All posts by Steve Dew-Jones.

The daughter of an Iranian-Assyrian couple facing jail time for their Christian activities has said she believes the authorities are trying to draw out court proceedings for as long as possible in the hope they leave the country.

An appeal hearing for Dabrina Bet-Tamraz’s mother, Shamiram, is set to take place on Tuesday, 3 September, but Dabrina says her family are disappointed her mother’s case has not been connected to her father’s, as was suggested at the previous appeal hearing in February.

Instead, the appeal hearing on Tuesday will only focus on her mother’s case, and there is as yet no further news as to when the appeals of her father, Victor, and brother, Ramiel, will be heard.

“We were really hoping it was all going to be one case,” Dabrina told Article18. “Either they’re just delaying the process, they haven’t found any documents against my parents, or they are just trying to make them tired, not close the case.

“I think they’re really going to just push them to the limit so that they will leave the country. I don’t believe they [will] put them in prison, but to just let them go is not an option either. So I think they’ve stuck themselves in the process, and they don’t know what to do.”

Dabrina has been publicly advocating on behalf of her parents and other Christians in Iran, and added that she hoped her efforts wouldn’t “affect them negatively”.

Just last month, she spoke at the second annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington, DC, and met with US President Donald Trump. And last year, she addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

In May, Dabrina told the Gatestone Institute that her parents’ lives were “on hold” and that they were “trying to survive, not knowing what is going to happen next, not being able to make plans about their future”. 

“They are living with constant anxiety, powerless, not having security and safety even in their own home,” she said. “They are fully aware of the dangers around them but are not able to do anything to protect themselves. They are watched, controlled and wiretapped; it is their everyday life. Every time they get a phone call, they are filled with fear: It might be Iranian intelligence officers calling them for an interrogation session or a court hearing.”

Dabrina’s father and mother are facing ten and five years in prison, respectively.

Pastor Victor was sentenced in July 2017 alongside three converts to Christianity – Hadi Asgari and Kavian Fallah-Mohammadi, who also received ten-year sentences, and Amin Afshar-Naderi, who received an additional five years (so 15 in all) for “insulting the sacred” (blasphemy).

Shamiram was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2018.

Dabrina’s brother, Ramiel, was also sentenced to four months in prison in July 2018, but then released owing to time already served. However, he is still appealing to have the sentence quashed.

In February 2019, a judge postponed an appeal hearing for Shamiram, ruling that her appeal should be heard alongside that of her husband’s.

But now, more than six months later, it seems that decision has come to nothing, as only Shamiram’s lawyers were informed of the appeal hearing on Tuesday, not her husband’s.

Pastor Victor’s case has received widespread international coverage and was the subject of a petition by Amnesty International in August last year.

Earlier this month, the US Vice-President, Mike Pence, specifically singled out his case, and that of 65-year-old convert Mahrokh Ghanbari, in calling persecution against Christians in Iran “an affront to religious freedom”.

An Iranian Christian couple now living as refugees in America are concerned for their families back home after both were targeted by the intelligence service.

Vahid Roufegarbashi, who is known as Nathan, and his wife Mahsa, both of whom are 31 years old, resettled in the US in March 2017.

Six years earlier, in July 2011, Nathan was arrested for handing out Christian literature in a village in north-western Iran, near his home city of Tabriz. He was released 38 days later on a bail equivalent to $18,000 and fled the country just ten days later, having been informed that the Tehran branch of the Ministry of Intelligence wanted to interrogate him at the city’s notorious Evin Prison about his Internet ministry to other Christians in Iran.

Ever since, with Nathan first living in Turkey and now the US, the intelligence agency has turned its attention towards his family, and also Mahsa’s.

Just five days ago, on 19 August, Nathan’s family received the latest of several “visits” from intelligence agents. 

When the agents realised no-one was home, they called Nathan’s parents from a neighbour’s phone, with the message that they were looking for Nathan and that they wanted him to come back to prison.

The agents added that they had been given permission to come to Nathan’s family home at any time, to search it, and even to break down the door if nobody was home.

Nathan says his parents, both of whom were questioned by border officials after visiting him while he was living in Turkey, are being targeted because of his and Mahsa’s continued role as pastors ministering to Christians in Iran via the Internet.

Speaking to Article18 today, he said: “They’re trying to break my parents’ reputation in the neighbourhood because they come to my parents’ house and all neighbours are watching them – how many times they came.”

He called on Christians around the world to pray for his family, and Mahsa’s.

Mahsa’s father, Esmaeil Maghrebinezhad, was arrested in January at his home in Shiraz, as Article18 reported.  

He was released on bail six days later after posting bail equivalent to $800. The authorities initially demanded five times more but agreed to the smaller sum after he protested.

Esmaeil was charged with “propaganda against the state and insulting the sacred Iranian establishment”.

“I ask the Christian world to pray for my family,” Nathan said. “Because nothing can prevent me from serving the Lord.”

When asked whether the pressure on his family had caused him to question his ongoing ministry, Nathan said: “No, because Jesus said, ‘Anyone who wants to follow me needs to take up their cross and follow me,’ and I know this is my cross.” 

Mahsa added that she and her husband are extremely grateful for the love their families have shown to them, in spite of the ensuing difficulties.

“They just try to be strong, and even sometimes they didn’t tell us about things the intelligence service did to them because they don’t want to bother us,” she said.

Article18 has noted an escalation in the number of reports of harassment against the family members of active Christians by Iran’s security institutions. This worrying trend will be the subject of an upcoming report by Article18.

Iran’s failure to uphold freedom of religion or belief is a central concern of the latest report by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran.

Javaid Rehman notes that, as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Iran is obliged to provide its citizens with “freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of their choice, or not to have or adopt a religion, and the freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest their religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching”.

