Protecting converts against deportation to countries where Christians are persecuted 23 October 2019 Reports Christian converts seeking asylum in Germany are half as likely to succeed in their applications today as they were two years ago, according to this survey . by Christian charity Open Doors Germany reviewed the experiences of over 6,500 converts – 70% of whom are Iranian – from 179 German churches between January 2014 and September 2019. It found that the acceptance rate of Germany’s Federal Office of Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has “fallen drastically” for Christian convert asylum seekers of “almost all nationalities” since mid-2017, and that in several federal states it has halved. For the 4,557 Iranians in the survey, 50% had claims accepted before July 2017 and only 22% since. The majority of rejected claims were successfully appealed in administrative courts (AC), but Open Doors Germany says the great disparity between BAMF’s findings and those of the appeal courts “must give rise to concern”, as they show “thousands of wrong decisions”. The authors of the 100-page report estimate that the survey sample represents 15-30% of the total number of convert asylum seekers in Germany, a country that has seen an influx of over two million asylum seekers since 2014. Many of the converts – whether they converted in their home countries or in Europe – are Iranian, as indicated by the survey. As Article18 has highlighted frequently, Iranians who convert to Christianity face immense pressure, leading many to flee. Open Doors accuses Germany’s migration service of failing to recognise the dangers faced by Christian converts in primarily Islamic countries like Iran. The report notes that while Germany’s overall acceptance rate for asylum seekers has fallen largely in line with the figures for converts since mid-2017, the protection rate for converts has dropped to an even greater degree. Open Doors says converts’ “situation of special vulnerability, and thus their need of protection, is not acknowledged in many cases”. Instead, “authorities bring forward the argument that there is no sincere change of faith, therefore persecution is not to be expected in the event of deportation”. So what’s changed since 2017? The report says there is “no evidence” to suggest anything has changed in the profile of the converts seeking asylum today than pre-2017, including no indication of an increase in “strategic” conversions – as is often claimed in the verdicts for those rejected asylum. In contrast, the pastors who contributed to the report claimed confidence in the genuineness of a convert’s faith in 88% of cases. The report’s authors note how significantly Germany’s approach to asylum seekers has shifted over the past few years – from an initially warm welcome, to “the political will to remove as many asylum-seekers as possible from the country”. Open Doors says such political will “must not lead to these asylum-seekers and refugees being deprived of their human right of religious freedom”, which “includes the right to change religion, enabling converts to live their faith in public and privately”. The report says it is therefore not appropriate to claim a convert can avoid danger by keeping their faith secret upon their return to a country like Iran, where the freedom to change one’s religion does not exist. It also questions the appropriateness of interrogating asylum seekers on the sincerity of their faith. A German bishop is quoted as saying “faith tests for converts are an attack on the Constitution”. The report also suggests that, as the verdict is “almost exclusively focused on the applicant, the outcome of the hearing is therefore highly dependent on the type of person, i.e. introverted or extroverted, and on the applicant’s level of education and thus his or her ability to express himself or herself”. Recommendations Open Doors Germany calls on BAMF to treat the testimonies of church pastors seriously and to rely on them as experts in the assessment of whether or not a convert’s faith is genuine. The researchers found that, rather than proving helpful to a converts’ case, both a clerical affidavit testifying to the authenticity of a convert’s faith, and a baptism certificate, are in fact detrimental to the convert’s chances of success. The report includes observations from several pastors who express serious concerns about the current asylum process. The pastor of a church in Berlin says the discrepancy between verdicts in different parts of Germany is “insanely huge” – even in some neighbouring states. For example, the pastor says that “in the courts [just] outside Berlin, the judicial appeals of our church members, as far as I was present, were granted by far more than 90%. In the AC [of] Berlin, the recognition rate is under 20%, even at 0% with some judges”. The report says there is “no consistent legal practice concerning the fate of converts in Germany. The protection rates of the federal states differ significantly from one another”. Another unnamed pastor, whose letter to the appeal courts is included in the report, writes of his concern that the political climate in Germany “influences, or can influence, the verdict”. “In the first trials to which I was summoned as a witness,” the pastor writes, “almost all verdicts were positive for our Iranian brothers and sisters. This has changed greatly in recent months. Almost all appeals are dismissed. “For me, the question is whether the politically charged situation in Germany should have an influence on asylum decisions.” Another contributor, German MP