All posts by Steve Dew-Jones.

For a summary of Leila and Peyman’s story, you can read our feature article here.

Conversion

Leila

1. My name is Leila Fooladi Helabad and I was born in 1976 in Isfahan. In around 2001, I was studying maths in Tehran while my family lived in Isfahan, and I felt very low during this time. I lived with my mother’s uncle and his wife, who were hajis [they had been to Mecca]; they were very committed Muslims. They believed that before sitting at the table to have a meal, you should have done your prayers in the mosque first. I wasn’t that committed; I used to pray regularly for only maybe a couple of months during the year, and that was during the special months of Ramadan and Muharram. But because my mother’s uncle and his wife told me that if someone didn’t pray then the blessing will be gone from that home, I was forced to pray while at their home. And the Quranic verse came to my mind: “We are from God and we return to God”, and I started to compare this verse to my relationship with my parents, and how I came from my mother and father, and how I am in communication with them – I hear from them, they hear from me – and I thought: “So how come God can hear me speaking to him, but I can’t hear him?” These thoughts led me to being convinced that there was a barrier between me and God.

2. At the same time as studying, I was working. My sister suggested that I take a course in hairdressing to change my mood and the direction of my thoughts. The hairdressing course near my uncle’s house was full, but I eventually found one that had space in a predominantly Armenian neighbourhood, where my uncle used to live. When I went to apply, the Armenian lady there told me: “I suggest you don’t take this course because most of the students here are Armenian.” I said: “Well, I really don’t care; I just want to do the course.”

3. After two months of doing this course, one day it was my turn to clean up after the class, and all of a sudden I fainted. When I next opened my eyes, I found that I was in my teacher’s arms, and she asked what had happened to me and whether she could pray for me. I agreed and thought that maybe she would pray later for me, but she immediately brought out a Bible and started praying for me. I felt a great sense of peace, as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over me and I felt very free and liberated, as if I had just been born. However, I didn’t associate it with Christianity or anything, but just the prayer that had helped me to feel that way.

4. Two weeks passed and she asked me: “How are you doing?” I answered: “Really well; I’m doing really well!” Then, on the last day of the course she called me into her room and gave me a New Testament and said: “I’ll lend this to you, and inside it you’ll find the answer to your questions.” Then she gave me the address of a church and said: “The gospel is preached in Persian in this church; they hold services at the weekend.” After my course ended, I left my uncle’s home and went back to Isfahan to see my family.

5. One day my mother found the New Testament in my bag. She is from a very religious family – my uncle is responsible for taking people to Mecca on tours, and my mother herself was very, very religious back then; you could only see her eyes through her chador [long Islamic dress]. She told me that she and my father had given me permission to go to a different city in order to study, and not to busy myself with this “other rubbish”. She said that she wouldn’t ever forgive me if I had stepped into a church to get “that book” [the Bible]. I told her I was only looking after the book for somebody else, but she said: “You’re no longer allowed to go to university. You can sit your exams, but you’re not allowed to go there and take classes.”

6. I was about to finish university anyway – it was my last term – and despite what my mother had said I thought I should take a gift for my course teacher, just to thank her. When I met her, she asked me: “Did you find the answer to your questions?” I said: “No, but I’ve only read about 30 pages.” She then said three sentences, and those three sentences were enough to bring me to repentance. She said: “We have all sinned, and our sins are a barrier between us and God. He sent his son to remove that barrier. And now we can be forgiven through it.” Those three sentences were enough for me to say: “I really want this; this is what I’ve been looking for.” I sensed the same presence that I felt when she was praying for me, and cried and asked her what I needed to do.

7. She prayed for me, and during the prayer she of course mentioned that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and died on the Cross, but although I was from a very religious [Muslim] background, I never felt that I had any disagreement or questions about these statements. On the contrary, I even felt that this was something I could believe in. Things seemed so crystal clear for me that I had no doubt. So this time when I returned home, the issue wasn’t just that I had a Bible, but that I had converted!

Peyman

8. My name is Abbas Kiani, known as Peyman. I was born in 1975 in Khorramshahr. I think it was around November 2005 when I converted to Christianity. A couple of my friends told me about Christ, and they also gave me a New Testament. One of these friends was later arrested alongside my wife and me. I always considered myself a “seeker”, so I was impacted by what my friends told me about Christ, but I was initially unsure. But later, when I read the New Testament, I accepted that it was the Word of God, so reading the scriptures was the final decision-making point that led me to Christ.

9. At that time, I hadn’t told my family about my faith. My family, especially my mum, were thinking about who I might marry, and suggested one or two of my female relatives, but because I was a Christian I decided that I definitely wanted to marry a Christian girl. And a couple of years later, in a house-church group, I got to know Leila, and after I while I suggested we should get married. After that I told my mum that I had become a Christian and that I wanted to marry a Christian girl.

House-church activities

Leila

10. My prayer changed from being about me to: “Lord I want to see my family with you in eternity!” It took about seven months for my whole family, one after the other, to convert to Christianity. My mood and attitude had changed so much that my friends were really wondering what the cause was. Their interest led me to share more about how I had become a Christian, and everything that had happened to me, and in a short period of time 10 or 12 of my friends converted as well.

11. I was working in Tehran, so I started joining the house-church meetings there and became involved in ministry very shortly after my conversion. On Thursdays I would take a bus to Isfahan, arriving there on Friday morning, then spend a day with the house-church there, teach them what I had learned in Tehran, and go back to start the working week on Saturday. By then, my family had moved to Tehran. But every week I used to go back to Isfahan to have a meeting with the house-church group. This ministry continued to grow, and many converted to Christianity. People from other towns and cities near Isfahan also came to know about Christ, and small groups and house-churches began to develop.

Arrest

12. In February 2013 our daughter, Armita, was one year and one month old, and we had just given her a triple vaccination and were told that she may get signs of fever within a week or so. But she didn’t show any of those signs until three weeks passed. It was on the day when all the leaders of the different house-churches were due to meet that she started developing a fever. I was responsible for the house-churches in Isfahan and some other cities, so I had to attend. I gave my daughter some medication to control the fever, and my husband and I took our daughter with us to the meeting.

13. Between 15 to 20 minutes of our meeting had passed when suddenly the doorbell rang. It was unusual, because we weren’t expecting anyone. Ramin, who was the host, opened the door, and suddenly a group of intelligence-service officers raided the house. It was a Wednesday when we were arrested, but we found out that we had been under surveillance for two months. The agents had identified the key people, and knew about the different places we used to hold house-church meetings, but they didn’t arrest us until they realised that the top leaders of all these house-churches were coming together at a certain time, and that was when they raided the meeting.

Peyman

14. We arrived at around 7.30 in the evening. About 20 minutes later, we heard the knock on the door. Ramin looked through the keyhole and told us there were a couple of Basijis [part of the Revolutionary Guard Corps] standing outside. Our leader said: “OK, open the door.” And as soon as it was opened, these people stormed the house. Our leader asked them which institution they were from, and they said, in a very harsh tone and loud voice: “We are officers of the Ministry of Intelligence!” They were really harsh, rebuking us and telling us not to speak to one another. We were also told not to move, and to stay where we were; then they started filming and taking pictures.

15. As they were filming, they wanted us to introduce ourselves – every single person. After the filming session was done, they said: “Now the ladies can cover their heads.” They told us that everyone should write their names on all the papers that were on the table in front of us, and then they confiscated them, as well as all our other personal things, like our bank cards, mobile phones, ID cards, and everything we had. And they put labels on everything and wrote the name of the person each one belonged to, and took everything with them. I was in a total state of shock.

Leila

16. They had told us not to move or to touch anything, and not even to put our headscarves on. They started taking pictures and filming so that they could later claim that we had gathered inappropriately and without wearing headscarves. Their behaviour was very aggressive and violent. They treated us, especially the women, like a bunch of prostitutes. But the worst thing was the way they looked at us.

17. At the same time, Armita’s fever escalated and her neck became swollen. One of the officers pointed this out, and I was really worried about why, all of a sudden, this was happening to her. I said: “This is serious; we need to take this little girl to the hospital!” But they treated us really badly and said: “Shut up! You don’t need to do anything! We say what needs to happen here!” One of the officers accompanying them was a woman in a chador, and I told her: “If you have a child, you understand what I’m going through right now. I really don’t care what you are going to do to us, but my child needs medical care right now!”

18. As I was questioning their unfair treatment of us, they became a little more aggressive and raised their voices. One of their chief officers noticed that something was going on and said: “Bring her over here. I want to know what’s happening.” I was hoping that he would allow me to take my daughter to receive the medical care she needed, because that would also be my chance to raise the alarm for the other Christian believers in other cities. The chief officer played the “good cop” and allowed me to do that, and ordered the officer who had been very rude to take our family to the hospital. As we were going to the hospital, using phrases like “You are a traitor” he tried to intimidate us. But I tried to use this situation to speak to him about Christianity. We were worried about our daughter, but more than that we were worried that other members of the house-church might also be arrested.

19. When we arrived at the doctor’s, the intelligence-service officer asked us to leave the door open so that he could see what was happening inside. But I used the opportunity in a blind corner of the room to grab a pen and write on a piece of paper: “We are Christians; we’ve been arrested, and I need help.” As soon as the doctor read it, she thought that my husband was an officer and said: “This gentleman needs to step outside as well.” My husband left the room, and I wrote a phone number on a piece of paper, then asked the doctor to please call the number and inform the person on the other end that we had been arrested. I also explained that the call had to be made from a public payphone. I don’t want to name the person to whom the phone number belonged, because they are still in Iran. So the doctor examined our daughter, wrote a prescription, and we went to buy the medicine. Actually, I initially forgot to tell her to call from the public payphone, so when I got the medication, I said to the officer: “I need to go and show this to the doctor to make sure I’ve got the right medicine.” And inside the doctor’s room, I told her: “Can you please make sure you call from a public phone?”

