Parham Mohammadpour 10 September 2021 Witness Statements For a summary of Parham’s story, you can read our feature article here. Background and conversion 1. My name is Alireza (Parham) Mohammadpour, and I was born in 1990 in Nahavand [Hamadan Province], to a Laki-speaking [Kurdish dialect] family from the city of Harsin [Kermanshah Province]. 2. My father’s first wife was barren. That’s why my father married my mother. The first child in the family, my older sister, was born with a disability, so my parents decided not to have any more children. But my mother unintentionally became pregnant again, and they decided to have an abortion. My mother lifted heavy objects and took injections, but none of these things had any effect, and it was God’s will for me to enter this world, but I was also born with a disability. 3. I underwent surgery three times – at the ages of seven, nine and 11 – to treat a disability with my foot. After the third operation, the doctors said: “We can do nothing more for your child. From now on there are three possibilities: the first is that your son may be paralysed, which is very likely; or his condition may remain the same; or it may improve, but this third option is less likely.” 4. My parents’ religion is Yarsanism. My father was a follower of this religion for about 30 years. Many religious ceremonies were held at his home and he was well-known among friends and relatives. 5. My father was embarrassed and frustrated by mine and my sister’s disabilities, which were a source of shame to our parents and caused him not to show love to me. I longed to hear the words “my son” from my father, but not only did my father not love me, but he used hurtful words towards me, which stemmed from his own inner shame and frustration. Words such as: “If you were going to be a good person, you would have been born healthy. God certainly knew you weren’t going to be a good person, and that’s why He caused you to suffer in this way.” It was very painful to hear these words from my father. 6. So, from the age of 10, I started to follow Islamic rules in order to find peace. I prayed in the mosque, fasted, and I was the mokber [prayer announcer] in the mosque. I memorised 30 surahs from the Quran, and I always talked to God in private in the basement of our house and said: “I can’t believe that you would only speak to the imams; I also want to hear your voice.” 7. But the lack of attention and love from my father, my lack of inner peace, and my disability, caused me to become depressed from the eighth year of school onwards. I always tried to appear happy and light-hearted, but inside I was sad and anxious, and I was aggressive towards my family. Every night I wished I would die and wouldn’t wake up in the morning. My days were devoid of life and hope. I never went to the doctor regarding these depressive thoughts, but gradually this inner emptiness led me to unsuccessfully attempt suicide. 8. Then, while I was unconscious, I had a strange dream. I was on the edge of a precipice, beside a dark valley where nothing was visible. I threw myself into the valley, but I didn’t fall in. I hovered between the ground and the air, and I heard a voice say: “I am.” When I woke up, I thought it was my mother’s voice, or one of the doctors. 9. Years passed, and I went to university with the same depressive mental state. 10. My cousin worked for a particular company, and one of the warehouse managers had given her one of the books of the Bible. My cousin gave it to me and said: “I don’t have the patience to read this, and I don’t think it would be very interesting to read anyway, but I thought you might find it interesting.” I said, in surprise: “I am a Yarsan and I follow the rules of Islam; I don’t need to study the Bible!” But, out of curiosity, I began to study the book, which was the Gospel of John. 11. One night I came to chapter 9, verse 2: “His disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned – this man or his parents – that he was born blind?’” Reading this verse, I was confronted with the tormenting words of others in the past who had said: “Parham himself, or his parents, must have done something bad for him to be disabled.” I became sad and agitated, and threw the book away, and said angrily: “I didn’t choose Christianity, You [Jesus] came after me, so either save me or get out of my life!” I cried that night until morning, but I didn’t fully understand the reason for my bitter tears. 12. The next morning I told myself that the book was the Word of God and wouldn’t change, so it would be better to read the end of the verse to see what Jesus said in response to the question. I was terrified and trembling when I opened the book, thinking that maybe I would hear an answer like the painful words uttered by others, and be disappointed with Christ. 13. But when I read John 9:3, Jesus answered: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” That answer took away the heavy burden that had been with me for all 22 years of my life. Suddenly the lightness and peace that I had been looking for for years came over me and I knelt with great eagerness and said: “God, I invite you into my life!” So I converted to Christianity on 12 December 2013, at 9.30pm. House-church 14. I lived with my family in Marlik [south of Karaj] and I was a student at a private university in Abyek, [west of Karaj], where I earned my Master’s degree in ICT Engineering. 