a little while, I would go back to using drugs and I had given up hope that one day I might be able to rid myself of my addiction, which had left me isolated and depressed. 4. However, after 13 years of drug use, a friend of mine suggested I join Narcotics Anonymous to help me quit. He said: “This association will help you to stay clean and free from addiction, and your life will change.” So I went to a rehab camp and was freed from my addiction. I didn’t use any drugs for around two or three months, but nevertheless I remained spiritually poor and hungry. It was around this time that another friend of mine gave me a Bible. I started reading it, but I didn’t understand it. My friend had just become a Christian, so I asked him: “Is there anyone who can explain the contents of this book to me?” My friend said that he knew someone who could, and promised to arrange a meeting with them so I could talk to them about Christianity and have my questions about the Bible answered. About three to four days later, my friend arranged the meeting, and we went to this person’s house together. This individual talked to me about Christianity, and on that very day, in 2006, I knelt down and became a Christian. And from that day on, I started attending the house-church. 5. We had house-church meetings together once or twice a week. My family and friends were amazed by how much I had changed. I hadn’t even wanted to leave the house for three or four years; I had been so isolated. But now my face had even changed and I was able to talk with people without embarrassment. I had become a useful member of society, working, and taking responsibility for my life. Close friends asked me: “How did your life change so much? We think of you so differently now. Your face has even changed!” These questions led me to share my story of becoming a Christian with them, and some of them also became Christians. Many of my family members also became Christians and attended house-church meetings. Meetings were held at one of the member’s homes each week, and I also became friends with the other members and we did things together during the week. I met my wife at these house-church meetings, and we married in 2007. 6. After a little while, a member of our house-church asked an Evangelical church in Tehran to send someone to Mazandaran to teach us more about Christianity and answer our questions. The church agreed, and so a Christian couple came to Mazandaran once every two to three weeks and stayed with us for a few days, teaching us. After a while we realised that our knowledge of Christianity and the Bible had grown, and began to talk to more friends and other people about Christianity, and many became Christians, and the number of our members increased. First incident 7. But during this time, a spy from the Ministry of Intelligence Service (MOIS) had entered our house-church, and finally, one day in 2007, intelligence agents raided the homes of my wife’s father and his two brothers in three concurrent raids. They searched their homes, confiscated mobile phones, books, pamphlets, family photos, and anything related to Christianity. The MOIS then called all of us [church members] and said: “Come to the MOIS building in Nowshahr [near Chalus] tomorrow morning,” and told us where it was. Interrogation in the building of the Ministry of Intelligence 8. So the next day we went to the MOIS building in Nowshahr. We were taken to separate rooms, and each one of us had our own interrogator. They had a lot of information about us, because of the spy from the MOIS who had infiltrated our church. It was also obvious from their questions that they had been monitoring our telephone conversations. 9. The interrogator asked me: “Are you a Christian?” I am an honest and straightforward person, so I replied: “Yes. You know everything about me. I was an addict and God healed me. The gospel changed my life, so now I’m a follower of Jesus Christ.” The interrogator handed me a piece of paper and said: “Write down your testimony and life story from your childhood until now.” I had nothing to hide, so I wrote down everything about my story of becoming a Christian. 10. After two hours, the interrogator said: “You didn’t write down everything! We have a lot of plans for what we’re going to do with you!” Then he said: “Israel wants to destroy Islam by using Christianity, and you’re a toy and accomplice of Israel, and are advancing their goals!” I replied: “Sir! I was an addict who was healed; I don’t know anything about Israel, or the United States or Britain! My life story is only what I have written down for you. You know very well why I’m here now; you know from my past that I was an addict and a drug-dealer. But today God has healed me and changed the course of my life. What harm can I do to this country, or Islam, that you are cursing me like this? If I no longer steal, will that be an attack against Islam? If I no longer encourage people to become addicted to drugs but instead spend time with them to help them rid themselves of the disease of addiction and turn from this way, is this against Islam and this country?” 