20. After the medical examination, the intelligence officer didn’t take us back to where we were arrested. Together with three other agents, he took us home and told us that our property needed to be searched. We were asked: “Do you have CCTV?” When we said that we did, the officers put on balaclavas before entering. At our house we had stored several books and CDs and other resources for the different house-churches that we were serving. We also had a large picture of the Last Supper on the wall. I said to them that I had bought it when my husband and I were engaged, so it was something really special for me. I asked them whether they might consider not taking that picture, but they responded: “Madam, we need to take everything that we find that is associated with Christianity.”

21. While they were still searching the house, I made some tea, sat down, and drank the tea while feeding my daughter. I asked the officers whether they would like a cup of tea, and I think they were a bit surprised, because I had a very ill daughter, I’d been arrested, they were going through my property, and yet I was sitting there, having tea and offering them some. I don’t know what went through their minds, but one of them made a phone call and told me: “Madam, we don’t need to take that Last Supper picture.”

Peyman

22. We drove with our own car to our home, so an officer was sent to accompany us, while the other officers followed with another vehicle. They searched everywhere and confiscated our satellite receiver and all the Christian literature and Bibles that we had, as well as our personal notes, which altogether amounted to about seven or eight bags full. Our house was kind of the main place also used by other leaders to store books. They also confiscated our computers, ID cards, mobile phones, personal photographs, and everything else they could manage. Then they gave us an itemised list to sign, and said: “Tomorrow, at nine o’clock, you have to report to this office.” So that night we weren’t detained.

Leila

23. For years I was teaching people that when God allowed Peter or the other apostles to go to prison, it was God himself who allowed that to happen; it wasn’t because the authorities had the power over them, but God had allowed it to happen. So having this in mind gave me peace to accept the reality. I tried to memorise the faces of the officers that night, and even that same night I began to pray for them, challenging myself that Christ had died for them too.

24. As the officers were leaving the house, the same officer who had made the phone call and allowed us to keep the Last Supper picture said to my husband: “Please tell your wife to forgive us and pray for us.” Hearing that from a person in that kind of work, and in the midst of it all – being treated the way they treated us and so on – was another sign for me that God’s hand was at work. From 11pm until three in the morning, they searched our property and made a list of the things they were going to confiscate. Because of our daughter’s ill health, an officer said we didn’t need to come with them at that moment but had to report to the office of the intelligence service the following day. 

Intelligence service office

25. The office was more of a private house that had been turned into an office. However, there were no signs indicating that it was an office. The first thing that happened was that they put some paper in front of me and asked me to write down the names of everyone I knew who was involved in house-churches. I wrote my own name, and the names of my two sisters: Sara, who had also been arrested that night, and Atena. I didn’t even write the names of the others who were with us that night. The officer read the names I had written and banged his fist on the table, saying: “Are you mocking us? You’d better start cooperating! Write down every name that you know!” I responded that I would only write about myself and my family – nobody else.

26. It turned out that the rude officer from the day before was my interrogator. He tried to be harsh, but the more senior officer, again playing the good cop, said that what I had done was OK and that I was allowed to just write about myself. So I began to write my testimony, but they were expecting me to write about my ministry, not my testimony. In the first interrogation the officers said that they were aware of all our house-church activities and wanted me to call my sister Samira – who is known as Atena – who had been in a meeting in a different city that night, to also come to the office. My younger sister, Sara, had already been detained, and they said: “She [Atena] needs to be with you in this office on Saturday. If she doesn’t show up, we won’t release Sara.” It was a Thursday, and Friday was a day off, so that’s why we were told to return on Saturday. 

Peyman

27. We had also taken our daughter [to the office] and she wasn’t feeling well, so we had been separated and the officers started asking a few questions. Then they looked at our daughter and realised it was not really suitable for her to stay, so they said that we could return home and come back on Saturday. So on Saturday, Leila and I again went to the office of the intelligence service, this time with Atena, and they separated us. Our interrogator introduced himself as “Mr Ghassemi”.

28. The questions I was asked were: “When did you convert? Have you been baptised? Where do you live? Where did you get hold of these books?” As soon as he found out that I was working in a governmental institution, he became even more angry and said: “You take money from the government and now you’ve converted to Christianity!”

29. He also asked me: “Have you travelled abroad?” I answered that I had been to Turkey and the UAE – Dubai. He said: “Oh, so you are a spy of the Turkish and Emirates governments!” I just calmly said: “No, you can’t possibly accuse me of that.” Then we were taken to the court for a brief hearing. First Atena, and then me.

Leila

30. That Saturday I wasn’t allowed to enter the building, so I stayed outside. Atena and Peyman were questioned, then they were brought out, put in a car and driven away. I asked: “Where are you taking them?” The officers responded: “It’s none of your business!” It was really disconcerting not to know where they had been taken, or where the others were who had been arrested that night. I made my way home with my daughter and cried the whole way; I didn’t know what was going to happen to them or where I had to go to find out some information about them.

Indictment in court

Peyman

31. Two officers of the Ministry of Intelligence entered the courtroom with us. One stood behind me, and the other, Ghassemi, sat right next to the judge. The first question the judge asked me was: “Who evangelised to you?” I didn’t want to implicate my friends, so I said: “I listened to a Christian radio station, and that’s where I heard about it [Christianity].” Then he asked where I got the books from. I answered: “I used to go to this Assemblies of God church. They had a bookshop and I used to buy them from there.” He asked: “Do you have any defence?” I said that I didn’t. At the end, he said: “According to the law, you have the right to defend yourself, because you are a Christian. But if you were a Baha’i, you wouldn’t even have that chance!” Then he read out my charges [“propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran by establishing a group and recruiting people to membership of Evangelical Zionist Christianity, in collaboration with foreign elements; establishing house-churches and meetings and providing illegal books and CDs in order to recruit more members to oppose to the holy regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran; inappropriate relations; possession of satellite receivers”], and the judge issued a bail of 20 million tomans [around $5,000] and sent me off to the detention centre – the central detention centre of Isfahan, Dastgerd.

Leila

32. I called the number that I found for the Ministry of Intelligence, and said: “My husband and sister [Atena] have been arrested, and my other sister [Sara] has been taken away and detained. Atena really needs to take medication every day.” As soon as I said that they had been arrested, the person on the phone was unwilling to say anything about their whereabouts. After I explained that my sister really needed to take her medication, I was told that they were being held in Ward “A.T.”, in Dastgerd Prison. It was some sort of comfort to at least know where they were being held. So I decided to take the medication and go to the prison. 

33. When I arrived at the prison, I was told off and asked harshly why I had come and who had told me where my family members were being held. “You shouldn’t be aware of this sort of thing!” they said. I tried to explain that I had come for my sister, whom I was worried about. I had also packed a plastic bag for each of them, with clothing and a little money and the other items I thought they would need inside prison. But the officers told me that I wasn’t allowed to pass on any of the bags. “You can only offer one to your husband,” they said. “Your sisters aren’t being held here anyway. They’ve been taken somewhere else. None of these things can be given to them. The only thing that you can send to your sisters is a bank card with money on it.”

34. I had to wear a chador to be allowed in, and this made it more difficult to hold my daughter with one hand and the plastic bag with the other. I had to walk a really long way to reach the Alef-Ta [A.T.] ward. It was about a 15-minute walk and throughout the long walk I was thinking about my encounter with my husband – how good it would be to see him again. Also, my daughter had missed her father so much, and it would be an opportunity for them to meet at least briefly. Arriving at a door, I knocked on it and I asked what I was doing there. I answered that I had to give the bag I was holding to my husband. But I was told: “OK, give it to us. We’ll give it to him.” I responded: “No, I want to give it to him personally!” But the officers said: “No! You’re not able to see him.” I didn’t want to accept it, and asked: “So if that was the case, why didn’t they [the other officers] take the plastic bag from me at the door but made me come all the way here?” I was really disappointed and tried to put on a brave face, but as soon as I turned, I started crying, and continued crying all the way back, with a sense of deep disappointment.

35. Soon my attention turned to trying to find out about the bail amount that the others who had been arrested would later have to deposit to be released. I knew some of the detained believers and their families would be able to put together the money, but there were two others who I knew would struggle. One of them was a girl whose father had passed away, and her family didn’t have enough savings to pay for her bail. The other was a lady who was from a very religious family, who were against her Christian belief, and I knew that they wouldn’t pay her bail.

36. For days my regular routine was either to go to the prison to find out some information about the detainees or to go to the Revolutionary Court to follow up on their cases. I had been told that I should be really thankful that my daughter had been ill that day, otherwise I would have been arrested as well, because they said they knew I was responsible for a lot of the things we did. They told me: “You owe your freedom to your daughter!”

37. One of the detained women was one of the early disciples of the group, who had converted to Christianity because of my testimony, and I felt responsible for her. So when I was told that I should have been arrested, I said: “I don’t mind if you arrest me, as long as you release this other lady.” Now I am telling you what I said calmly, but back then I was really sobbing as I said it. I remember my father asking me: “Why did you say that?” And I answered: “Dad, my sisters have me, and you, and others to look after them, but that girl doesn’t have anyone, so it’s only fair that I would take her place. The same sort of feeling that you have for us, your children, I have for her. To me, she’s no different from my own daughter.”