15. About 19 days after my conversion, I was studying the Bible at the university. One of the students saw the book in my hand and asked: “What is this book?” I answered: “It’s a Bible.” He didn’t show any reaction at that moment, but after two or three days the same student came up to me and asked: “Would you like to go to church?” I was surprised and asked: “Do we have churches in Iran? Yes, I am very interested!” 16. In Iran, leaders and active house-church members, because of security issues, can’t initially trust anyone who introduces himself as a Christian. For this reason, at first Christian converts meet individually with that person to make sure that he isn’t a spy of the government, and then that person can be brought into the meetings. It was the same in my case: one of the Christians met me on the street and in the park a few times, and then allowed me to attend house-church meetings on the outskirts of Marlik. 17. Each group within our house-church network had a separate leader. For this reason, I met them only three times. 18. In line with the network’s strategy, the number of members in the weekly groups was only about five in each group. In the training sessions in northern Iran the number of members allowed was more, but we weren’t allowed to have a mobile phone with us if we wanted to attend. The house-church group worked hard to ensure everything was done with security in mind. For example, on meeting days I called church members from the public phone on the street and informed them with code-words about the address and time of the meeting. Arrest 19. After some time, some of my Christian friends and I rented a garage in Andisheh [next to Marlik] and went to the different houses in the third and fourth district of Andisheh, asking them what everyday products they needed, with a plan to purchase them on their behalf. We bought a lot of products and put them in the garage, with great expectations for what our new venture could become. 20. But then, on 10 November 2015, at around 10.30pm, I was in the garage with Ali and Pedram [two other house-church members], I was eating, and someone knocked on the door and said: “Excuse me, I hit your car. Please come and take a look.” As soon as we opened the door, about eight people wearing balaclavas and carrying guns entered the garage. I was very scared when I saw their weapons and aggressive behaviour, and thought they were thieves. One of them slapped me hard and said: “Lie on the floor!” 21. After five minutes of them spitting out obscenities and insults towards us, they showed us an arrest warrant and read out the names of my two friends. It was then we realised these people weren’t thieves but agents of the Ministry of Intelligence! We asked them to show their ID cards and then saw that they really did belong to the Ministry of Intelligence. One agent had a video camera and filmed everything from the outset. 22. They took mine and my friends’ mobile phones, but they returned mine at the end of the night. The reason they took my mobile phone initially was to prevent me from telling anyone else about our arrest at that moment. They confiscated our bank cards, wallets and personal Gospels, as well as Christian educational CDs and the DVD of the film “A cry from Iran” [about the murder of pastor Haik Hovsepian], worship CDs, the film of Jesus based on the Gospel of Luke, and our computer. 23. At about 12.30am, my two friends were handcuffed, put in a car and taken to prison. I was also put in a car, a white Peugeot. There were two people in the front, and one in the back next to me. The officer next to me was writing names on a piece of paper. I looked at the sheet and, because he had taken off his mask, I saw his face. He slapped me hard and said: “Who allowed you to look in this direction? Thank God that your warrant hasn’t been issued yet! The verdict of your friends is clear: they are facing life imprisonment or execution!” 24. The other agents also insulted and ridiculed me. The agent sitting in front of me asked me questions about house-church leaders and members: “What is the name of your pastor? Do you know ‘Reza’?”, and so on. 25. Despite my fear, I decided to say that I didn’t know any of their names. But I soon found out that they already knew the real names and nicknames of most of the active members. For example, he said: “Maziar’s real name is Reza”. 26. They let me out of the car on the edge of Andisheh and said: “We have had you under our surveillance for about three months, and now we decided to come for you. So don’t think you are free! We’ll contact you soon, and you must come for interrogation.” I promised that I would go to any address they told me to, but because of my mother’s heart disease I asked them to call my mobile phone and not to come to our address. 