11. The interrogator threatened me with a loud voice, shouting at me: “We have beaten, murdered and executed many people! They were also against Islam and were waging a cold war against us! Turning away from Islam is apostasy; you are infidels who are against this regime and our country!” I replied: “The law does not say so! According to human rights principles, everyone is free to choose their own path and beliefs, and follow their own way. We respect the law, and everyone, regardless of their creed or race, should be respected as a human being. Anyway, not only are we no threat to society today, in fact we are actually beneficial to society!” In response, the interrogator got up and shouted loudly at me. I also got up and tore up all the sheets I had written over the past two or three hours, threw them in the bin and said: “Sir, I refuse to continue with this interrogation any longer, because you speak as if you’re not only the interrogator but also the judge! You’ve already proclaiming our death sentence, and constantly threatening me that ‘I’ll execute you’, so there’s no need for any interrogation if you’ve already issued the sentence!” 12. As I was saying this I started to cry. I was upset that I lived in a country where I could be so coerced and my citizenship rights so disrespected; that they could so easily accuse me and condemn me with just one stroke of a pen. I felt that God wanted me to stand up to them, with authority. 13. As mine and the interrogator’s voices both rose, and an argument broke out between us, several other officers entered the room, took the interrogator out, and brought me a glass of water. Then one of them said: “Your interrogator is the head of the Mazandaran intelligence service. You are fighting against the regime, and against an agent of the regime!” 14. Another person entered the room and introduced himself as the head of the intelligence service in Nowshahr, and said: “Sign this form if you want to get out of here; otherwise you won’t be allowed to leave, and with all the noise you’ve made it isn’t clear what may become of you.” They wouldn’t let me say anything more. As soon as I started to open my mouth to speak, they would interrupt me. So eventually I was forced to sign this long pledge, written by the head of the Nowshahr intelligence service, and then I was released, at around noon. When I came out, I discovered that the other Christians who had also come to that place for interrogation had left a few hours before me, and only my interrogation had lasted so long. Religious re-education sessions 15. About 10 days later, we received calls from a private number, and it was the MOIS telling us to go to another address at a specific time on such and such a date. So on that date, we went to the address we had been given, and entered a room in which there was a large table. Then an individual was ushered in, who introduced himself as an expert of Islamic theology who also taught at the university. There were about 10 to 15 of us Christians there in total, including some I didn’t know, and we all sat around the table. Someone was filming us, and there were biscuits and water on the table. It was as if they wanted to pretend in front of the camera that they were treating us with respect. The theologian spoke to us for about two hours. He spoke about God, Earth, Heaven, Islamic law, and so on. When he finished explaining things about Islam, he said: “If you have any questions, I am at your service.” He thought that our problem was that we didn’t know enough about Islam, and that’s why we had become Christians, and he wanted to convince us to return to Islam. “A good tree is known by its fruit [Luke 6:44],” I replied. “If the path we were on was a bad one, the fruit of our lives today would be rotten. But the course of our lives has in fact changed for the better [since becoming Christians], and now we are of no harm to anyone. Where once we were miserable, now we are happy!” I even quoted a few verses from the Quran, and also talked about citizenship rights. 16. We talked with this theologian for a few hours, and it felt like the whole aim was to try to coax answers from us that would cause us further trouble if we were arrested. They filmed the whole meeting, so our conversations could be used as additional evidence on top of the pledge they had already made us sign, and so they could file a more serious case against us. But, of course, they told us they had arranged this meeting only so we could be “guided” back onto the right path. This “guidance” session lasted several hours. 