Church Haik Hovsepian founded set to be sold by Iranian state 14 March 2023 News A church of huge significance for Iranian Christians is set to be sold by an organisation headed by Iran’s Supreme Leader. The Assemblies of God church in Gorgan, northeast Iran, has over the years been led by some of the most well-known Iranian pastors, including three who were killed for their faith. The church was founded by perhaps the best known of them all, Haik Hovsepian, who went on to become the head of all Assemblies of God churches in Iran, before his murder in January 1994. Haik Hovsepian was the leader of the Gorgan church for a decade. Bishop Haik established the Gorgan church in 1970, and led it for a decade. After him, other pastors included Hossein Soodmand, who was executed for his “apostasy” in 1990, and Mohammad Bagher Yusefi (known as “Ravanbakhsh”), who like Haik was killed in suspicious circumstances in the mid-90s. Another of the Iranian Church’s martyrs, Ghorban Tourani, was also for a time a member of the church in Gorgan, even after the building’s forced closure. For more than 25 years, the church building in Gorgan has stood empty and dormant, a relic to a former time when, even in the early days of the Islamic Republic, it had seemed possible, for a short while, for Christians – even converts – to meet inside a church building. The first and last leaders of the Gorgan church: Haik and Takoosh Hovsepian (right), and Ravanbakhsh and wife Akhtar. But, as with many other Christian properties in recent years, the Gorgan church has since followed a familiar pattern of forced closure, years passing, and then, when all is almost forgotten, clandestine confiscation and gradual appropriation by the Iranian state. And as with the former Anglican bishop of Iran’s house in Isfahan, which last year was turned into a museum, and the Sharon retreat centre in Karaj, which has also been repurposed, the Gorgan church was simply put up for sale on a state-run website – that of the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO). The price, 6.3 billion rials, is around $150,000, which EIKO declares is an “exceptionally good offer”. Why is the Gorgan church so significant? A young Haik Hovsepian inside the church bookshop. The home in which the Hovsepians lived for a decade in Gorgan was next door to the Assemblies of God church. As Haik’s widow, Takoosh, recalled in a documentary about the church in 2017: “The Gorgan church was built in such a way that there was only one door between our house and the church. Only one door! And it’s still like that. That’s why all of us were always together, because every time after church we would gather at our house. We would just open the door, and go to our house.” Haik preaching during a visit back to the Gorgan church in 1990, and the church 20 years later. In a recording of the Hovsepian family’s last visit back to the Gorgan church, in 1999, Takoosh says: “It was in this place, in the city of Gorgan, that three of our children – Rebecca, Joseph and Gilbert – were born. And the other spiritual children that God gave us. And we’re back here after years, and since no-one’s living in the church anymore the house and church look a little different, but all the memories that we made here were very sweet. I don’t regret the time we had here. I’m very proud we served the Lord and this city for years.” But misfortune has never been far from the Gorgan church. Even the day of its inauguration was a day of immense sadness for the Iranian Church, as Haik and Takoosh’s firstborn was killed in a car accident at just six months old. And though as with that tragedy 52 years ago much time has since passed, for the Iranian Church that and many other tragedies will forever be part of their history, making the forced closure and final repurposing of yet another church building deeply painful, and even more significant. The church now has a “for sale” sign outside.
6. Behind Bars 11 March 2023 Notes from Prison This is the sixth in a series of articles by Mojtaba Hosseini, an Iranian convert to Christianity who spent more than three years in prison in the southern city of Shiraz because of his membership of a house-church. Mojtaba’s first note from prison explained his journey to faith and the first of his two subsequent arrests; his second detailed his long interrogation; his third explained the desperation and loneliness of solitary confinement and his fourth described some of the dreams and visions he had in solitary. His fifth note described his court hearing. In this sixth note, Mojtaba talks us through his first moments in prison. Inside the prison, I was taken to a room where my name and crime were to be recorded. After asking me for my personal details, the prison officer asked me what my crime was. “Christian,” I replied. He looked up at me in surprise, and said: “Is it a crime to be a Christian?” “It seems so,” I replied. “I am a living example, standing in front of you now.” Suddenly, the agent from the Ministry of Intelligence, who had brought me to the prison, snapped: “Propaganda against the Islamic Republic! His crime is propaganda against the Islamic Republic!” “No, I’m a Christian!” I responded. “And that is the only reason I’m here now. I have never been involved in any propaganda against the Republic!” “Your crime is what I say it is!” he said. “And from now on you are only to declare this, and you have no right to say that you are a Christian – whether to this man or to any other prisoners here!” After taking my fingerprints and searching me, I was taken into the ward. But before entering, the guard warned me again that I had no right to talk to the other prisoners about Christianity. A new home It was such a strange feeling, entering that place. I felt lost, like someone alone in a big city. In front of me was a corridor, off which there were about 10 cells on each side. Each one was about the size of a regular bedroom, but they were packed full of bunk beds, and about 20 people were staying in each cell. I think the number of people in each cell was probably about double their actual capacity. That was why the air was so suffocating. And it was so dirty! Many prisoners turned to look at me as I arrived, and I looked up to see a host of faces of people who looked like no-one I would usually associate with – let alone live with! – and presumably guilty of all kinds of terrible crimes. I felt extremely vulnerable. I was looking around, trying to find a cell that might have room for me, when suddenly one of the prisoners grabbed me and pulled me into his cell. I was terrified by the faces I saw in that cell, and, still clinging onto my belongings, pulled myself away, saying that I first needed to call my family. But no matter how loudly I called for a prison guard, no-one answered. One of the prisoners called out: “What’s your problem?” I replied that I had to call my family. He smiled, and said the