Volker Kauder, cautions against assumptions that “strategic” conversions have increased, saying “there is simply no evidence of this”. “We must not place Iranians who have converted to Christianity under general suspicion,” he writes. “Iranian converts can be found in non-state churches, Catholic and Protestant congregations. It [should be] primarily the task of these churches to examine the sincerity of the change of faith.” Open Doors Germany’s report also includes, in full, the ten-page report released earlier this year by researchers at Open Doors International, providing “considerations for immigration officials, government agencies and advocates of Iranian Christians”. That report urges immigration officials to focus their questions on the claimant’s “personal experience of Christianity”, rather than the extent of their theological understanding; to “explore when and where the claimant’s personal experience of Christianity began, and the steps taken on the way to full acceptance of the new faith”; and for the interview “not [to] be reduced to a mere collection of data describing the journey from Iran to the country of destination, or to a description of exact dates when the person was first introduced to the new faith”. What’s the situation elsewhere? The report ends with a comparison of similar studies carried out in other European countries in recent years. A March 2019 study in Sweden also found the “rhetorical ability of converts to reflect on their faith” was central to the success of their applications, so that “ultimately it was not the sincerity of their faith that was assessed, but their intellectual capacity”. A 2018 study in the Netherlands said the Dutch migration agency’s guidelines on cases involving Christian converts were “deficient” in 60% of cases and that newly published guidelines in July 2018 “had not led to a noticeable improvement” because “new, inappropriate arguments had been added on the grounds of which conversions were rejected as implausible”. A 2017 study on Denmark found that “statements by pastors/churches were explicitly mentioned” in a quarter of cases “evaluated as plausible”, and that asylum was granted in 75% of those cases. However, it was denied in the remaining 25%. And earlier this year the United Kingdom hired clerics to train its staff in religious literacy after a 2016 report by a UK parliamentary group noted a discrepancy between “guidelines and actual practice” and recommended that “all cases involving persecution should be reviewed by a higher-level specialist in order to grant consistency and proper proceedings”. Meanwhile, a June 2019 report for the UK Foreign Office on the persecution of Christians worldwide showed “few instances of assaults of Christians were recorded for Afghanistan … lead[ing] to the misconception that violence against Christians did not occur in Afghanistan and that it was secure to deport Christians to that country”.
Nine converts given five-year sentences 18 October 2019 News Clockwise from top-left: Mohammad Vafadar, Kamal Naamanian, Hossein Kadivar, Khalil Dehghanpour, Behnam Akhlaghi, Mehdi Khatibi, Babak Hosseinzadeh, Shahrooz Eslamdoust and Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad. (Middle East Concern) Nine converts have been sentenced to five years each in prison for “acting against national security”. The nine men – Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad, Shahrooz Eslamdoust, Behnam Akhlaghi, Babak Hosseinzadeh, Mehdi Khatibi, Khalil Dehghanpour, Hossein Kadivar, Kamal Naamanian and Mohammad Vafadar – are all members of the non-Trinitarian “Church of Iran” in the northern city of Rasht. The verdict was pronounced on 13 October after a final hearing on 23 September. All nine are appealing. The men were arrested during raids on their homes and house-churches in January and February. Seven of them – all except Abdolreza and Shahrooz – were released on bail in March, after posting the equivalent of $13,000 each. Abdolreza and Shahrooz were detained. In July, five of the men – Abdolreza, Shahrooz, Behnam, Babak, and Mehdi – had their bail increased tenfold after insisting upon being defended by their own lawyer. Judge Mohammad Moghiseh, who has earned the nickname the “Judge of Death” for his harsh treatment of prisoners of conscience, rejected their choice and demanded they were defended by a lawyer of the court’s choosing. When they refused, the judge increased their bail amount to the equivalent of $130,000 each, and, being unable and unprepared to pay such an amount, they were transferred to Ward 4 of Tehran’s Evin Prison. The other four – Khalil, Hossein, Kamal, and Mohammad – decided to defend themselves and were therefore released on their pre-existing bail (the equivalent of $13,000 each) until their next hearing, when the judge accused them of promoting Zionism and said the Bible had been falsified. The nine men are all members of the same church as imprisoned pastor Yousef Nadarkhani and fellow converts Zaman (Saheb) Fadaie, Mohammad Ali Mossayebzadeh and Mohammad Reza Omidi, who are all serving ten-year prison sentences. Pastor Yousef recently ended a three-week-long hunger strike, which he had undertaken to protest against the denial of education to his two sons – because they refused to study Islamic Studies and the Quran. Members of recognised religious minorities – including Christians, as well as Jews and Zoroastrians – are ordinarily exempt from classes in Islamic Studies and the Quran, but children of converts, such as Yousef’s, are not afforded this right as they are still considered Muslims.