17. We were threatened by the MOIS: “You have no right to hold house-church meetings, or even to travel with each other!” They even said: “You don’t even have the right to go to your parents’ house, or to the home of your wife’s uncle! If you even go anywhere together [with other Christians], we’ll file new charges against you! This time we just got a ‘commitment’ from you, and held this guidance meeting. Next time we catch you doing these things, Islamic mercy will no longer apply to you, and you will never again enjoy the taste of freedom! The verdict will simply be issued, and you will be convicted of being apostates who have left the religion of Islam!” Attending the Evangelical Church in Tehran 18. When the teachers who came from Tehran found out about our arrest and summons, they informed the pastor of the church, and the pastor advised them: “Stop the meetings for a while so the agents’ attention won’t be on them anymore, and then see how things go [before deciding whether to start the meetings again].” So the teachers no longer came to our city to teach us. But after a while we began to consider alternatives, because as Christians we needed to go to church and to be taught and to grow [in our faith], but we no longer had a teacher, neither were we allowed to gather. So after a while, we started to communicate cautiously and secretly with some of the other Christians in our house-church, but many of them were scared and wouldn’t even call us. 19. Finally, we decided to attend the official meetings of an Evangelical Church in Tehran. With one other family, we started to travel in two cars to the church every other week. We shared the cost of the trip between us, to ease the financial burden for each of us, so we might be able to attend the church services without worrying about other things. At first I got a ride with one of the members of the other family who had a car, but after learning the route I began to take my own car or the car of my wife’s uncle. 20. We spoke with the pastor there, and he was happy for us to attend the meetings. He even praised us, saying: “Some Christians live just two streets away from the church and come just once a month, and only because they would be embarrassed to be absent for so long, but you are so eager to attend the meetings!” The pastor also said that in addition to the weekly worship services, he was willing to take responsibility for teaching us about Christianity. We were very happy about this, and being able to learn more about the Bible and also to pass on what we learnt to other Christians in Chalus. We would leave our house in Chalus at about 4 o’clock in the morning on the Friday, and arrive at the church at around 8am. Because the church had about 1,000 members, we wouldn’t be able to find a parking slot if we arrived later. The pastor would then meet with us privately to teach us from 9am until around 10.30, when the church service would begin and go on until around midday. After the meeting, the other church members would socialise and talk with each other, but we had to leave quickly because the road from Karaj to Chalus only opened in one direction at a time, so we needed to get to the Chalus Road between 1-1.30pm. 21. In addition to us, other Christians from Chalus and Nowshahr also came to the services of the Evangelical Church in Tehran, but we didn’t go there all together in one group due to security issues. But everyone knew what time the private teaching started, and arrived there separately. Then in 2010, my wife’s father moved to Tehran, so our travels to and from the church became easier. 22. In those days, until 2011, the pressure on us seemed to have decreased, because we rarely met all together, and when we travelled we tried to do so wisely, considering security concerns. For example, when I went to the house of other Christians in Chalus to teach them about Christianity, I wouldn’t take my mobile phone with me, so our conversations couldn’t be overheard, or my travel routes monitored. Arrest and house search 23. But one day in 2011, the pastor of the AoG church said the government had sent churches letters, explaining that in order to be officially recognised all church members must provide the church with a copy of their national ID card. The pastor told us: “This is your personal decision; we won’t force anyone, but anyone who wants to can submit a copy of their national card.” We consulted with the other family, and decided together that the best option would be to provide copies of our national ID cards and therefore be recognised as official members of the church. Then, if we were arrested, we could prove we hadn’t done anything secretly but had only attended official services as members of the church; if we didn’t, we knew the agents of the MOIS wouldn’t accept whatever excuse we may give them. I handed over a copy of my national ID card about two weeks later. 24. Then, in early March 2012, a person from the MOIS called me on a private number and asked me where I was. I explained that I had taken my car to a mechanic to be repaired. He asked for the mechanic’s address, and less than 10 minutes later a Samand car pulled up outside. My car was inside and my friend was replacing some parts when a man wearing a woolly hat got out of the Samand car and said: “Mr. Nima Rezaei?” I said: “Yes.” He said: “I’ll wait for you in the car.” So I gave my car documents to my friend, and said: “Please keep hold of these, and if I can’t come myself, one of my family members will come and pick up the car and documents tomorrow.” My friend wanted to know what was going on, but I just told him: “We’ll talk later.” Then I got into the Samand car. The agent didn’t show me any warrant. He just drove us away, then after a while pulled over by the side of the road. Then he made a call, and after 10 minutes, at around 7 or 8pm, another car carrying four agents arrived and took me with them to my house. 