Family

Peyman

38. To my family it seemed more significant that I was going to lose my job because of my conversion than what was happening to me at that moment. One of the first questions they asked me was: “What is going to happen to your job now? Are you going to lose it, or not?” On the way to prison, the officials found out who my family members were through my phone, and they contacted my older brother and told him they had arrested me. Apart from my mum, my family didn’t know about my conversion, so when they all of a sudden heard about me being a Christian, together with the news of my arrest, they considered my wife to be the source of all these issues and really treated her badly while I was in prison.

Leila

39. When Peyman’s brother was informed about the arrest, he was so mad, saying: “My brother had nothing to do with these sort of things before he met you! If anything happens to my mother or any other member of my family, you will be held accountable!” Later I tried to explain to Peyman’s family that he had converted about four years before he met me, so I hadn’t been responsible for his conversion, and that the fact he hadn’t told them about his belief was his choice, not mine. But they considered me the source of all the problems, and thought my husband only became a Christian because of me.

Dastgerd Prison

Peyman

40. The rest of those arrested that night were taken straight to the “Alef-Ta” ward, which belongs to the Ministry of Intelligence. But the officer who took me didn’t know I was in the same group, so he sent me to the general ward, where they told me to take off my clothes, apart from my vest and shirt, and put on prison clothes. Later on, when I had been taken to Alef-Ta, I took off the trousers that were given to me and washed them, because I have a strong sense of smell and they smelled really badly of urine. They took a mugshot of me, and also my fingerprints. The officers actually wanted to shave my head as well. But they didn’t after I told them I was a prisoner of the Ministry of Intelligence. It was then that I saw our pastor and a couple of other friends from our group. They were also about to have their mugshots and fingerprints taken, and they told me about the types of questions they had been asked during interrogations and what information the agents already knew, and found out that they knew that I had been baptised, and where. I hadn’t been going to admit that I had been baptised because I knew the Ministry of Intelligence agents were sensitive about this kind of thing, but now I knew they already had this information.

41. At about 5.30pm they took me to the ward that belonged to the Ministry of Intelligence. First I was brought to a small room, by myself – a really cold room. Half an hour later they moved me to another room, where there were two other prisoners who were drug-smugglers. At 9pm I was told: “You need to go for your interrogation.” They blindfolded me to take me there. My interrogator was Mr Ghassemi, who had also interrogated me in the morning. In the morning I had been able to see him, but this time I was blindfolded. Nonetheless I knew from the tone of his voice that it was the same person.

42. The interrogation room was very cold and my trousers were still wet from washing them. He asked me a question and asked me to write down the response on a piece of paper. I was only allowed to lift the blindfold enough to see the paper and pen. I was asked way too many questions: “When did you convert? How did you convert? Why did you convert? Have you been baptised? Who baptised you? How many trips have you been on? Why did you go on these trips? Who were your teachers during these conferences? How did you buy your books? Who did you evangelise to?” 

43. Because we were arrested as a group, the interrogator did parallel interrogations. He would write down three questions for me, then leave spaces on the paper so I could write down my answers. Then, while I was writing, he would leave the room and return in 15 minutes, look at the answers and exchange notes with the other people who were interrogating the other house-church members. Then he would come back with some more questions. I knew they already had the answers to some of the questions they asked, like what trips I’d made, so I answered those questions. When I was asked to tell them about my ministry, and who I used to meet, I mentioned people’s nicknames, and not their real names, even though I knew them. I also tried to protect my wife and to downplay her role, so that she wouldn’t get into trouble. It was around 1.30 or 2am by the time I returned to my cell. 

44. During my interrogation I could hear another interrogator interrogating one of my friends in a very aggressive way. And I prayed: “Lord, please don’t allow him to be my interrogator!” He shouted really loudly and was really aggressive. As I was being taken to my cell, he stepped out into the corridor, and I could see his purple striped shirt and big stomach from the corner of my blindfold – after that we called him “Purple Shirt”. And he asked: “Who is this? Is he one of those guys? Is he with them?” The officers said that I was. “Is he the one working in the governmental office?” he asked. They answered: “Yes, it’s true.” Then he turned to me and said: “So, what are you going to do now? You’re going to lose your job!” I answered: “God is faithful. He will find a way.” Then I asked: “Sir, could I possibly call my family and ask how they are doing?” And he said: “No! No chance!” And I was returned to my cell.

45. I was held there for a few days and then I had to move to another cell again. This time I shared my cell with a man who used to be a teacher. I’m a tough man, I hardly ever cry, but I don’t know what happened to me during those days, especially the first few days – I would start crying really easily all the time. Even when I was offered food, I just looked at my food and thought: “When they came and confiscated everything in our house, they also took my bank cards, so how will my wife be able to buy food?” I was crying all the time, like Jeremiah!

46. Mr “Purple Shirt” seemed to be playing “bad cop” throughout the different wards, and because I was blindfolded, you didn’t know when or where he would come from, and you were always worried that he would suddenly come from somewhere and hit you over the head with something.

47. It took about 11 days from the first to the last interrogation session. This period of uncertainty, and not knowing what was going to happen, was really hard for me. I was worried sick about my family. I was also hoping that I would be released soon enough that I could return to my job. But, unbeknown to me, the intelligence service had already called my workplace and told my employer on what grounds I had been arrested. During my last interrogation, on the 11th day of my detention, Mr Ghassemi, who no longer asked me to wear a blindfold, again put some papers in front of me and repeated the same sort of questions.

48. During my 12 days of detention, they allowed me to call home twice. I was only allowed fresh air for half an hour – I had to go onto the roof of the Alef-Ta ward. I also caught a severe cold, and the officials agreed to take me to the medical unit in the prison and give me some medication, but this didn’t help anyway. The cells were small and there was just a half-metre wall that separated the room from the toilet and shower area. So if you wanted to go to the toilet or take a shower, there wasn’t a door – it was just open. And if you had a cellmate, you weren’t comfortable.

49. Finally they put a form in front of me, a sort of commitment that I had to sign, saying that I would from now on respect the laws and regulations of the Islamic Republic of Iran and no longer attend any house-church services. The interrogator said: “If you want to be released, you need to sign this.” I had already endured enough pressure by that point and I really wanted to be released, so I signed. On the 12th day, at 4.30pm, the officials came to my cell and told me: “You’re free to go.” It took about an hour and a half to sign everything that needed to be signed, so by six o’clock I was out of prison. Although it was cold, I didn’t wait in the waiting area inside the prison for my family to come to pick me up. Instead I decided to wait outside prison, in the cold.

50. When my wife, my daughter and my wife’s family arrived to pick me up, they couldn’t even recognise me. My beard had grown and I was a completely different shape. For the first three or four days in prison I had been reluctant to eat any prison food – I could only eat maybe one spoonful, but that was all. And one of the reasons I’d grown a beard was that we had to buy razor blades ourselves. I’d had some cash with me when I was taken to prison – about 40,000 tomans [around $10] – but there was this soldier who tricked me, saying: “Oh, don’t worry, give me your money and I’ll buy you telephone cards, which you’ll need in prison.” So I gave him the money and he took it and gave me 20 cards; he made a little profit out of it. And after that I couldn’t buy anything else; I’d spent all my money on telephone cards, and didn’t have any money to buy razor blades.

51. The day I was released was a Wednesday. I didn’t work on Thursdays or Fridays, so it was on Saturday that I went back to work. During my detention, some people from my office had called my wife, asking her to come and explain what had happened. So after my release Leila told me about that call. But despite knowing about this, I went to work hoping things could be smoothed over.

Peyman’s job

Leila

52. When I had gone to Peyman’s workplace, I had asked his employers for a leave of absence for him, but they’d said: “Your husband has betrayed his country! And now you’re helping him?” However, they also added: “We’re very surprised and feel bad about losing him. Please tell him to renounce his Christian faith, because we want him back here.” I explained that I didn’t know what they had heard, but being a Christian wasn’t just a hobby where you could just change your mind like that!

Peyman

53. Before I was taken to prison, my office had been moved next to the Deputy Governor’s. As usual, I went behind my desk and went to turn on the computer, but it wasn’t there. About half an hour after my arrival, the officer in charge of internal security came and called me to his office. He said: “Unfortunately you can’t continue with your work unless the Ministry of Intelligence agrees to it. After that incident was reported to us, people from the Governor’s security office came and took your computer and looked into your hard drive, but they couldn’t find anything, so they said, ‘Probably he wasn’t very involved, because we couldn’t find anything on his computer.’ So we may be able to do something… If you renounce your faith, express regret, and leave this path and return to Islam, I think we can do something – especially because you have been a very exemplary worker.” But I couldn’t accept these conditions, so as a result I left. After that day, I called a few times, as they had requested, but there was never anything new, no developments.

54. When I went to try to get back my belongings from the Ministry of Intelligence, I even pleaded with my interrogator, Ghassemi, about my job, telling him: “I separated my work and my personal beliefs. I didn’t even share my faith with my colleagues. And I tried to work as best as I could in my work.” But he told me: “We can’t allow sick people like you to work and prosper in the Islamic Republic of Iran!” So I wasn’t allowed to work again, nor did I even receive any official documentation confirming that I had been fired from my job. They still paid me for two months after my arrest, but then they stopped, and they never called me again. Being expelled from work had a big impact on me, and was, psychologically, a major blow.

55. I had a master’s degree in geography and had been looking for employment for quite some time before I found that job. And I really put my heart into it and performed really well. So losing my job was really difficult. I had been through a lot of effort and filtering to get that job and was officially employed on a permanent basis. I had also been promoted. I was so confident of success in that job that I had long-term plans for how things would go, even until my retirement. My job had also given me a sense of respect in my family and society. Even now, years later, many times in my dreams I see myself going back to work. But in 99% of my dreams, my bosses won’t accept me back.