phone wasn’t available until noon the next day, and that, when it was, there was only one phone for all the prisoners to fight over. An unexpected opportunity It was at that moment that another of the cells, the closest to the entrance, caught my eye. It looked much cleaner than the other cells, and even the people inside seemed somehow less intimidating. I was just thinking how dearly I would like to stay in that cell when one of the prisoners there pointed at me and told me to come over. “What’s your crime?” they asked, as I entered. “I’m a Christian,” I replied. “Christian?” they all said, surprised. “What do you mean? Why would they arrest you for that?” I explained, and then something interesting happened; they all started sharing positive thoughts about Jesus and Christianity. One of them said: “Did you know that Jesus was born of a virgin named Mary?” A few others said some things about Jesus, and it was a great opportunity for me to share my faith. After a few hours, one of them called over to me and said that he wanted to show me something. Above his bed, there was an image that he had cut out of a magazine, which showed Jesus lying in his mother’s arms after his death. I was so surprised to see such a picture in such a place, and I felt such joy in my heart that there, of all places – in the very cell in which I had found myself – I could gaze upon the image of my dear friend and Saviour. It was so encouraging to me. It was as if He was standing beside me, saying: “I, your Shepherd, am here with you, even in this darkest of valleys.” After dinner I was talking with another prisoner whose face was wounded and bruised. I asked what had happened to him, and he told me how he had been arrested after stealing some things. And then he started talking about his personal life, and the damage that he had done to others, especially to his family. He expressed great remorse, and I told him about Christ’s message of forgiveness, and in the end we prayed together. This was another great encouragement to me, showing me that I could talk about the Bible with these prisoners, and pray for them. I had never expected such an opportunity, but through these experiences my fears were overcome and my heart was filled with peace. It was as though I was walking over stormy seas, eye to eye with Jesus, but the surrounding waves no longer terrified me. When it was time for the lights to be turned out, I was pointed towards a bunk stationed above two others, where no-one else had wanted to sleep. The bed had no pillow, and it was not at all comfortable, but I was so tired that I soon fell asleep. But just a few hours later, around midnight, I was awoken by something, and when I opened my eyes there was smoke everywhere. At first I thought I must be mistaken, but I soon realised that I was in fact correct, and when I looked down to see where it was coming from, I was surprised at what I saw. It turned out that after the lights went off, a great many of the prisoners stayed awake to smoke drugs together. Just below me, on the bottom bunk, several people were sat together, doing drugs. The atmosphere was very heavy and suffocating. On the one hand, my heart was really broken for these people, and I felt so sad to see how miserable their lives had become. And on the other hand I asked myself: “Why should someone like me be here?” And I realised that God had put me there to be a witness for Him. Also, while knowing that God’s plans are always good and based on His perfect wisdom, I was seeing firsthand the cruelty and mercilessness of the government which had made me one of hundreds of Iranian Christians to pass through such dangers and injustices only because of our beliefs. But throughout this journey, we are always able testify to our righteous King and good Shepherd, and still rejoice in Him in the midst of our pain and sorrow.
‘I have to bring back the child who became a Christian,’ says Shia cleric 10 March 2023 News Photo: Shafeghna A prominent Shia cleric has bemoaned how the younger generation of Iranians are leaving Shia Islam for other faiths, including Christianity, and said he views it as his responsibility to “bring them back”. Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Javad Alavi Borujerdi, whose grandfather was one of the teachers of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini, made the comments as part of a public address to Shia students in the religious city of Qom yesterday. “Some people who are separating from us [leaving Shia Islam] came to me,” he said. “Among them, some young people have found a very strange desire for Zoroastrianism. Some people have told me that there is a house-church in Qom, and the number of Wahhabis has increased. Some even seem to be becoming Buddhists! These are our problems. “God knows that the child who went and became a Christian, his responsibility will not be removed from my shoulders. This child is a Shiite. I have to bring him back. I have no right to abandon him. We can’t be complacent that he left!” The ayatollah also admitted that the perception of the clergy has greatly diminished in modern-day Iran, and queried why. “Many of these were people who always followed us and were by our side in everything,” he said. “What did we do to the people? Do the young people of the new generation have anything to do with us? We are strangers to them. They follow anyone but us! Why? What happened that we can not attract them anymore? “The imam of the mosque used to be the community’s pillar! People would die for him! Even girls who did not wear a full hijab would come to the imam and ask their religious questions. We are now only insisting that this girl fix her hijab, while her original beliefs are gone! Belief is one story; action is another. Belief precedes action, but belief has been damaged. We have a problem in passing this heritage to the next generation.” Reacting to the comments, Article18’s director, Mansour Borji, said he noted several admissions in the speech: “Admission of the loss of religious credibility and traditional respect for the Muslim clergy, who are disconnected with the younger generation. Also, contrary to state propaganda that blames the declining interest of youth in Islamic observance – i.e. hijab – on the ‘the enemy’, Ayatollah Borujerdi points his finger at the autocratic state of Iran, by admitting that the faithfuls’ sacrifices have been abused. Despite that, the ayatollah fails to see that people can embrace other faiths for personal reasons too, and not just as a social reaction to a corrupt ruling class.” Although the Iranian regime claims that as many as 95% of Iranians are Shia Muslims, a 2020 survey by a secular Netherlands-based research group found that less than one-third of respondents identified as Shiites, while nearly half said they no longer had any faith, and others said they had converted to other faiths such as Zoroastrianism or Christianity.