25. I didn’t have a key with me, and my wife had gone to her mother’s house, so they took me there to get the key from her, and I used the opportunity to explain to my wife what had happened. Then the agents took me back to our house. When we arrived, the agents searched the house, and confiscated a number of Christian pamphlets, a Bible, a satellite receiver, a photo of the Last Supper, and things like that. I protested: “I bought this Christian photo from a shop in town! So it isn’t a crime for someone to sell it, but when this photo is in my house, it is a crime?” “Yes!” he said. “It’s a crime for you! For you, who has Zionist thoughts; for you criminals, it is a crime!” They put me in the car again, and one of them took a blindfold from the boot, blindfolded me, and told me to lower my head. Then they started the car and took me to a place I later found out was the building of the MOIS. 26. They kept me blindfolded in one room for about an hour, and after being transferred to a second room, I had to wait there for another half an hour. Finally, someone came into the room and told me to take off my blindfold. “I am the judge in your case,” he told me as I lifted my blindfold. I asked, in surprise: “The judge in my case? What case?” He said: “You are here on charges of ‘acting against national security and the holy regime of the Islamic Republic by promoting Christianity’.” He interrogated me for several hours; he brought out a few sheets of paper and told me to write down everything about my life from my childhood until today – every stage of life from my education to my military service, etc. – and also where and with whom I had gathered in the house-church, and what other Christians I knew from there. Then, once I’d done all this, finally he signed a form of some kind, and put it into the thick file that he was holding. I don’t know what reports could have been collected against me to make up such a large file! Half an hour later, an agent came, took my blindfold, and after shouting at me and insulting me a lot, said to me: “You were guided [in the session with the Islamic scholar], but still you didn’t become human again. Let’s go!” Then I was taken by car to Sari, which is the provincial capital. Interrogation and solitary confinement in the detention centre of the MOIS in Sari 27. When we arrived in Sari, they blindfolded me again and took me to the MOIS detention centre. The person in charge of the detention centre took off all of my clothes and searched me. I was then transferred to solitary confinement. My cell was about 3×4 metres, and there was a toilet in it. In the days that followed, I had no idea about the passage of time, or even whether it was day or night. The prison guard would pass me meals under the door, but never said a word. 28. I wasn’t taken for questioning for the first week or so, and it felt like the interrogators had forgotten about me. There were no sounds at all, and no-one approached me or talked to me. There was an ant in my cell, and I grabbed it and talked to it. I also prayed and worshipped God during these days, but the silence in the cell really bothered me. I thought to myself: what is going to happen, and where will this journey end? Where are my wife and daughter at this moment? What are they doing, and how are they feeling? The pressures were great, and only through prayer and worship could I overcome them, strengthen my faith, and endure this time. 29. After about a week, the interrogations began. The interrogator told me: “We were watching you, and we know where you went and what you did. For example, one day you went to this place to repair the gearbox of your car. And last month you went hunting on this mountain.” Then, after boasting about these general bits of information, he told me: “You should tell us the names of the Christians you know in different parts of Mazandaran, and cooperate with us in this way.” I replied: “Ask any questions you have about me and my life, and I’ll answer. But I won’t go poking my nose into other people’s lives, which have nothing to do with me. And anyway I don’t know anyone.” The interrogator said: “You mean to tell me you didn’t get to know a single person in the church?” I said: “We called everyone ‘brother’ and ‘sister’; we had no idea about people’s names or surnames.” 