Yousef Nadarkhani ends hunger strike after 21 days 15 October 2019 News Iranian Christian prisoner Yousef Nadarkhani yesterday brought an end to his 21-day hunger strike. Yousef, who is serving a ten-year sentence for his Christian activities, was protesting against his 15-year-old son Youeil being barred from school because he refused to take Islamic classes, while his elder son, Danial, 17, was only readmitted to school as a “guest”. There has been no change in his children’s circumstances, but Yousef was given reassurances by the prison authorities that the matter would be looked into. Both of Yousef’s children have been denied certificates showing their completion of the past two academic years – as a result of their refusal to take Islamic classes. Members of recognised religious minorities – including Christians, as well as Jews and Zoroastrians – are ordinarily exempt from classes in Islamic Studies and the Quran, but children of converts to Christianity, such as Yousef’s, are not afforded this right as they are still considered Muslims. Yousef and his wife Tina – both converts from Muslim backgrounds – have been fighting for the rights of their boys to identify as Christians for the past decade. Indeed, it was this very issue that led to Yousef’s first arrest, which resulted in his 2010 death sentence for apostasy. And although that conviction was quashed in 2012, following international outcry, Yousef still had to serve three years in prison for evangelising and was then re-arrested in 2016 on the new charges for which he is now back in Tehran’s Evin Prison, in the second year of his ten-year sentence for forming a “house church” and “promoting Zionist Christianity”. Before he was taken back to prison in July 2018, Yousef tried again to ensure his sons were recognised as Christians, but the matter is still to be resolved after local authorities in Gilan Province, where the Nadarkhanis live, appealed against the higher education authority, which had ruled in the family’s favour. As a result, at the end of the past two academic years, Yousef and Tina’s sons were not provided with certificates to show they completed their studies, because they failed to sit exams in Islamic Studies and the Quran. Youeil was due to begin 10th grade this year, but he has yet to receive a certificate to show he completed 8th grade, let alone 9th. Meanwhile, Danial, who was due to begin 12th grade, has not received a certificate since completing 9th grade. Last year, the boys were accepted as “guests” – and also fully paying students – pending the ruling in the family’s case. But this year, although Danial was accepted again as a fully paying “guest”, Youeil was told that, having failed to attain his certificate for the previous academic year, he could not return to school. Yousef Nadarkhani with his two sons, Danial (right) and Youeil, before his incarceration. In a letter to the prison authorities, Yousef said his decision to go on hunger strike was “motivated by the necessity to defend my children as members of the Christian minority who are violated by discriminatory measures taken at the initiative of officials of the Ministries of Information and National Education”. “This is the cry of a father, unjustly imprisoned,” he said, adding that it was “now 11 years that I have been fighting on legal grounds to assert their rights”. Yousef appealed to the Minister of National Education and said he hoped the minister would “heed this appeal and that he will do, in accordance with the law, what is necessary to put an end to the injustices that my family are suffering as Christians”. Background A fatwa by Iran’s Supreme Leader at the time of Yousef’s initial apostasy seemed to pave the way for children of converts to be recognised as Christians. It stated: “The [convert] himself may be considered an apostate, but if they married after the apostasy, according to their own new religious principles, their children will not be considered apostates.” But it is believed that the Ministry of Intelligence is pressurising the higher education authorities not to set such a precedent by ruling in the Nadarkhanis’ favour. Article18’s Advocacy Director, Mansour Borji, said this highlights the power of the Ministry of Intelligence in Iran – that they would even go so far as to contradict a ruling by the Supreme Leader, their commanding officer. The local education authorities in Gilan, in their appeal against the ruling of the higher education authorities, said that while Yousef may have been recognised as a Christian, the same cannot be said of his wife, Tina. Yousef and his wife object to this view, saying that Tina was never a practising Muslim and is willing to testify to this in court, and also to provide a copy of Youeil’s birth certificate, which shows