‘I felt very sick every time the jailer searched our bodies with her hands’ 8 March 2023 Features Shadi Noveiri was strip-searched multiple times during her 40 days in detention, an experience she describes as “absolutely humiliating and I believe illegal”. The Christian convert, who turned 25 during her incarceration, was subjected to the search each time she was taken from the Ministry of Intelligence detention centre in Rasht, where she was interrogated, back to Lakan Prison, which she calls “one of the worst and most unsanitary prisons in Iran”. “The other prisoners told me: ‘When they want to punish a prisoner, or send them into exile, they send them to Lakan Prison.’” Shadi says the strip-search was used as a form of emotional and psychological torture. “We had to get naked and the female jailer would search our bodies with her hands,” she explains. “Every time, I felt very sick. “Once I became angry and said to her: ‘How many times do you need to do this inspection?’ Then I cried out loud. I cried so hard and with all my heart, and the officer got upset and started crying with me. “‘I’m here because of my faith, and because I’m a Christian!’ I said. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t commit any crime to deserve that you would behave like this!’ The officer was very troubled by my words.” Shadi was arrested alongside her friend, Maryam, in November 2015. The next day, they were charged with “acting against the country’s security through membership of a branch of the Christian community”. In practice, this vaguely-worded charge meant that Shadi and Maryam were part of a house-church – the only place where Christian converts can gather together to worship in Iran, as they are no longer permitted to enter the churches of Iran’s Assyrian and Armenian Christian minorities. But even these house-churches are outlawed and considered anti-state operations, as can be clearly seen in the types of questions Shadi was asked by her interrogators: “What is the name of your pastor and what are his activities? What are your activities at church? Which organisations are you connected to? Do you get paid? Confess and write down the names of the Christians you know, and their activities in the church.” Shadi and Maryam were eventually sentenced to three months in prison for their “crime”, under Article 499 of the penal code, relating to membership of groups that “aim to disrupt the security of the country”. But by this time Shadi had already fled the country. “After my release, I felt that the intelligence agents were always following me and that I was under surveillance,” she says. “In front of our apartment, a car constantly stood guard, controlling my coming and going. I was under their watch wherever I went. “My family were happy about my release from prison, but alongside this happiness, they were also worried. My father was very upset when he learned about my decision to leave Iran, but he supported me and said: ‘If that is the best decision for you, then go.’ He supported me as much as he could.” Shadi left Iran less than a month after her release from prison, and claimed asylum in Turkey. Two months later, her father died. “I had not yet been able to digest the circumstances of my arrest and imprisonment, when suddenly my father died and I felt deep grief and deeply traumatised,” Shadi says. “When I came to Turkey, I felt confused for six months and said to myself: ‘What am I doing here?’ I was emotionally, psychologically and financially very damaged. I felt that I had lost all my life and opportunities to serve. I felt depressed and very bad. “I have been in Turkey for seven years now, and haven’t been interviewed by the UN or the Turkish immigration office. Whenever I pursued my case, I was told by officials that they’d be in touch, but it has never happened.” But Shadi says that emotionally she is now “on the road to recovery”, thanks to the help of a counsellor, and a trauma-awareness seminar put on by Article18. Meanwhile, Shadi now spends most of her time working for the Christian satellite TV channel through which both she and her mother came to faith. “Although my contact with the remaining members of my family is almost cut off, I serve in my local church and, besides preaching and teaching, I also am active among women,” she says. “In addition, I have some collaboration with the Bible Society. But most of my activity these days is with Mohabat TV. “I am currently the host of the Superbook Sunday School programme, and I am also currently producing Christian psychological content for parents and children that can be helpful for parents regarding the challenges they may have with their children. I also work on Christian podcasts.” And as for spending her 25th birthday behind bars? “That day was very special for me,” Shadi says. “In the whole history of my life, the fact that I spent one birthday in prison, in that environment, is very interesting to me. It was a special experience. To be honest, I was really sad that day that I was in prison, but after I got out of prison, every year, on my birthday, I remember that day in prison. “I was in prison on one of my birthdays! It was a special experience, and it’s hard for me to describe how I felt at that time, but I only know that this event was very special for me, and I thought about how interesting it is that God allowed me to be in prison in that situation for one of my birthdays. And that was what I was thinking about on that day.” You can read Shadi’s full Witness Statement here.