30. The interrogator threatened me a lot, saying: “The Ministry of Intelligence Service has the power to do many things. Basically the judge signs whatever we have written, so if you don’t cooperate with us, we’ll deprive you of your opportunity to live life, and take away any chance you have of happiness.” But despite all the pressure and threats, I tried not to give them any information about other Christians. The interrogator kept saying that they had witnesses against me. I replied: “If you have a witness, bring him so that I can see him as well.” 31. Then, during one of the interrogations, I noticed that someone was sitting behind me. The agent who had arrested me was also there. At one point, the interrogator smiled at the person sitting behind me and said: “This is Rezaei? The same Rezaei? He is very different today!” And then he continued the interrogation again. But of course the question on my mind was who was sitting behind me and what the interrogator had meant. Finally, half an hour later, this person was brought to sit in front of me and I saw his face, and it was the same interrogator who after my arrest in 2007 had threatened me a lot that I would be executed, and in whose presence I had torn up those interrogation sheets and asked him why he was interrogating me if he going to execute me anyway. My interrogator said: “Look how humble we have made him now! Look how calm he is; how he just sits calmly here.” I replied: “You didn’t make my life calm. Rather, when my life was a storm, Jesus Christ entered my life and calmed it. This peace is the work of God’s grace. God has brought this peace into my life.” 32. realised from the interrogator’s precise information about my relationship with some members of the Evangelical Church in Tehran that they must have several spies there who reported everything that happened in the church to the MOIS. I know that one of them was a family member of Mohsen Rezaei Mir Ghaed, the former head of the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps] and at church he had become very close to my father-in-law. So though he attended the church services and prayed with us, at the same time he was reporting our most detailed conversations to the MOIS. 33. I had cold, hard nights in detention. They used the fact that I couldn’t communicate with my family against me by saying things like: “Did you know your uncle is dead?” Or: “How would you cope if you never saw your wife and daughter again? If you insist on continuing on your current path, bad things will happen to you, and your wife and daughter. How far are you willing to go? What is your decision?” 34. After 17 days, during which my family hadn’t had any information about my whereabouts, or even which state agency had arrested me, finally they allowed me to call home. But they only allowed me to talk to my family for about 3-4 minutes. 35. I was held in solitary confinement for 28 days in total, and during this time I was taken for interrogation about 10 to 12 times. Bail and temporary release 36. After those 28 days, I was again blindfolded and taken back to the MOIS office. Someone entered the room and ordered for my blindfold to be removed. Then, after one of the officers took off the blindfold, I saw that the person who had given the order was the same judge who had dealt with me before. “You have to provide a document,” he told me. “Here is a phone; you can use it.” I asked, in surprise: “What document? For what?” He said: “You have to submit a document as bail so that you can be released temporarily until the court hearing and issuance of the verdict. Tomorrow is Nowruz, and then it is the holidays, so if no-one can submit a document by tomorrow, you’ll have to wait until after the holidays to be released.” So I called home and asked for someone to bring a document to Branch 4 of the Nowshahr General Court, as directed. With a lot of effort, my family was able to bail me out at the last minute. One of my cousin’s friends had pledged his father’s property deed for me, and so I was released temporarily. I don’t remember the exact amount that was required for my bail now, but I think it was around 50 to 100 million tomans [$25,000-$50,000]. Court hearing and sentencing 37. In the spring or summer of 2012, a summons came for me and about five other Christians to appear in the Revolutionary Court of Shahsavar [in Tonekabon, 50km west of Chalus] a few weeks later. When we arrived, the judge called us all into the courtroom, where, in addition to the judge, there was also a secretary. The judge read through the document containing the charges against us, and said: “You have acted against national security and the holy regime, so your crime is both political and religious! You are against the regime; do you have anything to say in your defence?” We didn’t have a lawyer, so we defended ourselves. I objected to the unfairness and irrationality of the accusations, and to the lack of clear legal justification. The judge’s response was aggressive. When I emphasised that I had rights, like freedom of expression, he said: “If you talk too much, I’ll kick you out of here! You must repent, each of you in turn, and write and sign letters of repentance, so that I can give you a lesser sentence in the verdict that is going to be issued! Otherwise, I’ll do everything I can against you! This is an Islamic country, so from where did you get these ideas? You don’t pay attention to Islamic teachings and books! You are working with those on the other side of the world, with Zionists, to destroy the regime!” 