‘We can’t allow sick people like you to prosper in the Islamic Republic’ 10 December 2020 Features Peyman and Leila’s one-year-old daughter, Armita, was present when officers from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence raided their house-church leadership meeting in Isfahan in February 2013. In the end, it provided the couple with an excuse to leave, as Armita had a fever, which worsened when the officers entered, telling no-one to move – not even the women, who were ordered even to refrain from covering their heads until filmed interviews had been carried out. This footage was proof that the dozen Christians had gathered together illegally and that the women were not wearing headscarves. “Their behaviour was very aggressive and violent,” Leila recalls. “They treated the women as if they were addressing a bunch of prostitutes. The worst thing was the way they were looking at us. We felt as if we were naked and they were looking at us through our clothes.” Noticing their daughter’s condition worsening, Leila pleaded with the one female officer among the group, who was wearing a long Islamic dress, or chador. “If you have a child, you’ll understand what I’m going through right now,” she said. “I really don’t care what you guys do with us, but my child needs medical attention right now!” Eventually, they were permitted to take Armita to the hospital, where she received the medical attention she required, and Leila used the opportunity to pass a secret note to the doctor, which read: “We’re Christians, we’ve been arrested, and I need help.” Leila then gave the doctor the phone number of a member of their house-church network, to pass on the message that they had been arrested. It was 11pm by the time Leila and Peyman returned home with their daughter, accompanied by a handful of intelligence agents who proceeded to search their house until 3am. The officers wore masks so their faces wouldn’t be picked up on CCTV, and ended up leaving with “seven or eight bags full of Christian literature”, says Peyman, “because our house was a central place used for storage of Christian books by the church leadership”. A few days later, Peyman was also arrested, as well as Leila’s sister, Atena. Another sister, Sara, had already been arrested. Both Atena and Sara had also converted to Christianity and were part of the same house-church network. Leila was told she was lucky her daughter was ill, otherwise she too would have been arrested. “You owe your freedom to your daughter,” she was told, as she watched her husband and sister taken away to an unknown location. Eventually, Leila was able to find out that they had been taken to Isfahan’s Dastgerd Prison, where they were being held in the infamous “A.T.” ward used by the Ministry of Intelligence. But when Leila attempted to take supplies for them, she was first told she could only take them to her husband, and then, after traipsing through the prison for 15 minutes – having been forced to wear a chador and with Leila on one arm and a bag in the other – she was not permitted to see her husband. “I tried to put on a brave face,” she recalls, “but as soon as I turned I was crying all the way, with a sense of deep disappointment.” Peyman was detained for the next 11 days, during which time he was interrogated twice – first for five hours, and then, on his penultimate day, for another three. “They asked way too many questions,” he recalls. “When did you convert? How did you convert? Why did you convert. Have you been baptised? Who baptised you? How many trips abroad have you been on? Why did you go on these trips? Who were your teachers during these conferences? How would you buy your books? Who did you evangelise to?” To make matters worse, Peyman had to endure his first, five-hour-long interrogation in a pair of sodden prison trousers, having immediately washed them because of their rancid smell but having not had time to let them dry before he was called in. “I have a strong sense of smell, and these trousers that were given to me really smelled bad,” he explains. “It was a very cold room, and I was wearing these wet trousers, and it went on until about 1.30, 2 in the morning until I was returned to my room.” When, on the 12th day, Peyman was released from prison, he recalls that, “although it was cold”, he couldn’t bring himself to wait inside the prison waiting area for his family to collect him. And that when they arrived, “my beard had grown and I was a completely different shape. When they came they couldn’t even recognise me!” Yet the heaviest blow was still to come for Peyman, as, on his return to work at a governmental office, he discovered that the Ministry of Intelligence had spoken with his employers and ordered that he be fired. He was told that a thorough search had been conducted of his computer, and as they had found no illicit Christian materials, he could recover his position, on one condition: that he renounced his faith. Peyman refused. He was paid for the next two months, but then the money stopped coming. And, despite initially being encouraged to call his office to see if anything had changed, eventually he was told: “I think you need to let this go”. Peyman says the loss of his job was a “major blow”. “I went through a lot of hardship, a lot of filtering to get this job, and I had become officially employed permanently. And I was being promoted. I was so confident about the achievements I could make in this job. I had long-term plans, even to my retirement, about how things would progress,” he says. So desperate was he to regain his position that Peyman even returned to his interrogator to ask to be allowed to return to work. His response? “We cannot allow traitors and sick people like you to work and prosper in the Islamic Republic of Iran!” A few months later, Leila and Peyman, along with 11 other Christians including Sara and Atena, were sentenced to one year in prison for “propaganda against the regime and setting up house churches”, and between 40 and 50 lashes for meeting in private with members of the opposite sex who were not wearing Islamic head coverings. Leila and Peyman were encouraged to leave the country by their pastor and, after much deliberation, decided to do so – for their daughter’s sake. “Because our daughter was so little, we would have had to take her to prison as well,” Leila explains. “So my husband said: ‘If it was me and you, that would have been fine, but we can’t make a decision for our daughter too.’” So in May 2014, a year after the initial raid, the couple flew to Turkey to claim asylum, and it is there they remain. Peyman says that even now, more than six and a half years later, he still has dreams about returning to his old job, but that in 99% of his dreams, when he gets there, he is turned away. “It’s been six years that we’ve been here,” Leila adds, “but I don’t still really genuinely feel that I’m here. I don’t see myself belonging here.” And while Leila’s sisters and brother have joined them in Istanbul, and her parents have visited, Peyman hasn’t seen his family since they moved. His mother, who was the only one who knew about his conversion to Christianity before his arrest, is not well enough to travel, and the couple can’t fly back to Iran. Relations have also remained strained with the rest of Peyman’s family ever since the arrest. “My husband’s family considered me the source of all the problems,” Leila explains. “His brother, when he was informed about the arrests, was so mad, saying: ‘My brother had nothing to do with these sort of things! If anything happens to my mother or any other member of my family, you will be held accountable!’ Even for leaving the country and choosing exile, still I was to be blamed.” And although Armita, who is now eight, was very young when the raid occurred, Leila says she still talks about the night “when those bad guys came”. You can read Leila and Peyman’s full Witness Statement here.