Fleeing Iran

Leila

56. Gradually, one after the other, the bail amounts were put together and the detainees were released. Every time one of them was released, I felt like a part of my body was returned to me. This feeling, the care and love that was pouring out of me, showed me that all I had been doing these years was more than just duty. After we were released, our pastor told us that we needed to leave the country. We said that we really didn’t want to, and that we would pray about it and wouldn’t go if we didn’t feel led to.

57. As we were contemplating what we should do, both of us, my husband and I, were given one-year prison sentences. The sentence was for our house-church activities, plus 60 lashes for not having proper Islamic head coverings in the house where we were arrested, and a fine for the satellite receivers that had been found in the house. In the court, the judge addressed me first, then my sister Sara and my other sister, Atena; then finally the rest of the group. He spent about half an hour with each of us three sisters, but only five minutes with each of the rest.

58. We prayed before the court began: “Lord, whoever you allow to preside over our cases, please speak to his heart.” When I was given the permission to speak, I pointed to the scales that are part of the judiciary’s logo, to use it as a conversation starter to talk about the justice of God and share my faith with the judge. I said to him: “This is what the God I have come to know is like. Do you think it’s wrong to share this God with my friends?” During my speech, the court clerk came and brought some papers to the judge and, with a hand gesture, he motioned: “Just leave them here.” He didn’t want anything to interrupt our conversation; he was interested to hear the rest. Then he heard a similar kind of story from my sisters.

59. A few months later, when we went to find out about the ruling, the judge saw us and said, in a very humble manner: “If it were up to me, I would honestly not even write a one-day prison sentence for you. What the prosecutor had suggested was a very heavy prison sentence for you all, and the Ministry of Intelligence was behind this, pushing for a heavy sentence. If it were up to them, a 10-year prison sentence or more would have been prescribed. I could only reduce it to one year.”

60. The one-year sentence meant that, because of our daughter’s young age, we would have to take her to prison as well. So Peyman said: “If it was just me and you, that would have been fine, but we can’t make this choice for our daughter too.” Apart from this, even after our house-church members were all released, we felt we were always being watched. There was a car always parked opposite our house, and we felt that our every move was being watched. So we prayed for our future and came to the final decision that we needed to leave Iran. But although we were reassured that this was what God had led us to do, still emotionally we weren’t reconciled to it.

61. During this time, instead of gathering again in house-churches, we adopted a different strategy, calling people and meeting up in the park, or different places, trying to basically hand over the ministry and provide a smooth transition to another group before we left the country. Later on, we realised that if we had stayed, probably our ministry wouldn’t have been that successful, and in fact we would have put others at risk of being arrested.

For a summary of Emma’s story, you can read our feature article here.

Background

1. My name is Azam Safaei, though now I prefer to be called Emma. I was born in 1977, and am originally from Khorasan [northeast Iran].

2. I started playing music in my first year of secondary school, and continued throughout my time in school. I had a good voice, so I used it to recite the Quran in a tuneful way and, at prayer times, through recitation, I led people in prayer. I was a person bound by the rules of Islam. I got married after graduating from school, at the age of 19. After marrying my husband, Peyman, we went to Bandar Abbas [southern Iran] to start our own business, renting and servicing cars. 

3. When my three-year-old daughter became ill, the doctors couldn’t make a clear diagnosis and tell what type of hepatitis she was suffering from. She was in a coma for 10 days. During this time, a colleague in our company gave me a book by [motivational speaker] Wayne Dyer. I started to pray for my daughter, and asked God to heal her. She miraculously woke up from the coma, and the doctors were amazed by this. After that, I started reading various books. I also started to develop an interest in Christianity, and began to watch [Christian satellite channel] Mohabat TV. I loved the worship programmes a lot. After a while, I was praying in Persian and not in Arabic. I also did yoga and meditation.

4. In 2004, I took part in writing classes. I attended about 10 or 11 times. I also had a blog at that time, where I published my stories. In the writing classes, I met an Assyrian woman by the name of Carmen. After a while, we became closer and I received my first Bible and “Jesus” film from this lady, who moved to the US many years ago. I started to copy and paste short stories from the Bible into my blog. Later, my blog was blocked. Then on the website “mypardis”, I started a group called “Christ, the Peace of My Heart”. There were 77 members in the group. I shared passages of the Bible there. This group was also blocked after a while.

5. Later I was introduced to a house-church by another of the students at the writing classes, named Aram. I joined the house-church six months after converting to Christianity. When I joined the church, I no longer did social networking and instead served in the church. The house-church-meetings took place in a small home, so I offered to have the meetings at my home. We also had a garden around the house, so no sound could be heard from outside, but we still had to be careful and held meetings only irregularly because of security concerns. A year after I had become a Christian, while the house-church-meetings were being held at our house, my husband converted to Christianity. Once, we also conducted baptisms in our kitchen, in an inflatable pool.

Christians arrested in Kerman and Mashhad

6. In July 2008, some Christians from Kerman and Sirjan were invited to a conference in Armenia for two weeks, organised by a Christian organisation. But they were arrested at the airport in Kerman. For that reason, our house-church wasn’t held for a while. Some of us bought anonymous SIM cards to stay in touch with each other. 

7. Two years later, my sisters were among around 20 Christians arrested. They had both been involved in house-church-meetings in Mashhad. Then, after a while, one of them had moved to Bojnourd [northwest of Mashhad]. Before that, meetings had also been held in her home, because the location for the house-church-meetings in Mashhad rotated.

8. Another of my sisters was newly married and pregnant at that time. Some of the other Christians who had been detained told the agents that my sister had spoken with them about Christianity. Because of her pregnancy, the agents didn’t put much pressure on her, but she had to make a commitment [not to meet again with other Christians].

9. About three months passed and we were waiting for our arrest, but nothing happened, so we started the meetings again. We would hold meetings by the sea, or in the park. At family gatherings we prayed with lowered voices and shared testimonies with each other. Then, six months after my sisters were arrested, I was arrested.

Arrest

10. That year, for Christmas, the plan was to bring together some of the house-church members from some other cities. Christmas Day of that year, 2010, was on a Saturday, but we celebrated with a few believers in our home the day before. Then, the day after Christmas, early in the morning, between 6.30-7am, somebody rang our doorbell. It was cloudy that day. I heard the bell, but I was still sleepy. Suddenly, my husband Peyman said loudly: “Get up, grab everything you can and clean up! The MOIS [Ministry of Intelligence Service] are here!” There were two cars, which drove around the house and searched the area to make sure there were no other ways out. Through the camera on our door we could see that they had quickly surrounded the house. I hid my laptop, diaries, and some other things above the cooker hood, which reached close to the ceiling, so no-one would guess there was storage room there. My husband was so scared that he screamed: “Hurry up, they are climbing the wall!” I quickly covered my head with a scarf and sat down. My children, Negar and Navid, woke up because of my husband being so loud. They were terrified and wanted to know what had happened. My daughter was in her first year of secondary school, and my son was in his first year of primary school. They were frightened, but they also noticed that I remained calm. The agents searched the house very quickly.

11. Right at the beginning, when the agents entered, they showed us the arrest warrant, but they didn’t hand it over to us. I couldn’t read it; I only saw the stamp and signature on it. They had arrived with two cars. One of the agents was on guard outside the house, and four male agents entered the house. The driver was very rude; the others were better. One of the agents, who was in charge, angrily asked: “Why did it take you so long to open the door?” Another filmed everything, and the other two searched the house.

12. Meanwhile, my son asked me for chocolate. We had bought special Christmas chocolate for the Christmas celebration, and it was in the same cabinet as where we kept our Christian books, but my son insisted on eating chocolate that instant! We were afraid of going to the cabinet; prior to that, the agents had quickly searched it and found nothing.

13. I suppose that the MOIS thought we would celebrate Christmas on the Sunday, but in fact we had celebrated with a few believers in our home on the Friday. But when they opened the fridge and saw the remnants of the Christmas cake, they realised that we had already celebrated.

14. One of them seemed to feel bad about my son and daughter looking frightened at the presence of the agents, and told Peyman and me to take them out of the room. I asked them to go into the garden. But out of curiosity, and also fear, from behind the curtain they tried to look inside the house. The agent told us to tell the children to stop looking inside the house, so I asked them to go and play in another part of the garden.

15. The agents confiscated everything related to Christianity – paintings of the Last Supper and Jesus Christ; a beautiful carved wooden cross; a crystal glass cross we had bought from Kish [an island in the Persian Gulf]; different Christian books; a Bible in bold letters, which I had recently purchased for my mother; a video about heaven and hell that Aram had given me, which was translated into Persian. They also took the notes on the refrigerator; our passports and birth certificates; two computers; my psychology books; a keyboard; the satellite TV receiver; some yoga and meditation programmes I had recorded; and even the children’s cartoons. My children protested that they were their DVDs, and the agents said they would return them, but they never did. 

16. They also confiscated the copy of my Christian friend Shabnam’s birth certificate. Shabnam and I had had the idea to start a new catering business, and in order to register the company Shabnam’s documents, including a copy of her birth certificate and national ID card, were at our house. When Peyman realised that they had taken Shabnam’s documents from the drawer, he told me and I was very surprised and upset; I couldn’t understand why they had taken her documents until I found out later that she too had been arrested. The agents piled up everything in the middle of our lounge. I had pictures of the church members, but I had hidden them in the cabinet and they couldn’t find them because, at the moment of their arrival, the lights had been curiously cut off, so for an hour they had had to search the house only with their mobile-phone torches, and they seemed to be in a hurry.