Shadi Noveiri 8 March 2023 Witness Statements For a summary of Shadi’s story, you can read our feature article here. Introduction 1. My name is Shadi Noveiri Gilani. After becoming a Christian, I was known by two names: Sheilan and Raha. I was born in Bandar Anzali [in Gilan Province, north Iran] in 1990 and grew up there. I was the first child in my family, and I have one brother. 2. My mother used to watch the programmes of the Christian satellite TV channel Mohabat, and talked to me about Christianity, but I disagreed with what she said. Just before my 17th birthday, one night my mother asked me to call the Mohabat network and request for them to send her a Bible. I called Mohabat’s hotline numbers one after another until, after some time, the call was connected and I requested a Bible for my mother. The person on the other side of the line also prayed for me and my insomnia problem. I didn’t know much about Christianity, but I prayed with all my heart and experienced a profound inner transformation. It was in this way that I became a Christian, on 19 September 2007, and I was baptised in April 2008 in [the adjacent province of] Mazandaran. House-church 3. A few days later, I called the same person from Mohabat and asked for a Bible, and said that I would like to join a house-church. I was then introduced to a Christian couple who were known as Sam and Sara. They lived in Tehran, but they connected me to one of their house-churches in Bandar Anzali. 4. After six months in the group, I started engaging in Christian activities. I used to visit different groups connected to our house-church in the villages and cities of Gilan Province. Gradually, I began to teach at the house-church meetings and became responsible for organising meetings in Gilan Province. The responsibility of facilitating, coordinating and finding a suitable place for conferences inside Iran was another of my activities. A few dozen Christians were present at each of these conferences. In addition, I had one-on-one time with church members to strengthen their faith and answer their questions. 5. In 2012, I met a church member named Maryam, and after that we started to work together. Maryam studied architecture, and I had a degree in accounting. We had an office, and for about a year we helped students with their architecture projects, such as making models. After some time, one of our friends gave us a section of his office and we continued our work there. Then we rented another office in a commercial complex, and worked independently. In addition to the services we provided for students, we were the exclusive representative of a Hungarian brand for waterproof products – Isogum – and were responsible for executing orders. Arrest 6. Once or twice a month, we had a meeting in Tehran or Karaj with others involved in Christian activities in house-churches that were under the supervision of Sam and Sara. Around two days before one of those meetings, which was scheduled to take place in November 2015, my colleague Maryam and I went to stay at her father’s house in Karaj. 7. But on Wednesday 11 November, 2015, between 8.30 and 9am, four or five male officers and one female officer entered Maryam’s father’s house. The officers said to Maryam and me: “Get dressed, we have to go.” I said: “Where? You have to show a warrant first.” They showed us a warrant, which only had Maryam’s name on it, but they arrested both of us and took us away. 8. We didn’t know that the previous night, all the members of our house-churches in Tehran, Karaj, and Qazvin had been arrested. Later, we heard from the manager of our apartment block in Bandar Anzali that the night before we were arrested, three male agents had entered our apartment at 11pm. They had broken down the door and entered the apartment, searched the whole place in a very rough way, and messed up the furniture. They confiscated several SIM cards, with which we used to contact the church members and inform them about the dates of teaching sessions, as well as Christian pamphlets, documents related to our studies at the Pars School of Theology [in the UK], about four Bibles, a guitar, music books of Christian songs, prayer books, and they also confiscated my personal letters that I had written to God, and took them with them. 9. The agents had tracked us and realised that we were in Karaj. This is how we were arrested on that Wednesday morning. About two months before my arrest, I had decided to put my passport, all Christian teaching books and CDs, and all the notes I had written at church meetings and Christian conferences, into two suitcases and remove them from the apartment. These two suitcases weighed about 100kg. For this reason, the agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security [MOIS] couldn’t find anything special in our apartment. Although these items didn’t contain any criminal content, they could have used them to put more pressure on me. When the officers rushed into Maryam’s father’s house to arrest us, my mobile phone was in my suitcase and, thank God, the agents didn’t find it! MOIS and Karaj detention centre 10. The agents, who had come in two cars, handcuffed us. When we were in the car, they blindfolded us, and then we went to the Karaj intelligence office, where they asked us for our names and details, and told us to “cooperate” with them. We were kept blindfolded in solitary cells of the detention centre of the MOIS in Karaj until around 10pm. At night, they took us to the detention centre of the prison in Karaj, and said: “Tomorrow morning, we’ll take you to the prosecutor’s office to be charged.” Karaj prosecutor’s office 11. So, on the Thursday morning, at around 9 or 10am, they took us to the Karaj courthouse. In the prosecutor’s office there, they accused us of “acting against the country’s security through membership in a branch of the Christian community” and said they wouldn’t keep us there because our main interrogator was in Rasht, so they had to transfer us there. Their behaviour was relatively polite and they only asked us a few questions, but then they handcuffed us and put our legs in chains, and in that way transported us to the MOIS in Rasht. Ministry of Intelligence and Lakan Prison in Rasht 12. The driver was driving very fast, so we reached Rasht very quickly. We were kept in the detention centre of the MOIS in Rasht until night-time, and then we were transferred to Lakan Prison in Rasht. The routine during our detention was that we were taken to the detention centre of the MOIS in Rasht for interrogation from morning to night, and during the hours of the day when we weren’t interrogated, we were held in the solitary cells of the MOIS. Then at night they returned us to Lakan Prison. Because there were no female officers in the MOIS, they couldn’t keep us in the MOIS at night. 13. I was detained for about 40 days. During this period, I was taken to the detention centre of the MOIS in Rasht for interrogation about six or seven times, and then returned to prison. We were blindfolded during the drive from the prison to the detention centre, but we weren’t blindfolded during the interrogations. In the mornings, at around 8 or 9am, they would take us to the MOIS and, at night, at around 9 or 10pm, they would return us to Lakan Prison. We were in the general ward in Lakan Prison. The crimes of our cellmates were drug-dealing, prostitution, theft, and the like, and some of them had been sentenced to death. 