27. It took me about 20 minutes to get home from where they had dropped me. I went from street to street to find a public telephone, and also to confuse them in case they were following me. I decided to inform the pastor and other active members that two of my friends had been arrested. I called my pastor several times, but he didn’t answer. I got home at 1 o’clock in the morning. I was full of stress and worry and I couldn’t eat for a whole day. 28. The next morning, I called one of my Christian friends from a public telephone and said with code words: “My colleagues were taken to the hospital because of a gas leak, but I’m fine and I was allowed to go.” He replied: “Let’s meet each other.” I was very scared and thought I was being followed. That’s why I went to different places, getting rides with different drivers, until I reached my friend’s plumbing shop. 29. When I told my friend what had happened, he said: “Last night, at the same time that was happening to you, Ministry of Intelligence agents drove to every one of the cities we have house-church meetings and arrested a large number of people from each group, and our pastor.” Interrogations 30. Every second of those next few days passed slowly for me and I thought every moment about the interrogations I would have to face and the questions they might ask me. I even said to myself that my friends were lucky that they had been arrested, so that at least they didn’t have this time of anxiously worrying about when it might happen. In prayer I asked God to grant me grace so that the answers I gave during my interrogation wouldn’t endanger any of my Christian friends, and that I could come out of this situation with my head held high. 31. Two days after the arrest of my friends, an intelligence official called me and said: “At the edge of Marlik, we are waiting for you.” I hugged my mother tightly and thought I might never see her again. Arriving at the meeting point, I got in their car, and they blindfolded me and took me somewhere for my interrogation. 32. When we got to that unknown place, one of the agents said: “Get out!” But when I get anxious, I can’t move very well and I lose balance, so I said: “I have a disability; please take my hand and help me to get out of the car.” The man took my hand and I got out of the car. Then he said: “There is a step in front of you; be careful.” I asked him to help me up the stairs. “Tell Jesus Christ to come and take your hand!” the agent said. Then my foot hit the stairs and I fell hard onto the ground. The agent put his foot on my neck and said sarcastically: “You see now that Jesus Christ isn’t alive? Otherwise he would have taken your hand!” They wanted to inflict psychological torture on me with their insults. But thanks be to God, who gave me indescribable peace at the height of these pressures and insults. 33. When I entered that place, I heard the voices of various prisoners being tortured. Because I was blindfolded, I don’t know if the sounds were real or if they just wanted to scare me. I was taken to a dark room and put on a chair. The interrogator entered the room, with a balaclava over his face. He asked for my name and other personal details, and I said, in surprise: “You have all my information!” He read the names of pastors, leaders, and some of the regular members, and said: “Do you know these people?” I said: “No, I don’t.” He spoke to me with obscene and insulting language, and said: “We found pictures of you with some of these people on the computer we confiscated in the garage. So how come you don’t know them?” I said that the photos were of my classmates from university. 34. Many different agents interrogated me. During one of the interrogations, I was blindfolded and told: “The supervising interrogator wants to come.” He was called “Haji” [someone who has been to Mecca]. The name of Ali and Pedram’s interrogator was “Parsa”. Maybe this supervising interrogator was their interrogator as well. He told me: “You are a promoter of Christianity! You distribute Jesus Christ’s films and Bibles!” I denied it, but he showed me some pictures and said with very ugly insults: “We took pictures of you while you were distributing the films and Bibles; we have evidence! Why are you lying? In this photo, the person who is distributing the Bible, is it me or you? Your father is a Yarsan; you memorised 30 surahs from the Quran; your father’s financial situation is good; your university grades are very good; why did you become a Christian? What did you lack? You could have become a satan-worshipper, but not a Christian!” 35. But I had tasted salvation, and I enjoyed evangelising. God had saved me from depression, and I had shared the gospel with the depressed, the broken-hearted, the disabled. So, when I found out that they had a lot of evidence against me, I took the opportunity to tell the interrogators about what God had done in my life. 36. I said: “Imagine you are drowning and you aren’t able to swim. While you’re attempting to save yourself, and while you’re suffocating, someone comes and saves you. Jesus Christ did the same for me. I was stuck in the mud and Christ gave me life. I owe him for the rest of my life. I am afraid of death and I don’t deny my fear, but I know that if I die I’ll go to be with God in His kingdom. 37. The interrogator said rudely, angrily, and with vulgar words: “If it weren’t for the camera in the room, I know what I would do with you!” They didn’t beat me in the interrogation room, but they constantly shook my chair violently, creating a terrifying atmosphere with this shaking of my chair and the sounds of prisoners being tortured. I found it difficult to breathe several times due to the shaking of my chair, and felt like I was suffocating. 