He points out that, while Christians are a recognised religious minority, alongside Jews and Zoroastrians, such recognition is not afforded to Muslims who convert to Christianity.

“Even for the recognised religious minorities, there is no provision under the legal system of the Islamic Republic of Iran permitting conversions from Islam, which is considered apostasy,” he writes. “This puts Christian converts from Islam at risk of persecution. Apostasy is not codified as an Islamic Penal Code offence, but conversion from Islam is punishable by death.”

While in reality it is rare for converts to Christianity to be sentenced to death, Mr Rehman notes that the possibility remains and has precedent in the case of pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who was sentenced to death in 2010. 

Meanwhile, as converts are “not granted access to officially recognised Christian churches,” Mr Rehman says this “forces them to gather clandestinely in informal ‘house churches’”, attendance of which can lead to “arrests, detention and repeated interrogations about their faith”.

“Most Christian converts who have been arrested and detained have been charged with ‘propaganda against the system’, ‘propagation of Zionist evangelical Christianity’ or ‘administering and managing the home churches’,” Mr Rehman adds.

He cites the recent example of Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad, one of nine Christians arrested in Rasht in early 2019, and also the case of pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, who is facing a ten-year prison sentence, and his wife and son, who were also given prison sentences because of their Christian activities.

Mr Rehman adds that converts have been “subjected to sexual abuse and ill treatment” during detention. 

“One young woman had reportedly been repeatedly subjected to sexual assault by a policeman, leaving her traumatized and requiring treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in a psychiatric hospital,” he writes. “In a separate case, a young male Christian convert detained in Tehran was allegedly hit with wooden sticks and his head banged against a wall.”

Mr Rehman’s very first recommendation to the Supreme Leader is an amendment to Article 13 of Iran’s Constitution, such that “all religious minorities and those who do not hold any religious beliefs are recognized and able to fully enjoy the right to freedom of religion or belief”.

He calls for amendments to “all articles in the Islamic Penal Code that discriminate on the basis of religious or belief”, and for due process and fair-trial guarantees, “including access to a lawyer of their choosing” to be afforded to all persons accused of a crime. (Matthias and four of his co-defendants recently had their bail amounts increased tenfold after insisting on being allowed to choose their own lawyer.)

Mr Rehman also calls on Iran’s government to “refrain from targeting members of recognized and non-recognized religious minorities with national security-related charges”, to “refrain from persecuting peaceful religious gatherings in private homes and other premises, refrain from convicting religious leaders and cease the monitoring of citizens on account of their religious identity”,  and to “end the criminalisation of the peaceful expression of faith”.

He also wants places of worship for all religious minorities to be opened, including “new churches throughout the country”.

Mr Rehman had pledged last month to look into the treatment of Christian converts in Iran “very seriously”, saying he was “personally very concerned” about the issue.

US Vice President Mike Pence says he is “appalled” by the one-year jail sentence given to a 62-year-old woman convert to Christianity.

Rokhsareh (Mahrokh) Ghanbari was notified of her sentence on Monday, two days after her appearance at a Revolutionary Court in Karaj. She was convicted of “propaganda against the system”.

Mr Pence said Mahrokh had been punished “for exercising her freedom to worship”.

He added that the “persecution” of people like Mahrokh and pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, who is facing a 10-year prison sentence, were “an affront to religious freedom”.

Mahrokh was arrested just before Christmas 2018 during a raid on her home in Karaj. 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).

In January, she was forced to visit an Islamic cleric to receive religious “instruction” and be offered the chance to reconvert to Islam.

Victor Bet-Tamraz was arrested during a raid on his home while celebrating Christmas in 2014. He was later charged with “conducting evangelism” and “illegal house-church activities”, and other charges amounting to “acting against national security”, and sentenced to ten years in prison.

Victor’s wife, Shamiram Issavi, was later interrogated and charged with “membership of a group with the purpose of disrupting national security” and “gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security”, and sentenced to five years in prison.

Their son, Ramiel, was then among a group of five Christians arrested during a picnic gathering in Tehran in August 2016. He was later sentenced to four months in prison for “acting against national security” and “organising and establishing house churches”, then released owing to time already served.

Five of the nine converts arrested earlier this year in Rasht had their bail increased tenfold at a court hearing in Tehran on Wednesday, after insisting upon being defended by their own lawyer.

The five men – Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad, Shahrooz Eslamdoust, Behnam Akhlaghi, Babak Hosseinzadeh and Mehdi Khatibi – wanted Moshgani Farahani to defend them, but 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, Judge Moghiseh 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 Dehghanpour, Hossein Kadivar, Kamal Naamanian and Mohammad Vafadar – decided to defend themselves and were therefore released on their pre-existing bail (the equivalent of $13,000 each) until their next hearing on Sunday.

The nine 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.

All nine were charged with “acting against national security” and “promoting Zionist Christianity”.

The nine are members of the non-Trinitarian “Church of Iran”, the denomination of the imprisoned pastor Yousef Nadarkhani and his three church members, Zaman (Saheb) Fadaie, Mohammad Ali Mossayebzadeh, and Mohammad Reza Omidi, who are all serving ten-year prison sentences.

Yesterday, the vice-chair of the United States International Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), Nadine Maenza, called for Pastor Yousef’s immediate release, saying: “The Iranian government has vilified and deprived the basic rights of Pastor Nadarkhani and of many other Iranians simply for exercising their freedom of belief. This must stop. I call on the government of Iran to live up to its commitments to its citizens under international law.”

It was a year ago this week that plainclothes security forces violently arrested Pastor Yousef and his fellow church members – Pastor Yousef and his son were both tasered – before taking them away to serve sentences also on charges of “acting against national security” and “promoting Zionist Christianity”.