17. Peyman was told to open the garage door; then they brought their car in, to take me with them. I sat behind the driver, and two agents sat next to me, one on either side. They had brought no blindfold with them, so I was told to keep my head down. The officer sitting in front helped the driver to get his jacket off, so he could cover my head with it; it was clear from his accent that he was from Bandar Abbas. The agent in charge said that it wasn’t necessary to cover my head; only that I should put my head completely between my knees.

18. They kept driving around many different streets so that I couldn’t guess where or in what direction we were driving. Later, I found out that the place they took me was behind the Grand Bazaar [in Bandar Abbas]. I was blindfolded before getting out of the car, and given a kind of a rolled-up piece of paper to hold, while another person took the other end of it to guide me. There were people laughing at me and telling me to be careful not to fall.

19. Agents had also gone to Shabnam and Aram’s homes at the same time. Aram wasn’t at his home, but on his way to work. When the agents arrived, his pregnant wife became very stressed and nauseous. They couldn’t find any important documents belonging to Shabnam or me there. A week before the arrest, both of us had decided to hide all our Christian things [Bibles, Christian books, CDs, etc.]; I had two photocopiers, one at the office and one at home, which I used to copy Christian books; I also took the one I had at home to the office. But they found a lot of other evidence in Aram’s home. He was a photographer, he had all kinds of cameras and he took a lot of photos of our family and friends’ gatherings. From his house they took his Bible, several books, documents and photographs. Through those photos in Aram’s home, the MOIS found out more information about our house-church. During our interrogations, Shabnam, Aram and I were asked about the names of the house-church members. We told them our names and the names of those who were born as Christians, but didn’t name the Christians who were from a Muslim background – but they were identified anyway because of the photos.

20. On the Sunday that we were arrested, Shabnam’s mother and sister were also arrested in Khorramabad [western Iran]. At the same time that we were arrested, Christians in 23 other provinces were arrested. I found out about this through my interrogator, who arrogantly boasted about this. 

Prison

21. From the morning of my arrest, I wasn’t able to go to the bathroom. When I said I wanted to go, once again they gave me something to hold in my hands, so that no-one had to touch my hand, and guided me, blindfolded, to the bathroom. The toilet must have been very dirty; I heard someone pouring water into it to clean it a little. On the walls of the solitary-confinement cell, previous occupants had scribbled various images and sentences. Some were extremely rude. Some people before me had written their date of arrest. It was a dirty and small room, only just big enough for one person to sleep in. I couldn’t even walk around. It also had a small window. I prayed while standing. The prison environment was dirty and mostly made for men. The building was old and wet.

22. The first night, they kept knocking on my cell door, saying that I should get ready for my interrogation, but never actually taking me to be interrogated. They wanted to prevent me from falling asleep, so I wouldn’t be able to rest, and would be tired and sleepy during the interrogations, and it was also a way to torture me.

23. Then, when they eventually took me to the interrogation, a form was brought to me at the entrance door, before the stairs, but I didn’t see anyone’s face. The form was put in front of me, and while I was filling it out, a man asked me if I knew why I was there. I said: “Yes, because of Christianity,” and I also wrote that on the sheet. The officer said some insulting words and grabbed the sheet from under my hands; I heard him crumpling it. Then he said that I should be taken away. They had done the same with Shabnam and Aram, and behaved very aggressively. They probably thought that we would deny everything, but contrary to what they thought, we all professed to be Christian. 

24. I was told I had to take off my shoes and put on men’s slippers. Then, blindfolded, with someone directing me, I was taken to my interrogator, Mr Mahmoudi, who was an “expert” [a term used by the MOIS instead of “interrogator”], and spoke to me politely and respectfully. When he came, he started by saying: “We know everything about you, and we expect you, as Christians, to be honest and truthful. So answer all our questions honestly.” Then he said that I was allowed to take off my blindfold. When he asked me to explain how I came to believe in Jesus Christ and why I became a Christian, I tried to use the Bible, and even the Quran, to explain. Mahmoudi was speechless because of most of what I said; he had no answer. I spoke clearly about Christ, but I spoke indirectly about everything related to Islam, to avoid provoking him. He shook his head sometimes when I said how I had become a Christian, and twice he said: “It seems like your aim is to evangelise and make me become a Christian too – me converting to Christianity, and you saving yourself!” Once I was silent, but the second time he said that, I replied: “Amen, may it be so!”

25. During the first interrogation he tried to persuade me that I was a good woman but had been deceived and manipulated by Christians. He said with great excitement that our arrest had been a major national operation and that he thought he had achieved a major victory. He also mentioned that they had been watching me for two years. But later I realised that it wasn’t true. Each provincial Ministry of Intelligence only had its own city-specific information, and they didn’t even know anything about my sisters being arrested three months before.

26. I was given a form, on which I had to write my personal details, and there were also questions on it about my family members. I wrote about my sisters also being Christians. I thought they knew about their arrest. Later the interrogator tried to ask indirectly about their detention, so that his information was complete. They had no information at all. But then I resolved not to give them any extra information. I realised that they were getting a lot of information based on speculation and interrogation in prison. After that, I spoke much less.

27. I was very tired. I had lost my sense of time. Islamic prayers, which are usually just played at prayer times, were played repetitively and irregularly. Ayatollah Khamenei’s speech about the death sentence for apostasy from Islam was also regularly played over the loudspeakers. After my first interrogation, I was taken to a very dirty room they call a “suite” [a simple small room holding up to five detainees], which had no windows. They gave me a blanket. The “suite” was carpeted, and my body itched because of the dust and dampness of the environment. The walls were painted only superficially; beneath the paint, writing from former prisoners could be seen on the walls. It was very depressing and suffocating.

28. Twenty minutes later an officer came in; his job was to ask questions about my health and whether or not I was ill. Then they brought some food, still in its packaging, which I think they had ordered from a nearby restaurant. I asked for soap and they said that there was soap. I told them that it was small and dirty. They laughed and said: “She thinks she’s come to a hotel!” My scalp was very itchy. It felt like I had been infested with lice, or bed bugs. They didn’t even give me soap to wash my hair, and again laughed at me: “She thinks she’s in a hotel!” 

29. I was interrogated again by Mahmoudi. In the first interrogation he didn’t mention the Christian organisation that organised the conference. He asked me if I had travelled abroad. I answered: “Yes, I went to Armenia to see the country and the old churches.” During the second interrogation, he said to me: “You promised to be honest with me!” He asked me if I knew Shabnam, and I said that I did. He said that she was very concerned about me. I explained that we had a very close, sisterly relationship. The interrogator said that Shabnam had admitted that the seminar in Armenia was organised by the Christian organisation. That was the moment I realised that Shabnam had also been arrested, but I still didn’t imagine that Aram was also in jail. I only found that out on my last day there, and that he had become sick and they had even brought a doctor for him.

30. We had heard a lot about the rapes of women, and even men, during the detentions in 2009 [following protests]. Shabnam and I were close and had evangelised and served in the church together. We were not afraid of going to jail, but we were afraid of being raped. When the four men arrested me, the fear of being raped kept coming to my mind, and this made me suffer. My first prayer was: “May these men act with honour out of fear and respect for You.”

31. Once, a man entered my solitary cell, with his shoes on, and other officers locked the door from the outside. I was very scared. He had a piece of paper in his hand, and he asked me medical questions. But after the interrogation ended, he asked, with a strange smile on his face: “Do you have experience being arrested? Does your husband know you’re here?” I tensed up, became defensive, and didn’t look at his face; I only answered shortly: “Yes, he knows I’m here.” He asked me questions as if they had caught us at a party, like: “Were you there together?” I just said: “Yes.”

32. During one of the interrogations, Mahmoudi said that he also watched Mohabat TV. He had information about Christianity and theology. He said that two days before arresting me, they had arrested someone who was active in Erfan-e Halgheh [a mystical religion] and that that person had also said nice things about their religion. Then Mahmoudi said: “We must learn from all that is good, and discard all that is contrary to our religion. Because Islam is the most perfect.”

33. He said that he had read an Italian Christian book, “Experience Paradise on Earth”, which had also been published in Persian. I asked if he could give it to me to read. I had always loved reading. I also always searched for Christian content online and copied it for house-church members. He asked what I thought they did with the books they confiscated from people, and said that they studied them themselves. He said: “Does not the Word say to respect the government and obey the laws? Why don’t you Christians respect the government and stop meeting together in these churches?” He wanted to convince me by using the Bible.

34. He gave me a nearly 40-page book, “Why I am not a Christian”, written by an Islamic scholar in Qom [a very religious city] and said that I shouldn’t read it to criticise it. I said that I didn’t need to read it, but he said it was compulsory.

35. The silence in the solitary cell was very hard. I was used to writing. I asked Mahmoudi to give me some paper and a pen. He said that it was forbidden to provide paper, so I said that I would then have to scratch words onto the wall of the cell with my ring. Then he kindly gave me paper and a pen, but said he was giving them to me only on the condition I gave them back to him later.

36. I read some pages of the book Mahmoudi had given me, and seeing some verses of the Bible in that book delighted my heart. Verses that the author had used to criticise, with his human knowledge, became a blessing for me, as I eagerly began reading the Bible verses in that book. And, of course, I wrote my critiques of the author’s critique with God’s guidance, and handed them over to the interrogator. On some of those sheets Mahmoudi gave me, I wrote criticism about the first 15 pages of “Why I am not a Christian”, and on the other sheets I wrote worship songs, prayers, and so on. When I handed over the book and the sheets in the next interrogation, he said that he had told me not to read it with a critical mind. I answered that the author had written that book with a limited perspective, and that in the book it said that Jesus Christ had not been crucified but the Quran had said about Jesus Christ that he would die and live again. Mahmoudi was shocked. Before my arrest I had discussed with my mother a lot about Islam, and my knowledge of Islam had grown.