38. The Ministry of Intelligence agents weren’t actually concerned about religion. The interrogator cursed all the 12 Shiite imams and said: “The forefathers of the imams can all die, as far as I care! We don’t care about your beliefs or religion! Our problem is anti-regime activities. You are a promoter of Christianity, and you hold anti-government meetings! You are a national troublemaker! You cooperate with hostile foreign countries – the United States and Israel – and your goal is to overthrow the regime! You are a preacher of Christianity! Your accusation is ‘propaganda against the regime’, and ‘holding meetings against the government’. Your sentence is death, and that’s it!” 39. But during the fourth interrogation, the interrogators’ behaviour had softened, because they brought an Islamic cleric to convert me to Islam. But at the end, I told the Islamic cleric and interrogators: “Even if you cut me into pieces, I won’t abandon my faith in Jesus Christ. He is my saviour; he has lifted me from the rubbish dump, and I’ll never deny him.” But they forced me to sign a written commitment that I wouldn’t evangelise or attend house-church meetings. 40. Three of my interrogations lasted for about three hours, but one of them went on from 9am until midnight! I wasn’t given any food during the interrogations; I only asked for water when I was thirsty, and they gave me water. I also left the interrogation room several times to go to the bathroom, but I was very embarrassed by the behaviour of the officer who took me to the toilet, who stayed next to me and rushed me, saying: “Just sit down and do it!” I said that I was embarrassed, but he said: “I’m going to turn my back to you.” 41. Once, when I entered the interrogation room, the smell of blood was so intense that I thought I was in a slaughterhouse. The stress was so great that, at that time, part of my hair turned white and I experienced in reality the saying “it made me old”. The interrogators knew my father was a follower of Yarsanism. That’s why I was threatened several times: “We will contact your father and discuss this with him; surely he would be willing to pay for us to kill you!” 42. In all, they called and summoned me four times in 18 days; they picked me up in Marlik, and took me, blindfolded, to some place for interrogation. The distance from Marlik to that unknown place varied. Three times it took about 15 minutes, and once it took about an hour. But I think we went to the same place all four times. All four times I heard the same rustling of leaves on the stairs and the same sound of a large iron door opening. 43. After the interrogations, they always blindfolded me and took me to a different place, then let me go. Each time I returned home, I would throw all my clothes into the washing machine. After the final interrogation, I actually threw all my clothes away, even my jacket, because I was afraid they had put a listening or tracking device in them. After the interrogations were finished, I spoke with some church members on the phone, but we didn’t meet at each other’s houses at all. Confiscated items 44. Eventually, someone called us and told us we could go and retrieve the items they had confiscated from us, and gave us the address of the Shahriar NAJA [police] office. When I went there, the stairs, the rustling of leaves and the sound of a large green door suggested to me that this was where I had probably been blindfolded and brought for questioning all those times. 45. They showed me some of the CDs they’d taken and said: “Separate each of these CDs into ones that are Christian and ones that aren’t. You can’t take the ones that are Christian.” All the CDs were Christian, but I took only a few of them so the officer would assume I was separating the non-Christian ones. In the garage, I used to burn CDs of Christian teachings, sermons, and the film of Jesus Christ based on Luke’s Gospel, to evangelise and distribute them to others alongside other house-church members. 46. They also returned my computer, but I was afraid it would have a listening or tracking device, so I had to sell it, even though I’d only bought it recently. I implored them to return my Bible, but unfortunately they didn’t agree. But my bank card, wallet and passport, which they had also taken, were returned to me. Impact 47. I was registered with the state welfare organisation [because of the disability]. According to my skills, a job was found for me in a certain company, but after I went there to start work and the person in charge had entered my details, he asked: “Are you a Christian?” I said: “How do you know?” He said: “In the system, you are registered as a ‘Christian promoter’, so you can’t work here.” So that’s how I found out that the Ministry of Intelligence had filed a case against me. 48. Whenever I wasn’t at home, I always felt like I was being followed, and sometimes I was sure. If anyone on the bus approached me, I thought he was trying to put a listening or tracking device on my clothes. That’s why, whenever I went home, I threw all my clothes in the wash again. 49. I also struggled with my emotions. My Christian friends had been released because their families had paid their bail, and on the one hand I thanked God that I hadn’t been taken to prison, because my family wouldn’t have bailed me out. But on the other hand, I felt frustrated and struggled with feeling unworthy, having not been to prison like my Christian friends. I even talked to God and said: “If you plan for me to go to prison, I’ll obey and just ask you to give me the strength.” Leaving Iran 50. After a few months, while I and my friends, who had been temporarily released, were waiting for our verdict and the decision of the judge or relevant authorities, they called us and said: “Either leave Iran, or stay in Iran and you’ll have to go to prison for about three to five years.” 