A recipe for intolerance: Iran’s blueprint for cracking down on Christians 10 December 2020 Analysis Embed from Getty Images By Mansour Borji Every year at Christmas, Iranian regime figures line up to offer their best wishes to their Christian compatriots. Such well-wishing is a well-established practice of the regime, dating back to founding father Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, who, before he returned to Iran to usher in a new Islamic republic in 1979, made a series of promises that sounded very liberal, tolerant, and inclusive of people with varying opinions and beliefs. Khomenei talked about religious minorities and even communists – atheists in his view – and said that even they were free to express their views. These promises were repeated by his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But the reality of life for religious minorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran has proven very different, as many Iranians will attest, regardless of their political or religious viewpoints. One recent illustration is the 80 lashes given to two Christian converts in the past two months for drinking wine as part of Holy Communion. One of these converts is currently serving a six-year prison sentence; the other is in internal exile, having already spent two years in prison. The charge against them? “Acting against national security by establishing house-churches and promoting ‘Zionist’ Christianity.” In the regime’s eyes, these converts, and all others like them – a recent survey suggests there may be as many as 1 million – are no Christians. They are erring Muslims. So any punishment is justified. And in spite of what regime figures like to say about the “tolerance” of the Islamic Republic, from the early days of the revolution – as soon as they were firmly in power – the ayatollahs began a crackdown on civil and religious liberties. They started with the easiest targets at the time – the Jews, Western missionaries, and Baha’is – and then they began to include ordinary Christians and other religious minorities, as they sought to create a Shi’a hegemony. They exercised their intolerance in a number of ways that could only be described as systematic persecution, depriving people of the five rights enshrined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the freedom to choose one’s religion, propagate it, and teach it to one’s children. How did they do this? First, they ensured religious minorities were separated from the rest of the world. They isolated them, and tried to destroy any semblance of unity among different religious groups, or even within a particular faith group or denomination. For instance, there were times prior to the Islamic Revolution when Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Christians would come together on special occasions and display ecumenical relations. But in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, a chasm was created between those who complied with the government demands not to propagate their faith – and who could assist the Iranian regime in portraying a more tolerant view of things abroad – and those who were intent on sharing their faith with others, regardless of their religious background. The missionaries were kicked out, and the indigenous believers were not free to meet or collaborate with their contemporaries outside the country on religious issues. For those from more institutional churches, like the Anglicans and Catholics, their contacts with the outside world, even if just in the context of church ecumenism, were monitored and viewed as highly suspect, as the Iranian regime still saw the West in general as “Christendom”, and their own country as the land of Islam. Control The next tactic they used was to control the church’s expansion by not allowing non-compliant churches to build new churches, or at times even to repair existing ones. Non-registration of properties and worship spaces was used as a threat to create instability and uncertainty. Some churches applied for registration from the Ministry of Interior, providing all the necessary documents, but years later they still did not receive formal recognition and registration, placing them constantly at risk of being labelled “illegal” and shut down, a tactic common in communist China and perhaps copied from there. The third tactic was to criminalise evangelism, and this went far beyond street outreach. Churches that offered services in Persian, Iran’s national language, paid a heavy cost, as they resisted the call to cease these services. “They banned us from teaching or praying in Persian at all,” Rev. Victor Bet-Tamraz told me recently, having fled the country after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for continuing to hold Persian-language services in his home after he was banned from leading his church. Suffocation The next tactic was to suffocate the church by undermining leadership development. This was pursued through two means: one, forcing effective and experienced leaders, like Rev. Victor, out of the country, using the threat of long imprisonment or “accidents” to their family members. And, two, by shutting down Christian seminaries and ending opportunities for basic leadership training – from the raids on the Assemblies of God Central Church in Tehran, where they confiscated all the books available, to the personal archive of the pastors when their houses were raided, including Rev. Robert Assyrian. All their books were confiscated, and never returned. In recent years, many people have been arrested, questioned, charged, and even convicted of attending Christian seminars designed to train or equip Christians for the ministry. For instance, Shamiram Issavi, Rev. Victor’s wife, faced charges of attending Christian seminars outside the country, among many others. The next step was to remove or obstruct Christians’ access to resources: confiscation of properties and anything related to their Christian activities – from a personal mobile phone, to a car