14. The behaviour of my interrogator was very bad and insulting. He started the conversation by swearing. On the first day of interrogation, he seemed surprised to see me, apparently not expecting to meet a young girl. He said to me: “You?” I said: “Who was it supposed to be?” He threw paper and a pen in my face. I was very upset and cried loudly, and said: “You have no right to treat me with rudeness and disrespect.” He again swore at me very badly. Once, he held up his mobile phone in my direction, and I protested: “Do you think I don’t understand that you are filming me?” But of course there were cameras in the interrogation room anyway. 15. Maryam and I both had one particular interrogator, but in addition to this man, other interrogators came from Tehran and other cities of Iran to interrogate us. The main interrogator was very rude and treated us insultingly, but the other interrogators only spoke teasingly and mockingly, but didn’t use obscenities. 16. The main questions they asked in the interrogations were: “What is the name of your pastor and what are his activities? What are your activities at church? Which organisations are you connected to? Do you get paid?” – of course, all my bank accounts were checked – and “Confess and write down the names of the Christians you know, and their activities in the church.” 17. The interrogator used to threaten me, and said: “You’re reckless! You’re young and have been deceived. I’ll order that your feet are whipped right here; I’ll make you pay! The same chair that you are sitting on was also sat on by [executed Sunni militant Abdolmalek] Rigi. But you’re not that important. I’ll get the order for you to be flogged right here.” 18. On the last day of my interrogation, when the video camera in the interrogation room had been turned off, the interrogator insulted and swore at me: “Get out of Iran! Don’t stay here anymore! Go and do whatever you want outside of Iran!” 19. The other prisoners told me Lakan Prison is one of the worst and most unsanitary prisons in Iran. They said: “When they want to punish a prisoner, or send him into exile, they send him to Lakan Prison.” One of the ways they tortured us emotionally and psychologically during our detention was through the body inspection in Lakan Prison. This inspection was done by hand and was absolutely humiliating and I believe illegal. Every time we were returned from the MOIS to the prison, we had to undergo a body search. We had to get naked and the female jailer would search our bodies with her hands. Every time, I felt very sick. Once I became angry and said to her: “How many times do you need to do this inspection?” Then I cried out loud. I cried so hard and with all my heart, and the officer got upset and started crying with me. “I’m here because of my faith, and because I’m a Christian!” I said. “I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t commit any crime to deserve that you would behave like this!” The officer was very troubled by my words. 20. During the first 24 or 25 days there, they didn’t allow me to see my family or even to call them. But after that, I was able to call my mother, and she was able to visit me. But I never had a lawyer. Temporary release 21. After 40 days, a bail of 100 million tomans [approx. $30,000] was set for me, and finally I provided a property deed worth 100 million tomans and was temporarily released from prison on 21 December 2015. 22. The Ministry of Intelligence declared mine and Maryam’s business licence invalid, so after I was released I collected the things I had in the office and gave back the apartment we had rented. 23. When I was in prison, I told mine and Maryam’s mothers to burn my computer, because all my photos and archives were stored on it, and I didn’t want the MOIS to have access to them. For this reason, I no longer had the phone numbers of most church members, and only had the numbers of a few members of our house-church in Tehran. I called them from a phone booth, and we met. I wanted to let them know what had happened. 24. After my release, I wasn’t contacted by the MOIS, but I felt that they were always following me and that I was under surveillance. In front of our apartment in Anzali, a car constantly stood guard, controlling my coming and going. I was under their watch wherever I went. 25. My family were happy about my release from prison, but alongside this happiness, they were also worried. My father was very upset when he learned about my decision to leave Iran, but he supported me and said: “If that is the best decision for you, then go.” He supported me as much as he could. Fleeing to Turkey 26. I left Iran via a legal route less than a month after my release. I felt forced to go, and arrived in Turkey on 15 January 2016 and introduced myself to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 27. During our interrogations, Maryam and I didn’t give up any information about our church leaders or members, and didn’t cooperate with the interrogators of the MOIS. But the number of members of our church who had been arrested was large and, unfortunately, some of them did confess under the pressure of fear and threats. For example, they said: “We know Shadi and she is responsible for our teaching and takes us to educational conferences.” 28. Three days after leaving Iran, the hearing for our accusations was held in the fifth branch of the Rasht Revolutionary Court. The court summonses for me and Maryam were sent to us, but we were no longer in the country, so the hearing took place without us. The judge of the court, Karim Taghizadeh, on 18 January 2016, based on Article 499 of the Islamic Penal Code, sentenced us to three months in prison. 29. Unfortunately, two months after I left Iran, my father died. I had not yet been able to digest the circumstances of my arrest and imprisonment, when suddenly my father died and I felt deep grief and deeply traumatised. I didn’t have a good relationship with my mother or brother, and the death of my father was very difficult and overwhelming. When I came to Turkey, I felt confused for six months and said to myself: “What am I doing in Turkey?” I was emotionally, psychologically and financially very damaged. I felt that I had lost my whole life, and any opportunities to serve. I felt depressed and very bad. 30. In the “Trauma Awareness” seminar that Article18 organised for persecuted Christians in Turkey, I was greatly strengthened and revived through the teaching of the counsellor, the art therapy, and hearing the stories of other victims. After that, I had some counselling and also spoke to a psychologist, and I am still in contact with the counsellor and on the road to recovery. 31. Although my contact with the remaining members of my family is almost cut off, I serve in my local church and, besides preaching and teaching, I also am active among women. In addition, I have some collaboration with the Bible Society. But most of my activities these days are with the Christian network Mohabat.