37. The way he interrogated me was as if he was conducting a research project – and in fact he was. He explained that he was an “expert”, and that it was his job to work on such cases. Mahmoudi asked: “Why are you promoting Christianity?” I replied: “We Christians do not promote Christianity; we proclaim ‘Good News’. It is you who are promoting Christianity by arresting us and cracking down on our activities.” I added that some believers hide their faith from their families and that, when they are arrested, friends and relatives find out about their faith and are curious to hear about Christianity. He told me that he had said this many times to his colleagues, but that they had refused to accept it. He wanted to prove that he was right, so he asked me to write down my point of view on a sheet of paper.

38. I also wrote how the Iranian people love God, and some things about the Islamic Republic and Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei – that they came in the name of God and the people believed them, but that after a while the executions started. I explained in detail that theirs wasn’t the religion that the people were looking for. In the end, I wrote that whether or not they arrest Christians, the truth, and God’s will, will grow and spread. Mahmoudi took his time reading my writings. But when he saw that I had written about Khamenei, he warned me that my writing had become political and that my case would now become more complicated. He told me not to write things that could be used against me.

39. During one of the interrogations I was blindfolded because one of his superiors was supposed to come and see how he was doing. During that interrogation, my chair was turned around, so that the table was behind me and not in front of me anymore. ‌His superior read my answer to a previous question: “God speaks to our hearts; He is eager to communicate with us.” And in a shrill, loud voice – it seemed like he wanted to beat me up! – he said: “What have you written! God wants to speak to us?” I was startled and responded defensively, and with a loud voice myself: “God loves us so much that He is eager to speak and guide and save us, and that is why He sent Jesus Christ!” Before my conversion I had read books, including the Bible, that spoke about having conversations with God. Then Mahmoudi and his superior whispered together. When Mahmoudi explained to his superior that he had asked me a question about promoting Christianity, he began to read my written answer, and said: “Write your answer completely. I guarantee you no problems; I guarantee your security. This sheet of paper will not leave this place.” Before, Mahmoudi’s voice had been calm and had not been sharp. But it was clear that his superior’s voice had also affected him, because after that he had a stricter tone and wasn’t the same as before. However, he was upset with how his superior had behaved and had seemed to blame him for not getting the results they had wanted.

40. He talked about the security of the country; that if they didn’t stop the Christians, and the Church, the security of the country would be in danger. He spoke about a church in Bandar Abbas, which he said was against the government, and said I should be glad I wasn’t part of that church. He also said: “If the news [about this church attacking the government] reaches the local imam who conducts the Friday prayers, and he issues a religious edict, no-one would be able to stop the people from rising up, and your [Christians’] security would be jeopardised!”

41. On my last night in jail, I asked Mahmoudi if he had written the questions for the man who came to check on my medical issues. He asked: “How come? Did something go wrong?” He was curious to know more. I answered: “No, he just looked at me badly.” I wanted to report it, because he had come to my cell again. Mr Mahmoudi paused for a moment, and then said: “No, there is no need for you to answer any questions unrelated to health or medical conditions.” But asking that question made him aware of my weakness and fear.

42. I was given a letter of commitment not to meet with other Christians, talk about Christianity with others, or leave the town or country without permission, which he had written himself, and I had to sign it. When he saw that I wasn’t signing it, he said with a grin: “It seems as if you like it here and would like to stay longer?” He had found my weakness, by knowing the issue with the health officer, so he started to speak suggestively. Before that he had respected me.

43. I bowed my head and said that I wouldn’t sign what he had written; that it would be like still being in prison and would take away my basic rights. How could I not connect with anyone? He took another sheet of paper, and changed some words and said: “You don’t have the right to evangelise; you don’t have the right to congregate with church members; you can’t travel from Iran to Armenia and Turkey; you must obtain written permission to leave the city to travel to other cities within Iran, until the judge issues a verdict.” He told me that I should thank God that I hadn’t been detained by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, because their methods were much worse.

44. On the third day of my detention, Mahmoudi told me that he would bring an Islamic scholar to talk with me. He said: “If you can convince him, we will all become Christians! And if he persuades you, you have to become a Muslim.” I replied very seriously that I had reached a level of faith, certainty and truth that didn’t need to be discussed or compared.

45. The interrogations were sometimes short and sometimes long, but because there was no clock in the room, I don’t know exactly how long they lasted. As the Islamic prayer times were irregular, I was confused about the time. Sometimes I got different meals at unexpected times, and in the wrong order. The interrogation questions were mostly repeated. During my detention, I prayed for Mahmoudi to become a Christian.

Shabnam

46. Shabnam had two interrogators, Mr Mahmoudi and Mr Tehrani. She was interrogated more often than I was. The interrogators for all three of us – Shabnam, Aram and me – every half an hour compared all we had written during the interrogations.

47. Because of some problems we were having with our marriage, Shabnam had asked me at the Christmas celebration if I wanted to fast with her for 40 days, and I accepted. I fasted on Saturday, but on Sunday, when the agents arrested me, I forgot to continue fasting. Shabnam continued, so she didn’t eat even when the officers brought her food. But then the interrogator threatened her; he thought that she was going on hunger strike, but she cried and said that she was fasting for her friend. However, the interrogator didn’t allow her to fast.

The judge

48. They told me, by way of a reproach, that they had not taken me to a public court in order to protect my reputation, but instead had brought a judge [or prosecutor], to the place we were being held. I had to sign another “commitment” before they took me to the judge. Then I was told to wait. I heard Shabnam crying, and I think Tehrani gave her some tissues. My mind was wondering what had happened to Shabnam to make her cry. Shabnam and I went to court separately.

49. The room where the judge was sitting was very clean, and separated from the others. It felt very odd to see such a clean room in that place. The smell of coffee also filled the room, and everyone was drinking coffee. I was sitting in front of the judge’s desk, but at a bit of a distance. Next to me was a man I had never met, and on my other side sat Tehrani, who appeared to have helped Shabnam a lot, and had told her to leave Iran as soon as possible because a case was being made against her. Mahmoudi was also there, and two others, wearing suits, who I couldn’t see clearly. In all, there were six others, as well as the judge, in the room with me. I was looking directly at the judge, and prayed in my heart for God to guide me so that I would say what was true and wise. He was a young and a strongly built judge, and spoke with pride and confidence. 

50. “Why did you become a Christian?” he asked, condescendingly and insultingly. “What you said about God speaking to us is blasphemy! Does God speak to us?” He was looking for a crime to charge me with. I asked if the judge knew who he sounded like. He shook his head and asked me to explain. I said: “Like the people of Israel: when Moses went up to Mount Sinai to receive the tablets, the people were afraid when they heard the voice of God, and said that Moses should speak to God directly, and then tell them. Humans do not want to be in direct contact with God out of fear, but God is eager for this relationship.” Everyone else in the room lowered their heads, and it was clear that the man next to me was smiling, while everyone else tried to busy themselves with other things.

51. The judge asked if I knew already that my verdict was going to be the death sentence. I said that if the God that I love issued my death sentence then I would be ready to die. The judge became angry and said I was naive, looking for trouble, and that I had been tricked. The questions he asked were mostly the same as in my interrogations, but not as many. The court session lasted almost an hour. The judge wrote something and then said that I could be temporarily released if I had a guarantor, but that the case would remain open until the final verdict.

52. I don’t remember if it was before or after the trial when they took Shabnam and me downstairs to take our mugshots. They took photos of one side of our face, and also from the front. When she was in another room, I could hear Shabnam telling a middle-aged man that he was the same age as her father, and he replied that he would cut off her head right away if he were her father. When we saw each other again, we took each other’s hands and laughed together quietly – both out of relief and also at wondering how we would look in our photos, having not showered for a few days! The man who had insulted Shabnam then separated us from each other.

Release

53. I didn’t have a lawyer or legal adviser during the whole process. I was released on the Tuesday afternoon, after two and a half days’ detention. After my release I couldn’t speak to Aram but sometimes I met Shabnam on the roof of her house.

54. Between two weeks and a month after my release, the Ministry of Information called me and told me my confiscated belongings were to be returned. I was told: “Ms Safaei, I thought you were a true Muslim! I didn’t expect you not to wear hijab in a mixed group of men and women! This is contrary to Islam!” I replied that we Christians know that we are in the presence of God, and that out of fear and respect we wouldn’t allow ourselves to look at each other in a sinful way. I was told I had acted like a Christian, and that the crime of apostasy was being considered for me, but that it was also clear I had become confused in my beliefs.

55. The officers showed me the list of things they had confiscated, and then told me to sign it. They returned our family photos, passports, mobile phones, keyboard, and computers. But they didn’t return the video about heaven and hell, the other films and children’s cartoons, Bibles, children’s Bible, other books, paintings and statues of Christ, and everything else related to Christianity. During one of the interrogations, I had asked what they did with the Bibles and the Gospels they confiscated, and they said they burned them. I asked if they would give me back the Bible with the bold text that I had just bought for my mother, but they didn’t agree. 

56. Before I was arrested, I took my SIM card out of my modern Nokia phone and put it in an old phone, so they couldn’t access the resources inside my phone, though they might have found the numbers saved there.

57. Peyman and I decided to stay in Iran because of my pregnancy, but we changed cities and had trouble regarding our daughter’s education. The Ministry of Education said they would only hand over her education records if we promised she would be free to choose her own religion, but also that she wouldn’t be a Christian! In the new town, which was close to my father’s family, a few months later the Ministry of Intelligence called Peyman and summoned him. They asked if he knew why he had been summoned. Peyman stood firm and said he knew it was because he was a Christian. They interrogated Peyman every morning for a week, and released him at night. They even tried to tempt him through their wives to achieve their goals and gather evidence against us. In addition, they made an appointment for my husband to meet with the Friday prayer leader of Mashhad, and, at the same time, someone was monitoring our front door from morning to evening. We decided to move to Kerman [southeastern Iran] at night. Again, it was difficult to get my daughter’s school file from the school officials. We stayed there for three months, but we were under surveillance. Then we moved to Sirjan [southwest of Kerman]. We wanted to know what God’s will was.