38. Finally, the judge gave us 24 to 48 hours to write these letters of repentance and requests for forgiveness. “You should write that ‘We want to return to Islam’, and ‘Please consider Islamic mercy for us,’” he said. “Write this, and sign it; otherwise something else might happen to you.” We left the room and consulted with each other, and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t possible to talk logically with these people and do what they said, because everything was in their hands. 39. On 26 August 2012, a court verdict was issued and we were notified of it. My friends and I were sentenced to six months in prison for “propaganda activities against the Islamic Republic through Protestant Christianity”. 40. It seemed pointless to hire a lawyer because the case against us had been brought by the Ministry of Intelligence, but we appealed anyway, by getting someone outside the court to write a short appeal for us. But in the autumn of 2013 we were notified that the Court of Appeal had upheld the verdict. The head of the court, Seyyed Mohammad Miri, and his deputy, Baqer Babaei, had stressed in their written decision that “in order to protect the ‘internal front’ of the Islamic state and to prevent its disintegration and the influence of foreigners, it is appropriate to impose such a punishment”. 41. I felt that I had a duty to ensure the release of my cousin’s friend’s property deed. He had done me a favour by pledging his father’s property deed as bail, so I told my father-in-law: “I am going to serve the six months in prison so the property deed will be released. I am willing to pay the price for my faith in Jesus Christ.” Then, in January 2013, I submitted myself to the authorities at Nowshahr Prison to begin my sentence, and my cousin’s friend’s document was released. Imprisonment for being a Christian 42. I spent six months in Nowshahr prison, which was located on a road just behind the MOIS building where I had been interrogated. There were no wards in Nowshahr prison, but several large warehouses. I was in the big warehouse, No. 2. Half of it was filled with prisoners’ beds, and the other half was a space where religious ceremonies and meetings were held. We were the only ones there who had been imprisoned for our Christian faith; the other prisoners were there because of crimes such as theft, drug trafficking, inability to pay a dowry, cheques bouncing back, financial crimes, fraud, etc. 43. The day my four friends and I entered the prison, one of the guards asked what crime we had committed. An officer replied: “Never mind about their crime!” Then one day, the head of the prison called us and said: “It’s written that your crime is Christianity. Is Christianity a crime?” I replied: “Yes, apparently. That’s why we’re here.” He asked us where we were from, and when we answered that we were from Chalus, he turned to me, the youngest of the group, and asked: “Which area of Chalus are you from?” I replied: “I’m from Olvi Kola,” which was an area where many criminals and drug traffickers lived. “Are there Christians there too?” he asked in surprise. “Does even one good person come from there?” His father was a mullah, so he came from the nicest part of Chalus and was surprised to hear that a Christian could come from an area like Olvi Kola, which is full of thieves and smugglers. So I told him the story of how I had become a Christian and the subsequent changes in my life, and he was very impressed. 44. Two days after entering the prison, we were in the yard, taking some fresh air, when one of the prisoners said to us: “Come inside, we have a meeting.” So we entered the hall, and found a mullah sitting on a chair and the prisoners sitting around him, listening to him speak. The mullah asked me: “Have you just got here?” I replied: “Yes, I just arrived.” After talking a little about the Qur’an, he said to me: “Sir, as you have just arrived, come and perform tayammum [an Islamic purification ritual] here.” One of the prisoners was standing next to him, holding a notebook; everyone who did what the mullah wanted him to do would have a star-sticker added next to their name in this notebook, and accumulating these stickers gave the prisoners privileges like being able to go on leave, or enjoying some other privileges or rewards. By doing this, the officers wanted to make the prisoners interested in Islamic religious ceremonies. I replied to the mullah: “Forgive me, I have talked to the head of the prison to explain that I cannot engage in religious ceremonies.” The mullah, who seemed unhappy with my response, just shook his head and said: “OK!” 45. Although the other prisoners didn’t know our “crime”, they had become close to us and talked with us and wanted to be our friends. We had been told that we had no right to tell the other prisoners about our “crime”, but one day the head of the prison revealed it as he was making a speech, saying: “These Christian prisoners were brought here and added to those that need to be fed!” So after that day we