that may have been used by a pastor to drive to meet his congregation, to homes purchased with the lifelong earnings of these families. The fact that the Iranian authorities have arrested growing numbers of ordinary church members in addition to church leaders, especially over the past two decades, shows how desperate they are to maintain control and halt the growth of the house-church movement. Many of those arrested report an array of tactics used to intimidate, threaten, and manipulate them, ranging from psychological torture to physical and sexual abuse. Meanwhile, every year there seem to be an increasing number of people sentenced to prison and exile, and the Iranian judicial authorities make no secret that it’s because they interpret their peaceful religious activities as a threat to the regime’s stability and the country’s national security. A decade ago, in October 2010, Khamenei specifically mentioned house-churches among the “critical threats” facing the Islamic Republic. Demonisation And all the while, the regime prepares public opinion to accept the state’s intolerant actions through propaganda and psychological warfare, using all platforms available – from state media, to mosques and numerous state-run social media accounts. Their aim is to dehumanise the Christian community and use language and messaging that will desensitise the Iranian public to the criminal and unjust actions taken against them. After a wave of arrests in the wake of Khamenei’s 2010 speech, the Tehran governor at the time, Morteza Tamadon, described the rise of evangelical Christianity in Iran as akin to the arrival of a new “parasite”. This and many other similar comments were used to portray Christians who were non-compliant with the regime as “sectarians”, “agents of the imperialists”, and “Zionists” – something they frequently evoke. When a Christian retreat centre outside Tehran was confiscated in 2018, for example, the Assemblies of God denomination that owned the building was demonised and accused of being “funded by the USA and CIA spy agency to infiltrate the countries of the Islamic world”. How should the West respond? While the international community tries to maintain a good relationship with Iran because of its geopolitical importance and wealth of natural resources, the West needs to go beyond lip service and make discussions around improvement of human rights an integral part of foreign policy and diplomatic relations with Tehran. The Iranian regime should know that, for its survival, it must comply with the human rights enshrined in the international conventions to which it is a signatory. We cannot hope for any change in the regime’s behaviour, policies, or attitude unless it becomes costly for them. The Iranian government must know that if they continue to behave the way they are right now, they will be isolated, their leaders will be sanctioned, their access to the international market and resources will be limited, their reputation will be further damaged, and they will face legal consequences for their actions – and a taste of their own medicine. This article was first published on 9 December 2020 as a guest contribution for the Middle East Institute website.
Iran still a ‘country of particular concern’ when it comes to religious freedom 8 December 2020 News Embed from Getty Images The US State Department has re-designated Iran as a “Country of Particular Concern” for “engaging in or tolerating systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom”. Iran is one of only 10 such countries, alongside Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. “No country or entity should be allowed to persecute people with impunity because of their beliefs,” wrote Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Twitter. “These annual designations show that when religious freedom is attacked, we will act.” The U.S. is unwavering in its commitment to religious freedom. No country or entity should be allowed to persecute people with impunity because of their beliefs. These annual designations show that when religious freedom is attacked, we will act.— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) December 7, 2020 Meanwhile, the EU has agreed a new mechanism for imposing sanctions upon officials and organisations responsible for human rights abuses, including travel bans and the freezing of assets. The new system will work much like the Magnitsky Act in the US, under which multiple Iranian organisations and individuals have been sanctioned, including, most recently, the Minister of Intelligence and the Mostazafan Foundation. Last year, Minister of Intelligence Mahmoud Alavi openly admitted to summoning Christian converts for questioning “to ask them why they were converting”, as “it is happening right before our eyes” – a clear breach of Article 23 of Iran’s constitution, which states that “no-one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief”, and contrary to the claims of officials such as Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif that no-one is targeted because of their beliefs. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom noted that Mr Alavi’s intelligence agents were also behind the closure of the Assyrian church in Tabriz last year. The Mostazafan Foundation, meanwhile, recently reopened the long-confiscated bishop’s house in Isfahan – once the seat of the Anglican Church in Iran – as its new office to manage its many other properties. The foundation, which is under the direct rule of the Supreme Leader, is one of the richest organisations in the country – with an estimated value of over $3 billion dollars – and its dealings are far from transparent. “Iran’s Supreme Leader uses Bonyad Mostazafan to reward his allies under the pretense of charity,” said US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a statement explaining the sanctions. “The United States will continue to target key officials and revenue generating sources that enable the regime’s ongoing repression of its own people.”