51. I thought to myself: “How long will all this stress and anxiety last? These pressures will make my mother sicker and sicker, and if I get married and have children in the future, my family will also face this torture and these threats. And it won’t be easy for me to find a job, or any source of income.” So, although I never wanted to, I was forced to leave Iran. Several officers followed me to the airport, even on the day I left Iran. But they stopped after I passed the police checkpoint. And so I emigrated to Turkey on 21 October 2016. 52. After leaving Iran, several times suspicious calls were made to our home in Iran and my mother was asked about how I was doing. My mother asked their names and they said: “We are his friends and we want to know where he is and what he is doing.” I am sure that these people were from the Ministry of Intelligence, because all my friends are aware of my situation, and if they were really my friends they would be willing to say who they were. I have been living in Turkey for about four years [as of May 2020] now. During this time, I haven’t seen my family once. I have been through many difficult things and problems here, and experienced a lot of loneliness, but I am glad that at least I had the opportunity to be baptised – on 1 January 2017.
New arrests and threats as pressure increases on Rasht converts 6 September 2021 News Left to right: Ahmad Sarparast, Morteza Mashoodkari, and Ayoob Poor-Rezazadeh. Three converts were arrested last night in the northern city of Rasht, in the latest blow to the beleaguered Church there. Ahmad Sarparast, Morteza Mashoodkari, and Ayoob Poor-Rezazadeh were arrested at around 10pm – two at a house-church meeting, and another at his home – and are now being held in an unknown location. The small community of converts in Rasht has been affected perhaps more than any other in Iran in recent years, with 11 currently serving long prison sentences, another living in internal exile, and a further four facing a combined 13 years in prison. Meanwhile, in the past few weeks nine of the Rasht converts held in Tehran’s Evin Prison have been threatened with enforced transfers to a different prison, and told they’ll have to pay for their own transportation there. One of them, Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad, has already been transferred after a short furlough, and is now in Anzali. And although the prison in Anzali is much closer to home and would therefore have been a preferable place of detention in the first place, two of the nine converts, Behnam Akhlaghi and Babak Hosseinzadeh, say they fear that a transfer now would make any further requests for leave or a retrial even more complicated. Babak Hosseinzadeh (left) and Behnam Akhlaghi. The two men are upset that their repeated requests for a retrial have been ignored, while they are also frustrated at being informed that their imminent transfer was about to take place, without any prior warning or conversation about the matter. All nine – also Shahrooz Eslamdoust, Mehdi Khatibi, Khalil Dehghanpour, Hossein Kadivar, Kamal Naamanian and Mohammad Vafadar – are serving five-year sentences for “acting against national security” because of their leadership of house-churches. They were arrested during raids on their homes and house-churches in January and February 2019, and sentenced in October 2019; their appeals were rejected in February 2020, and those who were not already in prison by then were summoned to begin serving their sentences in June 2020. The nine men had been helping to lead the small community of Rasht converts in the absence of their pastor, Yousef Nadarkhani, who is serving a six-year sentence (reduced from 10), and fellow leaders Zaman (Saheb) Fadaie, who is also still in prison, Mohammad Reza Omidi (now in internal exile), and Mohammad Ali Mossayebzadeh. These four men were all originally sentenced to 10 years in prison, and Yousef and Saheb have been in Evin for more than three years. Reflecting on the developments, Article18’s advocacy director, Mansour Borji, said: “These latest arrests show that the Iranian authorities are determined to ignore the civil and constitutional right of the Christians to assembly and worship by continued attacks on this community in Rasht, who have done nothing more than to meet together to pray and worship. “Babak and Behnam are entirely justified in fearing that their cases would become even more complicated should they be transferred, while their lives may also be at risk, given that in many smaller Iranian prisons there is no segregation between political prisoners like them and dangerous common criminals who may feel hostility towards Christian converts.”