Fifth convert released amid mass pardoning of political prisoners 6 March 2023 News A fifth convert has been released as part of the mass pardoning of political prisoners, while there are reports two more may also have been freed, perhaps taking the total to as many as seven within the past month. Milad Goodarzi, who was nearly halfway through a three-year sentence – reduced from five – for “engaging in propaganda that educates in a deviant way contrary to the holy religion of Islam”, was released from Karaj’s Central Prison on Saturday morning. And Article18 understands the two men imprisoned alongside him, Amin Khaki and Alireza Nourmohammadi, may also have been released. The trio, who belong to the “Church of Iran” denomination, were the first converts to be charged, and then sentenced, under the amended Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, which Article18’s director, Mansour Borji, had warned would “bring more ambiguity to an already ambiguous set of charges” and “decrease the chance that a judge may act in a more tolerant way towards house-church members, by providing greater scope within the law to bring charges on these vaguely-defined grounds”. Reacting to the news of Milad’s release, Mr Borji commented: “Why so many Christians have been released is open to speculation, but it comes amidst a mass amnesty of political prisoners. And Christians, by the nature of the charges that are applied to them, are included in this package of political prisoners of conscience. “When there is an amnesty, it’s usually the judiciary which goes through several different cases, and puts a seal of approval that these particular ones can be considered for pardons. So it’s not a blanket pardoning of everyone, but those that have been approved by the judiciary and chief prosecutor’s office. And that’s why most of those who have been released have served the majority of their sentences, making them eligible for parole and therefore easier to sanction their release. “There could be many different reasons for why so many have been released. It could be overpopulation of prisons; the huge social-media campaigns that constantly remind people about these prisoners and put Iran in the spotlight; or Iran trying to repair a quite damaged reputation internationally, and calm the situation. The easiest thing to do is to release prisoners that they feel are less of a risk.” Milad’s release follows those of Saheb Fadaei, Moslem Rahimi, Mehdi Rokhparvar, and most recently Yousef Nadarkhani, while two more converts, Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh and Fariba Dalir, were released last October. However, there are still at least 12 Iranian Christians serving sentences of imprisonment or internal exile because of charges related to their faith or religious activities, while Mr Borji also noted that many other political prisoners, especially outspoken ones such as Narges Mohammadi, have not been pardoned.
5. Court Hearing 4 March 2023 Notes from Prison This is the fifth in a series of articles by Mojtaba Hosseini, an Iranian convert to Christianity who spent more than three years in prison in the southern city of Shiraz because of his membership of a house-church. Mojtaba’s first note from prison explained his journey to faith and the first of his two subsequent arrests; his second detailed his long interrogation; his third explained the desperation and loneliness of solitary confinement and his fourth described some of the dreams and visions he had in prison. In this fifth note, Mojtaba describes the moment he was brought before a judge. It was my 21st day of solitary confinement. Early in the morning, the prison guard opened the door and, as usual, said simply: “Blindfold, on.” Usually, when the door was opened, it was either for me to be taken for interrogation, or for them to take the rubbish out. But on that day, without saying another word to me, I was led outside and pushed into a car, with my hands cuffed and my feet in chains. From the moment I entered the car I felt very anxious and, as we drove along, a thousand and one thoughts crossed my mind about where I was being taken. On the one hand, I feared they were taking me to the middle of nowhere so they could kill me. On the other, I was scared they might be taking me to the public prison. After about half an hour, the car stopped, they took off my blindfold, and I looked up to see the Islamic Revolutionary Court. Then I was taken out of the car, with my hands and ankles still bound, and led inside. Identity There were a number of people outside, watching me as I was taken in, and I thought to myself that I must look like such a dangerous criminal to them, to be bound in such a way. I wondered what crimes they thought I must have committed – a drug trafficker, perhaps? A murderer? Or maybe a fraudster? At first, their gaze weighed heavily on me, but then I reminded myself that my identity and worth wasn’t found in people’s opinions of me, but in God’s – and that this God loved me so much that He had given His life to free me from all past and present humiliation. Throughout my time in prison, I had to constantly remind myself of this: that, in the end, it didn’t matter what society or the government, or even my friends and family, may think of me. My identity is found in God alone. Despite the many accusations levelled at me, and the humiliations I went through, the important truth was that in God’s eyes I was a prince, redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus. I would remind myself of how my life had been miraculously transformed by the presence of the Holy Spirit, and meditate on the words of Romans 8: “So what can I say about all this? If God is with me, who can be against me? He who did not spare his own Son, but sacrificed him for me; will He not also, along with him, graciously give me all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies me! Who then will condemn me? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is interceding for me! Who then shall separate me from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship, persecution or famine, nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things I am victorious because of Him who loves me.” God’s great and indescribable love was sweet incense to my soul, and enabled me to overcome all my troubles and torments. After being made to wait for a while, I was taken into the judge’s room, where he sat, reading my case. After a few minutes of silence, he suddenly angrily shouted: “You are wrong to have insulted our sacred beliefs!” I immediately replied: “In no way have I ever insulted them!” But he cut me off, saying: “When you go to prison, you will be taught manners so that you will no longer act against this government and its sacred beliefs! Then you will be released on bail.” And, without listening to my defence at all, he ordered the intelligence agent to take me away. Fear and comfort Since I’d had no way to contact my family, I was very worried about whether they would even hear about my chance to post bail, and, if not, I feared how long I might be left in prison. I was also extremely afraid just about going to prison, having heard so many bad things. But there I was, sitting in a waiting room, about to be taken there. I still couldn’t believe it – that I, Mojtaba, was about to be taken to prison, having done nothing at all to harm anyone. My heart was filled with an anxiety that threatened to consume me. But at that very moment I suddenly remembered the words of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” These words became my prayer, and from the depths of my being, at my moment of greatest weakness, I relied on them. And in a very real and tangible way, these words provided me with strength and courage at the very moment I needed them. Every single word of this wonderful prayer of David was like a caress from my Heavenly Father, telling me: “You are my son and I will take care of you.” This prayer brought such peace and courage to me that it was as though I had been transformed into another person. I could so tangibly feel my Heavenly Father’s support and care, knowing that it was in Him that I found my hope and identity. I remember sitting quietly from the moment I was placed back in the car until we arrived at the entrance to the prison, and the power of that prayer still remained with me, and I truly understood the meaning of the words: “You are with me in the valley of the shadow of death.”
A letter from Yousef Nadarkhani on the day he was released from prison 3 March 2023 News Yousef Nadarkhani, Bible in hand, stands in front of the only church in Rasht that offered services in the national language of Persian, before its forcible closure. Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who was released on Sunday after nearly five years’ arbitrary detention in Tehran’s Evin Prison, has shared with Article18 a letter he wrote on the day of his release “as a testimony and to express my gratitude”. In the letter, a full translation of which can be read below, the pastor says that although he has been “locked up many times because of His name” – he previously spent three years in prison after he was sentenced to death for apostasy – he considers everything he has endured as his “small part in sharing in the labour and suffering of Christ”. “I know that these things happen to me because I want to live according to God’s will,” he writes. “Today I am extremely happy, and I rejoice, because I experienced the fulfilment of God’s promise, according to my trust in Him. He saved me from enduring a long-term imprisonment – 10 years of imprisonment and two years of exile – as he had previously delivered me from the death sentence.” You can read the full text of the letter below. I present these few lines as a testimony and to express my gratitude. Oh, how kind and loving is our God! Because he showed me how to believe in Him and be filled with the love of Jesus Christ, and gain the strength to serve Him. So I say as long as I live: glory and honour to God, who is the King of all ages. Yes, he is the God who refines His Church through various trials, and prepares it to appear in His presence as a bride, without blemish and stain. Amen. As a soldier and a humble servant of Jesus Christ, I consider everything that I have experienced during my days of service, and endured in my homeland of Iran, as my small part in sharing in the labour and suffering of Christ. By faith, I share in his sufferings, so that, according to his words, I will also share in his joys. Today I am extremely happy, and I rejoice, because I experienced the fulfilment of God’s promise, according to my trust in Him. He saved me from enduring a long-term imprisonment – 10 years of imprisonment and two years of exile – as he had previously delivered me from the death sentence. I know that these things happen to me because I want to live according to God’s will. Therefore, I ask Him to help me continuously so that I can be loyal to Him and endure everything; to be steadfast in all circumstances and to show by the way I live that I look forward to His return. Whenever this thought came to me that it is very difficult to serve Him in this world, I remembered that a day will come when I will sit by His side and reign with Him. Also, although as a child of God I have been locked up many times because of His name, I still believe that no-one can ever lock up His Word at any time or place. His Word is spread everywhere. Yes, I believe in His Word. It is certain for everyone that God never lies! Divine truths always stand, and nothing can shake them. It is like a foundation stone on which these two sentences are written: God knows those who truly belong to Him, and those who believe they belong to Christ must avoid wrongdoing. As in all times, today also with the hardships and sufferings and pressures that Satan and the spiritual forces of evil inflicted on God’s people, there were some among us who turned away from God and His commandments, and became weak in their faith, acting against their servants and fellow human beings, testifying and believing the false accusations of the servants of the evil one, and in this way it has caused discouragement and despair among the believers, making them unable to go through trials. I hope that God will not hold this wrongdoing against them. But God, by His grace, helped us to pass through these days and witness His grace again, according to our trust and faith, and the peace that He put in our hearts before enduring imprisonment. May God’s faithfulness in all these matters become permanent and eternal in our memories. May God’s grace and mercy be with those who, according to His command, have not refrained from doing any good deeds of serving and helping these little ones in Christ. Echoing Paul, and by quoting him, who suffered many times due to the preaching of the Gospel message – suffered severe persecution, hardships and imprisonment – I declare that may God grant his grace and mercy upon those who were not ashamed of our imprisonment, and remembered us, and tried to meet our needs and, through prayers, stood by us and with us in this spiritual battle, and in this way became a source of encouragement and joy to us, so that we could remain firm and steadfast. Glory be to God, who alone is wise, through Jesus Christ forever! Amen The humble servant of Jesus Christ,Yousef Nadarkhani,26 February 2023