Article18 calls on UN General Assembly to ratify Iran rights resolution 7 December 2020 News Article18 has joined 36 other rights group in calling on UN member states to ratify the recently adopted resolution on the promotion and protection of human rights in Iran at a plenary session of the General Assembly later this month. The resolution, which was passed by the Assembly on 18 November, expresses “serious concerns” about the situation of human rights in Iran, including “severe limitations” and “increasing restrictions” on religious freedom. In a joint letter sent out today, the 37 signatories say the resolution “provides an opportunity for the General Assembly to take stock of the human rights situation in Iran”, including violations, “in law and practice”, of freedom of religion or belief and “systematic discrimination” against Christian converts. Below is the full text of the letter, and list of signatories: Your Excellencies,The undersigned national, regional and international civil society organizations urge your government to support resolution A/C.3/75/L.31/Rev.1 on the promotion and protection of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, adopted by the General Assembly’s Third Committee, when it comes for adoption by its plenary later this month.This resolution provides an opportunity for the General Assembly to take stock of the human rights situation in Iran, including the violent repression of nationwide protests in November 2019. It is also an opportunity for the community of states to express concern about ongoing crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations perpetrated by the Iranian authorities and to help put an end to the systematic impunity that prevails in the country.The resolution is presented to the General Assembly a year after the Iranian authorities perpetrated what the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran described as an “unprecedented violent crackdown against protesters”. In response to nationwide protests in November 2019, the Iranian authorities waged a campaign of mass repression, including through the deliberate use of unwarranted lethal force to kill hundreds of men, women, and children. The vast majority of protesters and bystanders killed were shot by security forces in the head or torso, indicating intent to kill and exposing utter disregard for the right to life and international norms on the use of force and firearms. Security forces also subjected thousands of men, women, and children to arbitrary arrest and detention, enforced disappearance, and torture and other ill-treatment. These human rights violations took place under the cover of the authorities’ near total shutdown of the internet, preventing people inside Iran from sharing images and videos of the crackdown with the rest of the world. Hundreds of people, including human rights defenders, have since been sentenced to prison terms and flogging, and several to the death penalty, in unfair trials stemming from the protests. Journalists have been put in jail in relation to their coverage of the protests.To date, no public official has been investigated for ordering, committing, or acquiescing to these serious human rights violations. The Iranian authorities have ignored multiple calls for transparency and accountability from UN Special Rapporteurs, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the UN Secretary-General. The draft resolution expresses concern about patterns of violations of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights detailed in the reports presented at this session by the UN Secretary-General and the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran. These include the widespread use of the death penalty, including against individuals who were children at the time of the crime, in violation of Iran’s obligations under international law. Iranian law retains the death penalty for offences that do not meet the threshold of the most serious crimes under international law, including some drug-related offences, as well as for acts protected under international human rights law, such as some consensual same-sex sexual conduct, and for vaguely worded offences such as “enmity against god” (moharebeh). In the past year, a disproportionate number of executions have been carried out against members of Iran’s Kurdish minority while several protesters and a journalist have been sentenced to death, giving rise to concerns that the death penalty is being increasingly used as a weapon of political repression against protesters, dissidents and members of minority groups. Arbitrary restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly are also highlighted in the draft resolution. Authorities have continued to arbitrarily detain hundreds of people for peacefully exercising their rights, including journalists and media workers, political dissidents, writers, and human rights defenders. Conditions in many prisons and detention facilities remain cruel and inhuman and have deteriorated amidst the authorities’ failure to contain the spread of COVID-19 in prisons and protect the health of those deprived of their liberty. Many of those detained for peacefully exercising their human rights have been excluded from temporary furloughs and pardons.The draft resolution urges the Iranian authorities to eliminate, in law and in practice, all forms of discrimination. The undersigned organizations are also deeply concerned about ongoing discrimination and violence based on sex, political opinion, religious belief, ethnicity, language, gender identity, and sexual orientation entrenched in Iranian laws or in policies and state practices. Ethnic minorities, including Ahwazi Arabs, Azerbaijani Turks, Baluchis, Kurds, and Turkmen continue to face discrimination, impeding their access to education, employment, adequate housing, and political office. Freedom of religion or belief is systematically violated in law and practice and religious minorities including Baha’is, Christians, Gonabadi Dervishes, Jews, Yaresan (Ahl-e Haq), and converts from Shi’a Islam to Sunni Islam or Christianity continue to face systematic discrimination. Women continue to face entrenched discrimination, enshrined in law, including in relation to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and employment. The authorities’ failure to criminalize gender-based violence, including so-called ‘honor killings’ and early and forced marriages, has led to impunity for men who murder or otherwise harm their female relatives. Women and girls continue to suffer daily harassment and violent attacks stemming from discriminatory compulsory veiling laws and several women’s rights defenders who campaigned against such laws remain arbitrarily detained. The undersigned organizations echo concerns in the draft resolution about enforced disappearance and widespread and systematic torture and other ill-treatment, including through the denial of medical care; the failure to respect fair trial guarantees, including the systematic denial of access to a lawyer at the investigation stage to individuals facing national security charges; the use of forced “confessions” obtained under torture and other ill-treatment as evidence by courts to form the basis of convictions; and deaths in custody. We also express concern about ongoing cases of enforced disappearance through the systematic concealment of the fate and whereabouts of several thousand political dissidents forcibly disappeared and extrajudicially executed in secret in 1988 and the destruction of unmarked mass grave sites believed to contain their remains. The Iranian authorities have consistently failed to take steps to address these human rights concerns, despite repeated calls including from UN treaty bodies, special procedures, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Secretary-General, the Human Rights Council, and the General Assembly. Ignoring repeated calls for transparency, the authorities in Iran have also refused to submit to the scrutiny of independent monitors such as the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran. Instead, they have carried out reprisals against individuals for communicating with UN human rights bodies and intimidated and harassed victims’ families seeking truth and justice for their loved ones killed during the November 2019 protests, in the downing of a Ukrainian passenger plane by the Revolutionary Guards in January 2020, and during the 1988 prison massacres. With Iran’s presidential election scheduled to take place in 2021, the undersigned organizations are seriously concerned that ongoing impunity for the crimes and human rights violations committed by the Iranian authorities will embolden them to continue the pattern of severe repression of the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, as well as unlawful use of force against protesters, documented over the past year, especially if they are not held to account by the community of states. For these reasons, the international community must raise the alarm and condemn these persistent and gross violations of human rights in Iran, including by voting in favor of draft resolution A/C.3/75/L.31/Rev.1. With this vote, your government will send a strong message to the Iranian authorities that the repetition of past patterns of grave violations will not be tolerated, that impunity must end, and that the international community is expecting without delay the adoption of long-overdue human rights reforms and tangible improvements to the human rights situation in the country. Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABC)The Advocates for Human RightsAll Human Rights for All in IranAmnesty InternationalArseh SevomArticle18ARTICLE 19Association for the Human Rights of the Azerbaijani people in Iran (AHRAZ)Balochistan Human Rights GroupCairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)Ceasefire Centre for Civilian RightsCenter for Human Rights in IranCentre for Supporters of Human RightsCIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen ParticipationCommittee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM)Freedom from TortureHuman Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI)Human Rights WatchImpact IranInternational Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World)International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR)International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)Iran Human RightsIran Human Rights Documentation CenterJustice for IranKurdistan Human Rights-Geneva (KMMK-G)Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN)Minority Rights Group InternationalOutRight Action InternationalSiamak Pourzand FoundationSmall Media FoundationUnited for IranWorld Coalition Against the Death PenaltyWorld Organization Against Torture (OMCT)6Rang, Iranian Lesbian and Transgender Network
‘Iran’s religious minorities facing greatest threat since revolution’ 4 December 2020 News Clockwise from top-left: Afshin Sajedi (IOPHR), Sharon Nazarian (ADL), Mansour Borji (Article18), Alireza Nader (FDD), Ebrahim Ahrari Khalaf (Kalemeh TV), and Farhad Sabetan (BIC). Iran’s religious minorities are today facing the greatest threat to their existence since the 1979 revolution, according to one expert. Alireza Nader, senior fellow at the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), was speaking at a recent virtual event focused on the Islamic Republic’s attitudes towards different religious groups, hosted by the International Organisation to Preserve Human Rights (IOPHR) as part of the third annual Ministerial to Advance Freedom of Religion or Belief. Mr Nader referenced the recent flogging of Christian convert Zaman (Saheb) Fadaie as he suggested that “today, in 2020, religious minorities are perhaps facing the greatest danger to their existence since the 1979 revolution”. “Every day we see reports of severe persecution of Christians,” he said. “… I don’t think that since the revolution – and probably the 80s – that there’s been this much repression against Iran’s religious minorities, and in particular Christians, but also [Sufi] dervishes, Baha’is, Sunnis … and Jewish Iranians.” Article18’s advocacy director, Mansour Borji, was another of the guest speakers, explaining how Iran’s repression of Christians includes both recognised ethnic Assyrian and Armenian Christians as well as unrecognised converts to Christianity. Mr Borji used the example of Iranian-Assyrian pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, forced to flee Iran in August this year, to show the pressure facing members of the recognised Christian community who do not comply with the regime’s prohibition on evangelising to Muslims. “But even those members of the Iranian recognised minorities who choose not to evangelise do not enjoy the same rights as their Muslim compatriots,” he explained, “whether it’s inheritance – where one Muslim relative is entitled to inherit everything at the expense of his non-Muslim family member – or employment, where non-Muslims are prohibited from many government jobs or a position in the army, despite being forced to partake in military service, or testimony in court, where the testimony of non-Muslims cannot be accepted against that of a Muslim.” However, Mr Borji acknowledged that it is Iran’s unrecognised minorities, like the Baha’is and Christian converts who “suffer most”. He cited the example of the 17 Christian prisoners of conscience inside Tehran’s Evin Prison at the moment – all of them converts – as well as the recent flogging of Saheb Fadaie and fellow convert Mohammad Reza (Youhan) Omidi for drinking wine with Communion, and the decision to remove an adopted two-year-old girl from her parents only because they are Christian converts. Another speaker, IOPHR’s Afshin Sajedi, noted that several converts have been “brutally murdered” since the revolution, adding that while “religion-change is still a crime in some parts of the world, Iran is the only country where conversion is punishable by death”. Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the execution of a Christian convert, Rev Hossein Soodmand, for his “apostasy”, and while he remains the only Iranian Christian to have been killed on such a charge, others have been sentenced to death – only to see the ruling overturned after an outcry – and seven have been killed extrajudicially since the 1979 revolution. Ebrahim Ahrari Khalaf, representing Iran’s Sunni community, said the regime had stigmatised different minority groups over the past 42 years, including Baha’is, Christian converts and Sufis, and that through this “they have instilled animosity among different populations and different groups in Iran.” How should the international community respond? Mr Nader said he feared “the state repression in Iran is going to become much, much worse”, and that he had “zero hope this regime will reform itself”. Instead, he called on the international community – and in particular the new US administration – not to “ignore human rights” as part of any negotiations with Iran. The other panelists concurred, with Baha’i representative Farhad Sabetan saying it was “absolutely imperative for the international community to not sacrifice or ignore human rights norms and standards for the sake of trade”. “It very much should be the policy of the international community to ensure that their relationship with the Iranian government is in fact very closely tied to observing human rights,” he said. “And it is my understanding that the Iranian government does care about international opinion, and therefore the international community should make sure that human rights is on top of the agenda in any form of relationship with Iran, and of course is not sacrificed.” Jewish representative Sharon Nazarian called for greater collaboration among the different minority groups, saying: “We can come together and speak with one voice about the atrocities being committed by the Islamic Republic on its own citizens on a daily basis. And then we hold our own governments in the US and in Europe responsible for bearing pressure on the regime, and not always putting their economic interests ahead of human rights issues.” Mr Borji suggested the best way to collaborate may be to focus on the right of every Iranian to choose what they believe. “I think the right to religious freedom – as very correctly defined in the preamble of the international declaration of human rights – is a fundamental right,” he said, “not just a matter of concern for religious minorities. It is for all people of all faiths – whether majority or minority – and that’s where we need to adopt the language everybody would understand. “If we are here talking about the rights of the Sunnis, Baha’is, Jews, Christians… It’s a right of every Iranian to choose what they believe, or not to believe at all. And that’s something that we can collectively try and focus our efforts towards.”