that he was registered as a Christian. They also object to being regularly referred to as kafirs (infidels) in the appeal launched by Gilan’s education authority, saying that they ought to instead be considered, like other Christians, as “people of the book” (the Bible). Article18 calls for Iran to provide Danial and Youeil, and all children of converts, the opportunity to be educated as Christians, as is their right under Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran has ratified and which provides parents with the right to pass on their own religious teachings to their children, and denies authorities the right to intervene. Mr Borji used the Nadarkhani family’s story in his testimony to the recent review of the persecution of Christians worldwide, commissioned by the UK government.
‘I was arrested for the crime of believing in Jesus’ – Rokhsareh Ghanbari 15 October 2019 News Sixty-two-year-old Christian convert Rokhsareh Ghanbari presented herself at Shahid Kachooei Prison in her home city of Karaj yesterday to begin a one-year jail sentence. Rokhsareh, who prefers to be known as Mahrokh, recorded a short video message before going to prison, in which she said she had been arrested by agents from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence “for the crime of believing in Jesus Christ”. She added: “I hope the persecution and imprisonment I endure glorify the name of Jesus Christ.” Mahrokh was sentenced in July at a Revolutionary Court in Karaj, on charges of “propaganda against the system”. Her case gained international attention when the US Vice President, Mike Pence, named her in a series of tweets about Iran’s failure to provide religious freedom to its citizens. Mr Pence said he was “appalled” that Mahrokh was to be jailed “for exercising her freedom to worship”. He added that the “persecution” of people like Mahrokh and Iranian-Assyrian pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, who is facing ten years in jail, were “an affront to religious freedom”. Iran must free Mahrokh Kanbari today. Whether Sunni, Sufi, Baha’i, Jewish or Christian, America will stand up for people of faith in Iran like Marokh and Pastor Bet Tamraz whose persecutions are an affront to religious freedom.— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) August 2, 2019 During her trial, the judge was “very rude” and “tried to humiliate Mahrokh after she disagreed with him”, reported Middle East Concern. Mahrokh was one of five female converts arrested just before Christmas during a raid on her home in Karaj. The names of the other four women have not been made public. The officers confiscated several of Mahrokh’s belongings, including her mobile phone, Bibles and other Christian materials during the raid. She was then detained and interrogated from morning until evening for ten days, before being released on bail of 30 million tomans (around $2,500). Middle East Concern said her mistreatment had caused “distress to family and friends, who thought she would have been shown greater respect on account of her age”. In January, Mahrokh was forced to visit an Islamic cleric to receive religious “instruction” and be offered the chance to revert to Islam.
Amin Khaki remains in prison as friends go home 10 October 2019 News Left to right: Yaghoob Nateghi, Milad Goodarzi, Amin Khaki, Alireza Nourmohammadi and Shahab Shahi. Four converts have completed their jail sentences and returned home. A fifth member of the group remains in prison. Milad Goodarzi, Yaghoob Nateghi, Shahab Shahi and Alireza Nourmohammadi left the central detention centre in Karaj on Tuesday after completing their four-month sentences, including time in detention following arrest. But their friend and fellow convert, Amin Khaki, still has nearly a year left to go of his longer sentence. The five men – all members of the non-Trinitarian “Church of Iran” – were arrested during raids on their homes and workplaces in December 2017. They were released in early 2018 after each posting bail of 30 million tomans (around $7,000). In March this year, Milad, Yaghoob, Shahab and Alireza were sentenced to four months in prison; Amin, who had already spent a year in prison for his religious activities, was given an additional ten months – so 14 months in total – because of his prior conviction, which also means he is unlikely to be offered early release. The charges against the five men were the same: “propaganda against the state”. After failing with their appeals in June, the men submitted themselves to the central detention centre in Karaj on 6 July. Manoto News broadcast footage of the men – four of whom have young children – waving goodbye to their loved ones as they went to prison. Now, three months on, four have returned home, but the waiting goes on for Amin.