Arbitrarily detained pastor released from prison but faces flogging and exile 1 March 2023 News An Iranian pastor once sentenced to death for his “apostasy” has been “pardoned” and released after nearly five years in Tehran’s Evin Prison, but told he still faces flogging and two years’ exile 2,000km from his home. Yousef Nadarkhani, whose death sentence was overturned back in 2011, was sentenced again in July 2017, alongside three other converts, to 10 years in prison and two years’ exile for “acting against national security by propagating house-churches and promoting ‘Zionist’ Christianity”. A year later, Pastor Yousef was violently arrested at his home in Rasht, northern Iran – one of his sons was also assaulted – and taken to Tehran to begin his sentence. And, aside from two short furloughs, there Pastor Yousef has remained until his release on Sunday, 26 February. But as the pastor was being released, despite having been told he had been pardoned – and this also recorded on the official prison database – he was informed he would soon be summoned to receive 30 lashes and also to serve his two years in exile in Nikshahr, on the other side of the country from his home in Rasht. Pastor Yousef was told that the lashes were because of an unauthorised leave of absence from prison, when he failed to return to prison on time after his most recent of two furloughs last year. For this, he was told he had been sentenced to 40 lashes, but that one quarter of this number had been “forgiven” him. Speaking to Article18 from his home, Pastor Yousef said he was “happy to be released and at home after nearly five years in prison” and “very grateful for all those who prayed for me and remembered me while I was in prison”. He added: “All I endured was small in comparison with what Christ has done for us.” A long battle During his incarceration, Pastor Yousef, who is a member of the “Church of Iran” denomination, undertook a three-week hunger strike to protest against the denial of education to his two sons, after they were prohibited from progressing at school because they objected to sitting exams on the Quran. Pastor Yousef has been fighting for his sons’ right not to sit such exams for more than a decade. In Iran, children of recognised religious minorities, including Christians, are exempt from having to sit these exams, but converts to Christianity are unrecognised, meaning their children are generally still considered Muslim. Pastor Yousef took his protests to the highest authority in the land, resulting in the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, giving an opinion on the subject in the form of an official fatwa, 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.” Given that Pastor Yousef and his wife, Tina, married after their conversion, this ruling should have meant that their children should be treated as Christians, but in practice this has not proved the case. In 2020, Pastor Yousef’s sentence was reduced to six years, and later that year the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled that his detention was “arbitrary” on four counts: lack of legal basis for detention; detention resulting from “legitimate exercise” of freedoms; lack of fair trial and due process; and “discrimination based on religious beliefs”. Pastor Yousef denied himself the opportunity of a furlough from prison until 2022, declaring that he did not feel comfortable taking a break from prison until all other Christian detainees had had the opportunity. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom was one of many Western institutions to follow Pastor Yousef’s case, and advocate on his behalf.
Third Christian convert released as part of latest pardons 28 February 2023 News A third Christian convert was among the prisoners pardoned and released earlier this month, Article18 can now confirm. Mehdi Rokhparvar, who was serving a five-year sentence for “acting against national security” by “forming an illegal evangelical Christian group”, was released from Tehran’s Evin Prison in the same week as fellow convert Saheb Fadaie. As reported last week, another convert, Moslem Rahimi, was released a week later, as part of a wider amnesty of prisoners on the occasion of the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Republic. Each year, the Islamic Republic announces a wave of pardons to coincide with particular events – for example in October last year, when Christian converts Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh and Fariba Dalir were pardoned on the occasion of Muhammad’s birth. However, as noted in Article18’s new annual report, “such pardons, while welcome, do not address the original injustice of their sentencing, and imprisonment and the government continues to regard rights and freedoms guaranteed in international law as crimes, including the right to freely adopt a religion of one’s choice, and to manifest one’s faith in community with others”. Mehdi Rokhparvar had been in Evin Prison since June 2020, after a judge increased his bail to 7 billion tomans ($220,000), telling him and another convert, Yasser Akbari: “Your actions are worthy of death! Who set this low bail amount for you, so you could be free to roam about on the streets?” Four months later, Mehdi, Yasser and two women converts, Fatemeh Sharifi, and Simin Soheilinia, were sentenced to a combined 35 years in prison. The four Christians were first arrested in January 2019 during coordinated raids by intelligence agents on their homes in Tehran. In December 2021, Yasser’s only son died in the care facility where he had been living since his father’s imprisonment, and Yasser was not able to secure a temporary release from prison until after the funeral had already taken place.