30 years since Iranian Christian convert hanged for ‘apostasy’ 3 December 2020 Features Today is the 30th anniversary of the hanging of Iranian Christian convert Rev Hossein Soodmand for “apostasy”. Hossein had been arrested a few weeks beforehand, and was executed following a ruling by an Islamic clerical court, without his family’s knowledge. His wife, Mahtab, who is blind, and four children – Ramtin (15), Rashin (12), and twins Arya and Arian (nine) – only found out about his death after other senior church leaders were summoned to the court. They were told Hossein had been executed and his body buried in an unmarked grave outside the walls of a Mashhad cemetery – an area reserved for the “accursed”. So Hossein’s family were not afforded any opportunity to bid him farewell, nor even to hear his final wishes. And, despite their pleas, they have never been permitted even to erect a simple headstone above his resting place. To add insult to injury, during a visit to the grave last year, Hossein’s family discovered that even the basic concrete slab that marked his place of burial had been demolished. All that now remains is the soil under which he was once laid. The unmarked concrete slab (right) was found demolished during the family’s visit last year (left). Who was Hossein Soodmand? Hossein was born in 1940 to a Muslim family in the conservative Shia city of Mashhad in north-eastern Iran. He converted to Christianity during his military service in Ahvaz, after becoming friends with an Iranian-Armenian Christian. When he returned home and told his family about his decision, Hossein was told to leave. So he moved to Tehran, where he worked as a street seller and in time came to know the Rev Mehdi Dibaj, a fellow convert to Christianity who would also later pay with his life for his own act of “apostasy”. Rev Arastoo Sayyah, who was the first Iranian Christian killed after the revolution, married Hossein and Mahtab in 1970. Hossein then moved to Isfahan, where he worked at the Anglican-run institute for the blind, and it was here that he met his wife, Mahtab. They married in 1970, in a service conducted by another Christian convert, Rev Arastoo Sayyah, who was also later killed because of his choice to leave Islam. In 1977, Hossein became the assistant pastor of the Assemblies of God church in Isfahan, which was under the stewardship of Edward Hovsepian-Mehr – now superintendent of the Council of United Iranian Churches (Hamgaam) in Europe. A young Bahram Dehqani-Tafti, son of the first ethnic Persian Anglican bishop, was a guest at the wedding. He too was killed. When Edward was posted to another city, Hossein took over the leadership of the church and was ordained by Edward’s brother, Haik – superintendent of the Assemblies of God churches in Iran, and another Iranian Christian to later pay the ultimate price for his faith. In 1980, after the confiscation of the Christian-run hospital and institution for the blind in Isfahan, Hossein moved back to Mashhad with the aim of planting a church in his home city. But though the church thrived, the local authorities – in what is one of Iran’s most religious cities and a place of pilgrimage for millions of Shia Muslims every year – refused Hossein permission to build a church. Instead, he was initially permitted to host the church in his home, above which he erected a sign, declaring it the Assemblies of God Church of Mashhad. But Hossein, who was a keen evangelist and distributed Bibles across Iran, continued to be viewed with suspicion and, following the death of Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, he was told his church must close. Hossein continued to meet with his congregation in secret, but he was regularly arrested and detained, then usually released after a few days. Bishop Haik Hovsepian (third from right), standing here alongside his brother Edward (far right), led the funeral service at Hossein’s unmarked grave. However, in October 1990, Hossein was held for longer than usual, spending one month in solitary confinement before being released after complaints from Bishop Haik. But Hossein was re-arrested just a few weeks later, and this time he never returned home. According to the report of the UN’s special rapporteur at the time, Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, Hossein had been charged with “apostasy, propagating Christianity, distributing Christian literature, and setting up an illegal church”. Hossein remains the only Iranian Christian to have been officially executed for his “apostasy”, though others have been sentenced to death – only to see the ruling overturned after an outcry – while some of Hossein’s closest friends, including Arastoo, Haik and Mehdi, are among the seven Christians to have been killed extrajudicially since the revolution. Hossein Soodmand (second from left), pictured alongside other Assemblies of God leaders, including Mohammad Bagher Yusefi, or “Ravanbakhsh” (far left) and Haik Hovsepian (in the red shirt), who were also later killed for their faith. A son’s reflections On the 30th anniversary of his father’s death, Hossein’s eldest child, Ramtin, shared these reflections on Facebook: “The day before – that means on Sunday – we were informed by Tehran that the council of [Assemblies of God] pastors, according to the request of one of the departments of the special clerical court of the city of Mashhad, was on its way to our city. “So this council, composed of the bishop of the Assemblies of God churches [Haik Hovsepian], and some other pastors, arrived in Mashhad on the first available flight and immediately went to where they were summoned. “The twins went to school in the morning, but Rashin and I were at home. Maybe Rashin thought Dad would return that day and that he should find tea prepared for him when he arrived, as he liked. Ramtin (top) with his parents and the eldest of his two sisters, Rashin. There are no remaining photographs of all the family together, after many were taken away by the regime. “Mum was sitting in the living room with two ladies – Akhtar [Ravanbakhsh’s wife] and Tahmineh [a church member]. Nobody spoke. They didn’t even dare to make predictions about what may be happening. We were all waiting for the return of the members of the council. “With the sound of the doorbell, we all jumped from our seats and somebody pressed the intercom button. I went quickly to the window in my father’s room and from there I looked down into the courtyard. “None of the men who stood in the courtyard below raised their heads. To this day, each of them is revered in my eyes, and will remain so, but what was going on in their hearts on that day that they didn’t even respond to my muted greeting? “I understood everything in that moment – that they were the messengers of bitter news. “It took them a few minutes to make it up the few steps. Pastor Leon [Hairapetian] came in first, followed by Ravanbakhsh – both upset and worried. “The next to arrive was dear Haik. He did not smile, nor was he worried. He remained resolute. Extremely resolute. “That strengthened my heart a little, but… “Thirty years have passed since that bitter day. “Still, my heart remains strong.”