Iranians dominate religious freedom victims list 9 October 2019 News Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh is among nine Christians named in the list by USCIRF. Iranians account for over half of all the victims of religious freedom violations named in a new list by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. The list, which does not claim to be exhaustive but rather “indicative of the violations practised by the governments or non-state actors”, includes 64 Iranians among a total number of 126 victims. Among these are nine Christians, including the pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who is currently on hunger strike in protest against the denial of education to his children. Also named are the three fellow Christian converts alongside whom Yousef is now serving a ten-year prison sentence for “forming a house church” and “promoting Zionist Christianity”: Mohammad Reza Omidi, Mohammad Ali (Yasser) Mossayebzadeh, and Zaman (Saheb) Fadaie. The recently released Iranian-Armenian Christian Sevada Aghasar is also named, alongside Christian convert Ebrahim Firouzi, who was jailed alongside him and is still in prison. The final three Iranian Christians named are Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, currently serving a ten-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin Prison for “acting against national security through the establishment of house churches”; Mohammad (Vahid) Roghangir, who was denied early release from a six-year sentence on similar charges in 2016; and Majidreza Souzanchi, whose five-year sentence was reduced to two years in January. Other Iranians named in the list include 35 Sufis, 14 Baha’is, three Sunnis and one Shiite. Pro-government media in Iran recently called the US’s criticism of its religious freedom record “biased and baseless”. USCIRF’s list also includes victims from Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Eritrea and Turkmenistan – all designated by USCIRF, alongside Iran, as “countries of particular concern” for religious-freedom violations.
Iranian media rebuffs US’s religious freedom criticism 7 October 2019 News US President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a ‘Protect Religious Freedom’ event in New York last month. (Twitter @SecPompeo) Pro-government media in Iran have launched a fresh propaganda drive in response to repeated criticism from the US over Iran’s religious freedom failings. On Saturday, the state-backed IRNA website published an article about the restoration of an historic church in north-western Iran. Then yesterday fellow state-backed Press TV posted a video on its YouTube page, calling the claims from the US “biased and baseless”. The IRNA article said foreign visitors to the church “could see Armenians’ freedom of action to perform religious practices and share the experience with foreigners around the world”, and that this was a “very suitable way to combat the enemies’ anti-Iran propaganda about freedom of ethnic minorities to perform their rituals”. Meanwhile, the Press TV video included an interview with the Assyrian Christian representative of the Iranian parliament, Yonathan Betkolia, who, not for the first time, claimed Christians in Iran enjoy “full freedom”. A Jewish lawmaker also interviewed (Jews and Christians, alongside Zoroastrians, are the three “recognised” religious minorities in Iran) went as far as to claim that “religious minorities have more freedom in Iran than anywhere else in the world”. The Press TV report focused on the “at least 600 churches and over 300,000 Christians in Iran” and noted that, although Shia Islam is the official religion of Iran, “the constitution stipulates that investigation into individual beliefs is forbidden and no-one may be harmed or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief”. Yet what both reports failed to recognise is that the relative freedom enjoyed by recognised religious minorities, including Christians from an Armenian and Assyrian background, does not extend to others, such as converts to Christianity – whose conversions are not recognised – and members of the Baha’i faith. And even “recognised” Christians are not permitted to proselytise, and those who do can face prosecution, such as in the case of Assyrian pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, who is facing 10 years in prison for pastoring Christian converts. The Jewish lawmaker interviewed by Press TV invited US officials to “come and see for themselves that there are many churches and synagogues in Iran”, but what he failed to observe is that the UN’s own Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran – who in his July report specifically highlighted the problems faced by Christian converts – is yet to be granted access to the country. Such reports from state-backed media are fairly frequent. Last month, Article18 highlighted another Press TV report about the restoration of a Tehran church, which came as the Tehran City Council withdrew tax-exemption status from the city’s churches and synagogues. The Trump administration has often highlighted Iran’s religious freedom failings, including specific mention of the case of Victor Bet-Tamraz, and has invited his daughter, Dabrina, to speak at several events. Most recently, in late September, Dabrina spoke at a fringe event at the UN General Assembly in New York, where she noted that since the beginning of last year more than 200 Christians have been arrested in Iran and are “either now in prison, serving lengthy prison sentences, or awaiting trials”.