were able to talk about Christianity with many prisoners. We empathised with them, gave them solutions to their problems, encouraged them, and prayed for them, and God used us during that time to help the other prisoners. There were about 100 prisoners in total. Forced labour 46. One day, about one to two months after our “crime” became known, we Christian prisoners were told by an officer: “Pack your bags and whatever you have.” We asked why, and the officer replied: “The head of the prison has ordered us to take you somewhere else.” So we packed our things, wondering what they might have planned for us, and one of the officers took us in a car out of the prison to a piece of land, where we were put to work. One section of the land, which belonged to the prison, was a fenced-in field, where beans, aubergines, tomatoes, watermelons, and summer vegetables were planted. Another section had a large pond, where fish were raised; and in another section chickens, ducks and sheep were kept. That particular field had to be ploughed and irrigated, and the fish, chickens, ducks and sheep had to be fed and cared for. In addition, we had to take responsibility for cooking for ourselves. 47. There was also a half-finished building that we were told we had to finish. They gave us spades, pickaxes and wheelbarrows, and told us where to dig and what to do. They knew we were Christians, and prisoners of conscience. We were forced to work, and to work hard. We think the MOIS must have been informed that the other prisoners had become close to us and that we were talking to them freely about Christianity, so they implemented this plan for us and took us away from Warehouse No. 2 to this other place, and forced us to work very hard. In addition to us Christian prisoners, there were also about five other prisoners there, one of whom was a murderer and the others drug dealers or thieves. We would eat our breakfast there, then work like ordinary labourers. Then we would have our lunch and continue working, and then have dinner [before going to bed]. 48. I was released from prison in June 2014, at the end of my six-month sentence. Freedom felt good, with a special sense of joy having been in captivity. I was happy that I had been punished because of my faith and not because of something like stealing, a bounced-back cheque or my addiction. I was thankful that I had been in prison for the sake of God, and that God had given me the strength to endure it. And, of course, my family, my daughter and my mother were especially glad to see me. After release 49. We thought that after our release, the situation would return to normal and we would no longer be under the control of the MOIS. But unfortunately we found out the MOIS continued to closely monitor us. Whatever I did, and wherever I went, the spies of the MOIS chased me. From time to time, they called me using a private number and warned me that they were watching me. I tried not to use my mobile phone, and to limit my travels. I wasn’t in a good financial situation, so I borrowed a friend’s car to work as a taxi driver. I also stopped my Christian activities for a while. 50. But one day, at Nowruz 2015, I bumped into some of the other house-church members, and despite the persecution and threats, they were eager to begin our fellowship and teaching sessions again. However, they insisted that I continue to participate in the meetings secretly, for security reasons. That’s why we decided to continue our church services in secret. Several of the members had just converted to Christianity and came to attend the meetings from the nearby villages; some came from Chalus; and some lived in Nowshahr. I tried to visit all of them, travelling by taxi, and we made it a rule that no-one brought their mobile phones with them to the meetings. Interrogation by the IRGC 51. It was in late November or early December 2015 when a person from the IRGC called me and said: “Come to the Basij Centre on 17 Shahrivar Street in Chalus at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning.” I asked the reason for this summons, and he replied: “You have to come to provide an explanation and answer a few questions.” 52. So I went to this address at 9 o’clock the next day, and when I entered and explained about my summons, I was led into a room. Then a few minutes later I was directed into another room. A young man entered, and asked: “Are you Nima Rezaei, who was previously imprisoned for ‘propaganda against the regime’?” I confirmed my identity and added: “I served my prison sentence and was released.” He said: “And now are you carrying out activities against the regime again?” I protested: “Why do you ask that? I am a Christian. A Christian reads the Bible, prays, worships. Do you consider these things as activities against the regime?” He said: “We have evidence that you have resumed anti-regime activities and are carrying out political and religious activities. We have even heard that you spoke against the regime and are poisoning others against the regime.” I asked him to show me if he had any evidence for this accusation. 