House-church leaders acquitted of ‘acting against national security’ 26 November 2020 News Aziz (Andreas) Majidzadeh is 56 years old and lives in Tehran with his wife and two children. Two Iranian Christian converts have overturned on appeal a combined 10-year prison sentence for their leadership of a house-church. Aziz Majidzadeh, known as Andreas, and another convert who cannot be named, were sentenced to four and six years in prison respectively in July – a ruling that was not made public at the time. But on 9 November, an appeals court judge overturned the verdict, ruling there was insufficient evidence their leadership of a house-church amounted to “actions against national security”. The ruling has been hailed as “miraculous”, given the numerous rulings – including the initial judgement in this case – made against house-church members for alleged “actions against national security”. And it is another example of the subjective and arbitrary nature of law and order in Iran’s revolutionary courts, given that another Christian convert, Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, who is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for membership of a house-church, recently saw his third plea for a retrial rejected, despite using the very same arguments that have now seen two other converts acquitted. In his ruling, the judge at Branch 34 of the appeal court in Tehran, Ali Asghar Kamoli, referred to the statements made by both Andreas and the other convert during their interrogations, noting: “Both defendants have similarly stated that, ‘We are Christians and members of a house-church, and have gathered for worship and prayer, but have not done anything against our country, which we love. We are law-abiding Christians, and the Bible calls us to respect and honour the laws of our country.’” Based on these statements, Judge Kamoli overturned the verdict, referencing Article 120 of the Islamic Penal Code, which states: “If there is any evidence that puts a shadow of doubt over the conditions in which a crime may or may not have taken place, the defendant shall be found innocent.” Background Andreas and the other convert were among 20 Christians detained following a raid on a house-church in Karaj, near Tehran, on 2 March 2018. Most were released a few days later, but Andreas was held in Tehran’s Evin Prison for more than two months. He was eventually released on bail on 10 May 2018, at which time he had yet to be formally charged. But Andreas and the other convert were later charged with “acting against national security” through membership and organisation of an “illegal” group, and “propaganda against the state”. At Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, on 25 July 2020, they were cleared of the final charge of “propaganda against the state”, but found guilty of both membership and organisation of a house-church and sentenced to four and six years in prison, respectively, under articles 498 and 499 of the Islamic Penal Code, which relate to membership and organisation of groups “hostile to the regime”. They were also sentenced to three months’ community service in an old people’s home, a two-year travel ban, and a two-year ban on membership of any political or social group – all of which would have come into force at the conclusion of their prison terms.
15 years since brutal murder of Christian convert Ghorban Tourani 20 November 2020 Features This Sunday will be the 15th anniversary of the brutal murder of Iranian Christian convert Ghorban Tourani, whose still-bleeding body was dumped onto his doorstep on 22 November 2005. Ghorban’s murder – he was stabbed in the stomach, throat and back – remains the most recent of eight known killings of Iranian Christians since the 1979 revolution, all but one of them extrajudicial. Ghorban, who was 53 years old, was an ethnic Turkmen from the city of Gonbad-e Kavus near the Turkmenistan border in Iran’s northeast. He converted to Christianity during the 15 years he spent in a Turkmenistan prison for killing a man during a fight, and returned home to Iran in 1998 a changed man. Ghorban quickly established a house-church in his city, but faced opposition from local religious leaders in the predominantly Sunni Muslim city. He received multiple threats, including from some members of his own family, and bore a scar across his face from a previous knife attack by his brother. A week before his murder, Ghorban was reportedly told by local extremists he had “one last chance” to return to Islam or face the consequences. Ghorban holding a cake in the shape of a cross. On the day of his murder, Ghorban left his home for another meeting with the group in a park, but when no-one showed up, he returned home. Then, as he neared his home, Ghorban noticed a car parked on the edge of the street where he lived, and as he approached three men got out and stabbed him in the throat, back and stomach. His body was then dumped onto his front doorstep. A witness later recalled hearing one of the assailants calling out that such was the punishment for those who “become infidels and reject Islam”. Ghorban’s widow, Afoul Achikeh, said afterwards that her husband was “a Christian martyr who laid down his life for the sake of Christ”. A year before his death, Ghorban had written a poem, in which he expressed his willingness to die for his faith. “I am willing to give my life, which belongs to You, for the sake of You and Your Church,” he wrote. The day after Ghorban’s murder, intelligence agents raided his home and those of other local converts and confiscated all the Christian items they found. The local authorities blamed the murder on extremists, but no-one was ever identified or convicted, while their reluctance to investigate the murder, and attempts to silence the family in the wake of the international attention it received, were viewed by local Christians as evidence of their complicity. Ghorban’s murder came just a few days after the new hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reported to have vowed to “stop Christianity in this country” in a meeting with provincial governors. Many observers interpreted this as providing law enforcers across the country with a “green light” to crackdown on Christians. The pressure on Christians in Iran, especially converts, continues to this day. Twenty Christians are currently serving sentences either in prison or exile, and last year five converts in Ghorban’s own city were arrested and three of them imprisoned on charges related to their Christian activities.