‘Christians are seen as cooperating with America to take the throne from Iran’ 3 October 2019 News Dabrina Bet-Tamraz (Twitter) Dabrina Bet-Tamraz says Christians in Iran are “seen as cooperating with America to take the throne from Iran”. “This is something they [the Iranian authorities] say,” said the daughter of pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz and Shamiram Issavi, both of whom are facing years in prison for their Christian activities, in an interview with Dubai-based website Al Arabiya English. Dabrina said her family were “followed all the time… They even broke into our house. We had spies within the church and at times soldiers standing in front of it. I was detained so many times I’ve lost track of the number”. Dabrina, who has been an outspoken advocate for Christians in Iran, speaking alongside members of the US government at a number of high-level events, thanked Donald Trump and his administration for being a “loud voice” on religious freedom. “America has an influence on Iran and can effect change,” she said. “I’m aware that Trump administration officials are mentioning cases of Christian persecution in Iran in their negotiations. Religious freedom is a topic of focus for President Trump.” Dabrina said that her message to the Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, was “that freedom of religion is a foundational right for all your citizens”. She added that she still had hope that Iranians could one day enjoy full religious freedom. “It’s not a big hope, but I do have hope,” she said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing in speaking out. I trust that God is working, doing signs and wonders in Iran, despite the persecution.”
Yousef Nadarkhani goes on hunger strike as son barred from school 27 September 2019 News Yousef Nadarkhani with his two sons, Danial (right) and Youeil, before his incarceration. Christian prisoner Yousef Nadarkhani has gone on hunger strike to protest against his son being barred from school because he refused to take Islamic classes. Youeil, 15, was due to recommence studies on Monday, but told he could not return to school as he had not yet been certified to have completed the previous grade – because he did not complete his Islamic education. Youeil’s older brother, Danial, 17, was accepted as a “guest” to his school, but has not received a certificate showing his completion of an academic year since leaving 9th grade. Yousef and his wife Tina – both converts to Christianity – have been fighting for the rights of their boys to identify as Christians for the past decade, and therefore to be exempt from Islamic classes. Indeed, it was this very issue that led to Yousef’s first arrest, which resulted in his 2010 death sentence for apostasy. And although that conviction was quashed in 2012 following international outcry, Yousef still had to serve three years in prison for evangelising and was then re-arrested in 2016 on the new charges for which he is now back in Tehran’s Evin Prison, in the second year of a ten-year sentence for forming a “house church” and “promoting Zionist Christianity”. Before he was taken back to prison in July 2018, Yousef tried again to ensure his sons were recognised as Christians, but the matter is still to be resolved after local authorities in Gilan Province, where the Nadarkhanis live, appealed against the higher education authority, which had ruled in the family’s favour. As a result, at the end of the past two academic years, Yousef and Tina’s sons were not provided with certificates to show they completed their studies, because they failed to sit exams in Islamic Studies and the Quran. Youeil was due to begin 10th grade this year, but he has yet to receive a certificate to show he completed 8th grade, let alone 9th. Meanwhile, Danial, who was due to begin 12th grade, has not received a certificate since completing 9th grade. Last year, the boys were accepted as “guests” – and also fully paying students – pending the ruling in the family’s case. But this year, although Danial was accepted again as a fully paying “guest”, Youeil was told that, having failed to attain his certificate for the previous academic year, he could not return to school. Members of recognised religious minorities – including Christians, as well as Jews and Zoroastrians – are ordinarily exempt from classes in Islamic Studies and the Quran, but children of converts to Christianity, such as Yousef’s, are still considered Muslims. This is despite a fatwa by Iran’s Supreme Leader at the time of Yousef’s initial apostasy case, which stated: “The [convert] himself may be considered an apostate, but if they married after the apostasy, according to their own new religious