58. They found us easily as soon as I registered my children at school. They put a lot of pressure on my daughter and were focused on her. Even though she was going to a private school, she was forced to wear a chador [full Islamic covering] and to attend Islamic prayer services.

59. We were invited to a seminar in Turkey and, when we went, we found out that no exit ban had been imposed on me, even though during the interrogation Mahmoudi had told me that I wasn’t allowed to leave the country.

60. After returning from Turkey, we assessed the situation and realised that we could no longer serve as Christians in Iran. We lived in Sirjan for three months, then left Iran. I am still in touch with Shabnam. She and her family were threatened with death after she was released from prison.

For a summary of Parham’s story, you can read our feature article here.

Background and conversion

1. My name is Alireza (Parham) Mohammadpour, and I was born in 1990 in Nahavand [Hamadan Province], to a Laki-speaking [Kurdish dialect] family from the city of Harsin [Kermanshah Province]. 

2. My father’s first wife was barren. That’s why my father married my mother. The first child in the family, my older sister, was born with a disability, so my parents decided not to have any more children. But my mother unintentionally became pregnant again, and they decided to have an abortion. My mother lifted heavy objects and took injections, but none of these things had any effect, and it was God’s will for me to enter this world, but I was also born with a disability. 

3. I underwent surgery three times – at the ages of seven, nine and 11 – to treat a disability with my foot. After the third operation, the doctors said: “We can do nothing more for your child. From now on there are three possibilities: the first is that your son may be paralysed, which is very likely; or his condition may remain the same; or it may improve, but this third option is less likely.”

4. My parents’ religion is Yarsanism. My father was a follower of this religion for about 30 years. Many religious ceremonies were held at his home and he was well-known among friends and relatives.

5. My father was embarrassed and frustrated by mine and my sister’s disabilities, which were a source of shame to our parents and caused him not to show love to me. I longed to hear the words “my son” from my father, but not only did my father not love me, but he used hurtful words towards me, which stemmed from his own inner shame and frustration. Words such as: “If you were going to be a good person, you would have been born healthy. God certainly knew you weren’t going to be a good person, and that’s why He caused you to suffer in this way.” It was very painful to hear these words from my father.

6. So, from the age of 10, I started to follow Islamic rules in order to find peace. I prayed in the mosque, fasted, and I was the mokber [prayer announcer] in the mosque. I memorised 30 surahs from the Quran, and I always talked to God in private in the basement of our house and said: “I can’t believe that you would only speak to the imams; I also want to hear your voice.”

7. But the lack of attention and love from my father, my lack of inner peace, and my disability, caused me to become depressed from the eighth year of school onwards. I always tried to appear happy and light-hearted, but inside I was sad and anxious, and I was aggressive towards my family. Every night I wished I would die and wouldn’t wake up in the morning. My days were devoid of life and hope. I never went to the doctor regarding these depressive thoughts, but gradually this inner emptiness led me to unsuccessfully attempt suicide.

8. Then, while I was unconscious, I had a strange dream. I was on the edge of a precipice, beside a dark valley where nothing was visible. I threw myself into the valley, but I didn’t fall in. I hovered between the ground and the air, and I heard a voice say: “I am.” When I woke up, I thought it was my mother’s voice, or one of the doctors. 

9. Years passed, and I went to university with the same depressive mental state.

10. My cousin worked for a particular company, and one of the warehouse managers had given her one of the books of the Bible. My cousin gave it to me and said: “I don’t have the patience to read this, and I don’t think it would be very interesting to read anyway, but I thought you might find it interesting.” I said, in surprise: “I am a Yarsan and I follow the rules of Islam; I don’t need to study the Bible!” But, out of curiosity, I began to study the book, which was the Gospel of John.

11. One night I came to chapter 9, verse 2: “His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned – this man or his parents – that he was born blind?’” Reading this verse, I was confronted with the tormenting words of others in the past who had said: “Parham himself, or his parents, must have done something bad for him to be disabled.” I became sad and agitated, and threw the book away, and said angrily: “I didn’t choose Christianity, You [Jesus] came after me, so either save me or get out of my life!” I cried that night until morning, but I didn’t fully understand the reason for my bitter tears.

12. The next morning I told myself that the book was the Word of God and wouldn’t change, so it would be better to read the end of the verse to see what Jesus said in response to the question. I was terrified and trembling when I opened the book, thinking that maybe I would hear an answer like the painful words uttered by others, and be disappointed with Christ.

13. But when I read John 9:3, Jesus answered: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” That answer took away the heavy burden that had been with me for all 22 years of my life. Suddenly the lightness and peace that I had been looking for for years came over me and I knelt with great eagerness and said: “God, I invite you into my life!” So I converted to Christianity on 12 December 2013, at 9.30pm.

House-church

14. I lived with my family in Marlik [south of Karaj] and I was a student at a private university in Abyek, [west of Karaj], where I earned my Master’s degree in ICT Engineering.

15. About 19 days after my conversion, I was studying the Bible at the university. One of the students saw the book in my hand and asked: “What is this book?” I answered: “It’s a Bible.” He didn’t show any reaction at that moment, but after two or three days the same student came up to me and asked: “Would you like to go to church?” I was surprised and asked: “Do we have churches in Iran? Yes, I am very interested!”

16. In Iran, leaders and active house-church members, because of security issues, can’t initially trust anyone who introduces himself as a Christian. For this reason, at first Christian converts meet individually with that person to make sure that he isn’t a spy of the government, and then that person can be brought into the meetings. It was the same in my case: one of the Christians met me on the street and in the park a few times, and then allowed me to attend house-church meetings on the outskirts of Marlik.

17. Each group within our house-church network had a separate leader. For this reason, I met them only three times.

18. In line with the network’s strategy, the number of members in the weekly groups was only about five in each group. In the training sessions in northern Iran the number of members allowed was more, but we weren’t allowed to have a mobile phone with us if we wanted to attend. The house-church group worked hard to ensure everything was done with security in mind. For example, on meeting days I called church members from the public phone on the street and informed them with code-words about the address and time of the meeting.

Arrest

19. After some time, some of my Christian friends and I rented a garage in Andisheh [next to Marlik] and went to the different houses in the third and fourth district of Andisheh, asking them what everyday products they needed, with a plan to purchase them on their behalf. We bought a lot of products and put them in the garage, with great expectations for what our new venture could become.

20. But then, on 10 November 2015, at around 10.30pm, I was in the garage with Ali and Pedram [two other house-church members], I was eating, and someone knocked on the door and said: “Excuse me, I hit your car. Please come and take a look.” As soon as we opened the door, about eight people wearing balaclavas and carrying guns entered the garage. I was very scared when I saw their weapons and aggressive behaviour, and thought they were thieves. One of them slapped me hard and said: “Lie on the floor!”

21. After five minutes of them spitting out obscenities and insults towards us, they showed us an arrest warrant and read out the names of my two friends. It was then we realised these people weren’t thieves but agents of the Ministry of Intelligence! We asked them to show their ID cards and then saw that they really did belong to the Ministry of Intelligence. One agent had a video camera and filmed everything from the outset.

22. They took mine and my friends’ mobile phones, but they returned mine at the end of the night. The reason they took my mobile phone initially was to prevent me from telling anyone else about our arrest at that moment. They confiscated our bank cards, wallets and personal Gospels, as well as Christian educational CDs and the DVD of the film “A cry from Iran” [about the murder of pastor Haik Hovsepian], worship CDs, the film of Jesus based on the Gospel of Luke, and our computer.

23. At about 12.30am, my two friends were handcuffed, put in a car and taken to prison. I was also put in a car, a white Peugeot. There were two people in the front, and one in the back next to me. The officer next to me was writing names on a piece of paper. I looked at the sheet and, because he had taken off his mask, I saw his face. He slapped me hard and said: “Who allowed you to look in this direction? Thank God that your warrant hasn’t been issued yet! The verdict of your friends is clear: they are facing life imprisonment or execution!” 

24. The other agents also insulted and ridiculed me. The agent sitting in front of me asked me questions about house-church leaders and members: “What is the name of your pastor? Do you know ‘Reza’?”, and so on.

25. Despite my fear, I decided to say that I didn’t know any of their names. But I soon found out that they already knew the real names and nicknames of most of the active members. For example, he said: “Maziar’s real name is Reza”.

26. They let me out of the car on the edge of Andisheh and said: “We have had you under our surveillance for about three months, and now we decided to come for you. So don’t think you are free! We’ll contact you soon, and you must come for interrogation.” I promised that I would go to any address they told me to, but because of my mother’s heart disease I asked them to call my mobile phone and not to come to our address. 

27. It took me about 20 minutes to get home from where they had dropped me. I went from street to street to find a public telephone, and also to confuse them in case they were following me. I decided to inform the pastor and other active members that two of my friends had been arrested. I called my pastor several times, but he didn’t answer. I got home at 1 o’clock in the morning. I was full of stress and worry and I couldn’t eat for a whole day.

28. The next morning, I called one of my Christian friends from a public telephone and said with code words: “My colleagues were taken to the hospital because of a gas leak, but I’m fine and I was allowed to go.” He replied: “Let’s meet each other.” I was very scared and thought I was being followed. That’s why I went to different places, getting rides with different drivers, until I reached my friend’s plumbing shop.