Iran’s ‘increasing restrictions’ on religious freedom a ‘serious concern’ – UN 19 November 2020 News The UN General Assembly in New York (Photo: Patrick Gruban / Flickr / CC) The UN’s General Assembly has passed a resolution expressing “serious concerns” about the situation of human rights in Iran, including “severe limitations” and “increasing restrictions” on religious freedom. The resolution, passed yesterday by 79 votes to 32, with 64 abstentions, calls on Iran to “eliminate, in law and in practice, all forms of discrimination on the basis of thought, conscience, religion or belief”, including denial of employment and access to education. The Iranian government should “cease monitoring individuals on account of their religious identity”, the resolution says, “release all religious practitioners imprisoned for their membership in or activities on behalf of a recognized or unrecognized minority religious group”, and “ensure everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of their choice”, in accordance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Iran is a signatory. It lists a number of other rights violations against both recognised and unrecognised minorities, including “harassment, intimidation, persecution, arbitrary arrests and detention, and incitement to hatred that leads to violence”. Other rights concerns listed in the resolution include: Use of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.“Unduly harsh” sentences, including long-term internal exile.Persecution of political opponents and rights defenders.Poor prison conditions, including lack of access to adequate medical care.Restrictions on the right to freedom of expression and opinion, freedom of association, and peaceful assembly.Death penalty use at “alarmingly high frequency”.Targeting of foreign and dual nationals.Restrictions on Internet access.Discrimination against women and ethnic minorities. The resolution also calls on Iran to allow access to the country to the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman.
Christian convert Kavian Fallah-Mohammadi on his arrest, 10-year sentence and why he left Iran 18 November 2020 Features Iranian Christian convert Kavian Fallah-Mohammadi has spoken exclusively with Article18 about his arrest at a Christmas gathering in 2014, at the home of Iranian-Assyrian pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, his subsequent 10-year prison sentence, and the eventual rejection of his appeal earlier this year. In the 17-minute video interview, Kavian, who is now living as an asylum seeker in Turkey, begins by explaining why he and other converts meet together in private homes, rather than churches: “Unfortunately, a few years ago, [nearly] all Persian-language churches in Iran were closed,” he explains. “The only place where Christians – I’m talking about Persian-speaking churches – can gather is in homes. So inevitably we do gather together like this, but of course it wouldn’t be our first choice and it isn’t safe.” Kavian then describes how he was arrested, even though they had no warrant for his arrest and “didn’t seem to know what to do with me”, and how the agents treated him “respectfully” during his arrest, but changed their behaviour “180 degrees” after he was detained. “I was kept for 23 days in solitary confinement, in an environment where you have no access to anything,” he says. “Even my glasses were taken away from me! There was neither a pen, nor anything else; there was nothing you could do. It was very difficult, and the interrogations were very sporadic. You weren’t sure if you were going to be interrogated one day, or a week later, nor how long you would have to stay in that place: a day, a week, a month, a year … a lifetime? They put me in a state of total uncertainty, which was incredibly stressful.” Kavian says he was blindfolded any time he left his cell and that during his interrogations a set of blank sheets of paper were placed in front of him and he was told to fill 16 pages. “It is against the law to make someone write about themselves without any specific question,” he explains, “and it really placed me under a lot of pressure.” ‘You’ll be here so long, your hair will turn white like your teeth!’ Kavian says the agents told him that if he “cooperated”, they would reduce his punishment. “These were exactly the words of my interrogator: ‘If you cooperate really well, we will turn your lifetime imprisonment into five years, the five-year imprisonment into some months, or even release you right now. It depends on how much you cooperate with us!’” Kavian says. After he refused, they reportedly said: “You’re going to be here for so long, your hair will turn white like your teeth!” Kavian was eventually sentenced, in July 2017, to 10 years in prison for “acting against national security by organising and conducting an illegal house-church”. This 10-year sentence was the most severe punishment the law provides for conducting a so-called “illegal” assembly, Kavian explains. “And actually I hadn’t ever even been summoned before,” he says. “I received no warning; I hadn’t even been once to the Ministry of Intelligence, nor had there ever been any court case against me, but they severely punished me, without any evidence. “They accused me of ‘organising and conducting an illegal assembly’ – namely, a house-church – and preaching ‘evangelical Christianity’. But actually I personally didn’t lead a church – which wouldn’t be illegal anyway, but nevertheless I didn’t! They didn’t even take any evidence from me; they didn’t even find my Bible! The only ‘evidence’ they had was the interrogations they had done with me.” Kavian then explains how he fled Iran about four years ago, after becoming less and less “optimistic” about his case. But it wasn’t until this summer, nearly six years after his arrest and more than three years after his sentencing, that Kavian finally heard his appeal, and those of the other four Christians sentenced alongside him, had been rejected. Since leaving Iran, Kavian says he has lived in “complete uncertainty”. “I registered as an asylum seeker at the United Nations,” he says, “but after four years not only was I not interviewed, but I am still in an unstable situation in Turkey, and still the situation really isn’t clear. So I have no clear vision for the future.” Kavian says he was particularly disappointed when his application for a humanitarian visa to live in Australia was rejected. “That was a big shock for me,” he says. “I really didn’t expect that such a heavy sentence would be handed down to me, and then that a country that accepts asylum seekers would reject my case, and that this very severe psychological pressure would be placed on me.”