principles, their children will not be considered apostates.” But the local education authorities in Gilan, in their appeal against the ruling of the higher education authorities, said that while Yousef may have been recognised as a Christian, the same cannot be said of his wife, Tina. Yousef and his wife object to this view, saying that Tina was never a practising Muslim and is willing to testify to this in court, and also to provide a copy of Youeil’s birth certificate, which shows that he was registered as a Christian. They also object to being regularly referred to as kafirs (infidels) in the appeal launched by Gilan’s education authority, saying that they ought to instead be considered, like other Christians, as “people of the book” (the Bible). And despite the ruling of the Supreme Leader seeming to open the way for the children of Christian converts to be recognised as Christians, it is believed that the Ministry of Intelligence is pressurising the higher education authorities not to set such a precedent by ruling in the Nadarkhanis’ favour. Article18’s Advocacy Director, Mansour Borji, says this shows the power of the Ministry of Intelligence in Iran – that they would even go so far as to contradict a ruling by the Supreme Leader, their commanding officer. Mr Borji used the Nadarkhani family’s story in his testimony to the recent review of the persecution of Christians worldwide, commissioned by the UK government. Article18 calls for Iran to provide Danial and Youeil, and all children of converts, the opportunity to be educated as Christians, as is their right under Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran has ratified and which provides parents with the right to pass on their own religious teachings to their children, and denies authorities the right to intervene. Yousef’s letter Yousef wrote this letter to the prison authorities, explaining the reasoning behind his decision to embark upon a hunger strike: “I, Yousef Nadarkhani, an official member of the Christian community, was sentenced by the Revolutionary Court to 10 years in prison and two years of internal exile in defiance of all justice. I am currently serving my sentence in the eighth ward [of Evin Prison], where I have decided to start a hunger strike. “My decision is motivated by the necessity to defend my children as members of the Christian minority who are violated by discriminatory measures taken at the initiative of officials of the Ministries of Information and National Education. The National Education Ministry has decided to ban the registration of my children as Christians. As part of its measures, they were not provided with the school report card that would allow them to pursue higher education. “This is the cry of a father, unjustly imprisoned. Also it is now 11 years that I have been fighting on legal grounds to assert their rights. From tomorrow I will start a hunger strike. I appeal to the Minister of National Education with this act. I hope that the minister will heed this appeal and that he will do, in accordance with the law, what is necessary to put an end to the injustices that my family are suffering as Christians.”
Three converts given six-month sentences for ‘promoting Zionist Christianity’ 25 September 2019 News Asghar Salehi (left) and Mohammed Reza Rezaei. Three converts to Christianity have been sentenced to six months in prison for “propaganda against the system through promoting Zionist Christianity”, reports Middle East Concern. Asghar Salehi, 43, Mohammad Reza Rezaei, 35, and another convert who has not been named were informed of the sentences on Sunday, 22 September, following a hearing at Branch 101 of the criminal court in Eqlid, Fars Province, on 16 September. Asghar and Mohammed Reza filed their appeals yesterday. They were arrested, alongside four others, during raids on their homes in September last year. Asghar was reportedly interrogated for three days, during which he was kept blindfolded for most of the time, then taken to Eqlid Prison for a further eight days. He was then released on bail after providing his business license as a guarantee. Asghar, Mohammed Reza and the third convert were then brought before Branch 101 of Eqlid Criminal Court in April 2019 and charged under Article 500 of the penal code, which provides for up to a year’s imprisonment for anyone found guilty of “propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran or support of opposition groups and associations”. Middle East Concern reports that Asghar was refused permission to speak, warned that he was being monitored and told not to engage in any further Christian activities. Asghar is reportedly suffering from “potentially serious” health issues.