29. When I told my friend what had happened, he said: “Last night, at the same time that was happening to you, Ministry of Intelligence agents drove to every one of the cities we have house-church meetings and arrested a large number of people from each group, and our pastor.”

Interrogations

30. Every second of those next few days passed slowly for me and I thought every moment about the interrogations I would have to face and the questions they might ask me. I even said to myself that my friends were lucky that they had been arrested, so that at least they didn’t have this time of anxiously worrying about when it might happen. In prayer I asked God to grant me grace so that the answers I gave during my interrogation wouldn’t endanger any of my Christian friends, and that I could come out of this situation with my head held high.

31. Two days after the arrest of my friends, an intelligence official called me and said: “At the edge of Marlik, we are waiting for you.” I hugged my mother tightly and thought I might never see her again. Arriving at the meeting point, I got in their car, and they blindfolded me and took me somewhere for my interrogation.

32. When we got to that unknown place, one of the agents said: “Get out!” But when I get anxious, I can’t move very well and I lose balance, so I said: “I have a disability; please take my hand and help me to get out of the car.” The man took my hand and I got out of the car. Then he said: “There is a step in front of you; be careful.” I asked him to help me up the stairs. “Tell Jesus Christ to come and take your hand!” the agent said. Then my foot hit the stairs and I fell hard onto the ground. The agent put his foot on my neck and said sarcastically: “You see now that Jesus Christ isn’t alive? Otherwise he would have taken your hand!” They wanted to inflict psychological torture on me with their insults. But thanks be to God, who gave me indescribable peace at the height of these pressures and insults.

33. When I entered that place, I heard the voices of various prisoners being tortured. Because I was blindfolded, I don’t know if the sounds were real or if they just wanted to scare me. I was taken to a dark room and put on a chair. The interrogator entered the room, with a balaclava over his face. He asked for my name and other personal details, and I said, in surprise: “You have all my information!” He read the names of pastors, leaders, and some of the regular members, and said: “Do you know these people?” I said: “No, I don’t.” He spoke to me with obscene and insulting language, and said: “We found pictures of you with some of these people on the computer we confiscated in the garage. So how come you don’t know them?” I said that the photos were of my classmates from university.

34. Many different agents interrogated me. During one of the interrogations, I was blindfolded and told: “The supervising interrogator wants to come.” He was called “Haji” [someone who has been to Mecca]. The name of Ali and Pedram’s interrogator was “Parsa”. Maybe this supervising interrogator was their interrogator as well. He told me: “You are a promoter of Christianity! You distribute Jesus Christ’s films and Bibles!” I denied it, but he showed me some pictures and said with very ugly insults: “We took pictures of you while you were distributing the films and Bibles; we have evidence! Why are you lying? In this photo, the person who is distributing the Bible, is it me or you? Your father is a Yarsan; you memorised 30 surahs from the Quran; your father’s financial situation is good; your university grades are very good; why did you become a Christian? What did you lack? You could have become a satan-worshipper, but not a Christian!”

35. But I had tasted salvation, and I enjoyed evangelising. God had saved me from depression, and I had shared the gospel with the depressed, the broken-hearted, the disabled. So, when I found out that they had a lot of evidence against me, I took the opportunity to tell the interrogators about what God had done in my life. 

36. I said: “Imagine you are drowning and you aren’t able to swim. While you’re attempting to save yourself, and while you’re suffocating, someone comes and saves you. Jesus Christ did the same for me. I was stuck in the mud and Christ gave me life. I owe him for the rest of my life. I am afraid of death and I don’t deny my fear, but I know that if I die I’ll go to be with God in His kingdom.

37. The interrogator said rudely, angrily, and with vulgar words: “If it weren’t for the camera in the room, I know what I would do with you!” They didn’t beat me in the interrogation room, but they constantly shook my chair violently, creating a terrifying atmosphere with this shaking of my chair and the sounds of prisoners being tortured. I found it difficult to breathe several times due to the shaking of my chair, and felt like I was suffocating.

38. The Ministry of Intelligence agents weren’t actually concerned about religion. The interrogator cursed all the 12 Shiite imams and said: “The forefathers of the imams can all die, as far as I care! We don’t care about your beliefs or religion! Our problem is anti-regime activities. You are a promoter of Christianity, and you hold anti-government meetings! You are a national troublemaker! You cooperate with hostile foreign countries – the United States and Israel – and your goal is to overthrow the regime! You are a preacher of Christianity! Your accusation is ‘propaganda against the regime’, and ‘holding meetings against the government’. Your sentence is death, and that’s it!”

39. But during the fourth interrogation, the interrogators’ behaviour had softened, because they brought an Islamic cleric to convert me to Islam. But at the end, I told the Islamic cleric and interrogators: “Even if you cut me into pieces, I won’t abandon my faith in Jesus Christ. He is my saviour; he has lifted me from the rubbish dump, and I’ll never deny him.” But they forced me to sign a written commitment that I wouldn’t evangelise or attend house-church meetings.

40. Three of my interrogations lasted for about three hours, but one of them went on from 9am until midnight! I wasn’t given any food during the interrogations; I only asked for water when I was thirsty, and they gave me water. I also left the interrogation room several times to go to the bathroom, but I was very embarrassed by the behaviour of the officer who took me to the toilet, who stayed next to me and rushed me, saying: “Just sit down and do it!” I said that I was embarrassed, but he said: “I’m going to turn my back to you.” 

41. Once, when I entered the interrogation room, the smell of blood was so intense that I thought I was in a slaughterhouse. The stress was so great that, at that time, part of my hair turned white and I experienced in reality the saying “it made me old”. The interrogators knew my father was a follower of Yarsanism. That’s why I was threatened several times: “We will contact your father and discuss this with him; surely he would be willing to pay for us to kill you!”

42. In all, they called and summoned me four times in 18 days; they picked me up in Marlik, and took me, blindfolded, to some place for interrogation. The distance from Marlik to that unknown place varied. Three times it took about 15 minutes, and once it took about an hour. But I think we went to the same place all four times. All four times I heard the same rustling of leaves on the stairs and the same sound of a large iron door opening.

43. After the interrogations, they always blindfolded me and took me to a different place, then let me go. Each time I returned home, I would throw all my clothes into the washing machine. After the final interrogation, I actually threw all my clothes away, even my jacket, because I was afraid they had put a listening or tracking device in them. After the interrogations were finished, I spoke with some church members on the phone, but we didn’t meet at each other’s houses at all.

Confiscated items

44. Eventually, someone called us and told us we could go and retrieve the items they had confiscated from us, and gave us the address of the Shahriar NAJA [police] office. When I went there, the stairs, the rustling of leaves and the sound of a large green door suggested to me that this was where I had probably been blindfolded and brought for questioning all those times.

45. They showed me some of the CDs they’d taken and said: “Separate each of these CDs into ones that are Christian and ones that aren’t. You can’t take the ones that are Christian.” All the CDs were Christian, but I took only a few of them so the officer would assume I was separating the non-Christian ones. In the garage, I used to burn CDs of Christian teachings, sermons, and the film of Jesus Christ based on Luke’s Gospel, to evangelise and distribute them to others alongside other house-church members.

46. They also returned my computer, but I was afraid it would have a listening or tracking device, so I had to sell it, even though I’d only bought it recently. I implored them to return my Bible, but unfortunately they didn’t agree. But my bank card, wallet and passport, which they had also taken, were returned to me. 

Impact

47. I was registered with the state welfare organisation [because of the disability]. According to my skills, a job was found for me in a certain company, but after I went there to start work and the person in charge had entered my details, he asked: “Are you a Christian?” I said: “How do you know?” He said: “In the system, you are registered as a ‘Christian promoter’, so you can’t work here.” So that’s how I found out that the Ministry of Intelligence had filed a case against me.

48. Whenever I wasn’t at home, I always felt like I was being followed, and sometimes I was sure. If anyone on the bus approached me, I thought he was trying to put a listening or tracking device on my clothes. That’s why, whenever I went home, I threw all my clothes in the wash again.

49. I also struggled with my emotions. My Christian friends had been released because their families had paid their bail, and on the one hand I thanked God that I hadn’t been taken to prison, because my family wouldn’t have bailed me out. But on the other hand, I felt frustrated and struggled with feeling unworthy, having not been to prison like my Christian friends. I even talked to God and said: “If you plan for me to go to prison, I’ll obey and just ask you to give me the strength.”

Leaving Iran

50. After a few months, while I and my friends, who had been temporarily released, were waiting for our verdict and the decision of the judge or relevant authorities, they called us and said: “Either leave Iran, or stay in Iran and you’ll have to go to prison for about three to five years.”

51. I thought to myself: “How long will all this stress and anxiety last? These pressures will make my mother sicker and sicker, and if I get married and have children in the future, my family will also face this torture and these threats. And it won’t be easy for me to find a job, or any source of income.” So, although I never wanted to, I was forced to leave Iran. Several officers followed me to the airport, even on the day I left Iran. But they stopped after I passed the police checkpoint. And so I emigrated to Turkey on 21 October 2016.

52. After leaving Iran, several times suspicious calls were made to our home in Iran and my mother was asked about how I was doing. My mother asked their names and they said: “We are his friends and we want to know where he is and what he is doing.” I am sure that these people were from the Ministry of Intelligence, because all my friends are aware of my situation, and if they were really my friends they would be willing to say who they were. I have been living in Turkey for about four years [as of May 2020] now. During this time, I haven’t seen my family once. I have been through many difficult things and problems here, and experienced a lot of loneliness, but I am glad that at least I had the opportunity to be baptised – on 1 January 2017.