53, At that moment, another young man entered the room and asked: “Is this Nima?” As soon as the first interrogator confirmed this, he hit me. I raised my hand and took his, and then he shouted at me loudly and two other people entered the room and took him out. 54. The first young interrogator, who was still in the room, continued his speech, and said: “You are living here, enjoying the hospitality of the Islamic Republic, and yet you are revolting against our country? You are poisoning the public’s opinions against the regime! We have arrested a number of people, and they are going to testify against you! Clearly you didn’t learn during the six months you were in prison!” I protested: “Why should we be educated? I didn’t do anything wrong to have to be corrected. I am a Christian, and you condemned me for ‘acting against the security of the regime’ for being a Christian. I also served my imprisonment and came out again.” 55. The interrogator insisted: “Your thoughts are poisonous and political, and you are betraying the country!” My reaction was: “I don’t accept this at all! As a Christian, I should have the right to pray, worship and go to church, just as a Muslim goes to the mosque. This is our right as Christians. We don’t want much!” 56. To silence me, he warned: “You are criticising the government and inciting the people against the government! I have noted down what you have said, and I’ll use it in court!” I said to him: “Do whatever you want, but I’m telling you right now that I won’t accept any law that violates human rights.” He said: “Your thoughts are poisonous, and a court should decide what is going to happen with you, and make you understand how you are going to be dealt with! 57. Finally he told me: “Pick up the phone, and call someone to bring your bail.” I said: “Sir, I don’t have anything. One of my cousin’s friends kindly submitted the previous document for me, but now I’m here I’m not going anywhere. I don’t have any document, so do whatever you want with me. You don’t accept my words, nor do you speak to me justly or in accordance with the law. Your law is Islamic, which doesn’t give me, a Christian, the right to object. You don’t even allow me to hire a lawyer. As a citizen, I have the right to contest the charges against me.” 58. He put a piece of paper in front of me and said: “On this sheet is written all your details and our conversations. You have to sign this sheet and tell someone to bring you a document, and then go to court.” So eventually I had to sign that form, but I said: “I have neither any document, nor any [business] licence. I don’t have anyone to bail me out, so I’ll stay here until you decide what to do with me.” They kept me in that room until evening. Then, at about 6 o’clock, someone else entered the room. I guess he was a senior position there because everyone behaved deferentially towards him, and after whispering something to the young interrogator, he said to me: “We can give you a credit note. Sign this, and we’ll pledge the amount on your behalf.” Then they brought the credit note, and asked me to sign it and add my fingerprint, then said: “Whenever you are called, you are obliged to appear in court.” Then I was released. Involuntary migration 59. When I was released, I told my wife what had happened and said that I didn’t know what evidence they had against me and who had been forced to come and testify against me. “I think they want to make a fake case against me and confront me with new false accusations,” I said. I didn’t know what was going to become of me this time. Exile? Long imprisonment? Execution? 60. After our release we had applied for and received our passports. Now some Christians, who had been forced to decide to emigrate from the country and were aware of my situation, called me and said: “Nima, get up and leave!” These friends had also told me to leave the country after my first arrest, but because a friend’s document had been pledged for my bail, I had felt obliged to go to prison to get the document released. 61. But this time, in December 2015, I left Iran with my wife and daughters and travelled to Turkey, and at the first opportunity we introduced ourselves as asylum-seekers to the UNHCR. 62. We have continued our Christian ministry in Turkey by having church meetings and also meeting in our homes. This period has also brought us opportunities, challenges, and threats. We found out that a person who was known in Iran as a spy of the MOIS, and who was the cause of the leak of information about our church meetings, had come to our small town in Turkey under a strange pretext, and had asked our friends about us, so we had to change our address. In fact we have had to move about four times since we arrived in Turkey due to similar threats. 63. In addition, it is painful for us to hear news of the identification and arrest of the Christians we knew and served in Iran. Some of them have been arrested several times, and in each of these arrests and interrogations our names and the role we played in their faith or spiritual growth are mentioned.