‘I asked myself, why am I alive?’ 3 September 2021 Features It was clear from the questions the interrogators asked him that Iman Ghaznavian Haghighi had been arrested only because of his Christian faith. “When and how did you start to believe in Jesus Christ? Where did you get your Bible? How many people did you evangelise? Why did you evangelise? What was your responsibility in the house-church?” For 10 hours a day, Iman says he was repeatedly asked these questions. The Christian convert was 26 years old when he was arrested, as he went out of the front door of his home in Shiraz one morning in September 2012. Three agents of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence forcibly pushed him back inside his home, and “angrily” asked Iman’s mother and sister to put on their headscarves, before seating the three of them on a sofa and placing another sofa in from of their feet, “so that we couldn’t move”. “My mother and sister were both shocked and very scared,” Iman recalls, “but I felt a strange peace, alongside a little fear.” The agents ransacked Iman’s home, confiscating everything from his mobile phones and laptops, to books, CDs and even a Jewish candleholder he had bought during a visit to India. Then Iman was taken away, and forced to sit in between two agents in the back of a car, his head pushed down “so that I couldn’t see anything along the way”. For the next 26 days, Iman was held in the Ministry of Intelligence prison. For the first nine of these days, Iman was held in solitary confinement – in a cell “so small it wouldn’t have been possible to sleep even if just two or three people were there”. The hot weather only added to Iman’s discomfort, and the rank smell of his solitary cell. And even after his time in solitary confinement was through, Iman says the agents did everything they could to ensure his stay was not a comfortable one. “I was put in a cell with two others, but they constantly changed who I was with,” he recalls. “This was also a mental torture for me, because as soon as we became friends and I got used to them, they separated us.” On his second day in detention, Iman was taken to the prosecutor’s office, where he says: “I wasn’t allowed to speak, and they made fun of me. I was told, ‘Shut up! You aren’t allowed to talk!’” Instead, Iman was told he must write down his answer to their questions. Once again, the line of questioning was clear. “For how many years have you believed in Jesus Christ? How did you come to this belief? Have you been baptised? Which Christian denomination do you belong to? Have you been in contact with Christian channels abroad?” During his interrogations, Iman says he was frequently insulted – they called him “unclean” and asked why he had changed his religion and brought this “misery” upon himself. Iman says he suffered stress-induced headaches and nosebleeds at night, and that after his release a doctor, seeing his condition, told him “It’s a miracle you haven’t suffered several strokes!” One day, Iman was forced to watch as another detainee was subjected to a sustained attack with a taser. “He moaned and screamed, and was thrown to the ground every time he was attacked with it,” Iman recalls. And the day before his release, Iman was forced to make a “confession” on video. “They asked me again all the questions they had asked me during interrogations, but this time in front of the camera,” Iman explains. Iman was also told to testify against his Christian friends, and told they had done the same to him. “Their goal was to divide us, so that we wouldn’t be in contact with each other after our release,” he says. Finally, Iman’s bail was set, at 100 million tomans (around $33,000), and he was allowed to return home. But Iman found that the life he returned to was not the one he had known before his arrest. At every turn, it seemed the doors closed in Iman’s face. First it was the university, where he had hoped to study business administration. “Unfortunately, after my arrest, the university told me my name wasn’t on the registration list,” Iman explains. Next, it was his job. Iman had gained a license in laying ceramic tiles, but after his release, he suddenly found out he no longer had a license. So Iman tried working for another employer. “But a week later, when I went to his workplace, he said: ‘Unfortunately I can no longer work with you’,” Iman explains. Iman says the “confusion” and “difficulty” of those days left him “hopeless”. “I said to myself: ‘Why am I alive?’ The only reason I lived was for my family.” Iman says he would constantly receive calls from the Ministry of Intelligence, telling him, “We’re watching you, everywhere you go!” They even offered to acquit him, if he’d “write a blog against Christianity, or travel abroad to spy on the activities of other Christians”. Then Iman was forced to attend “re-education” classes with an Islamic cleric. “Those were very difficult days,” he recalls, “because I had no knowledge of Christian apologetics, and [his] words challenged me.” Finally, around 10 months after his release from prison, Iman was given a suspended five-year prison sentence, though even the precise charges against him were vague. “In the first days after my arrest, they had told me my charges were ‘acting against the security of the regime’,” Iman explains. “After my release I was interrogated again and my charge was replaced with ‘forming small groups to overthrow the regime’… Finally, in the court a verdict was issued to me on the charge of ‘propaganda against the regime’.” Iman was told he must visit the Ministry of Intelligence once every two months in the first year of his suspended sentence, every six months in the second year, and once more in the third year. But eventually the pressure of it all took its toll on Iman, and he fled the country just two weeks after the beginning of his suspended sentence. Iman first went to Armenia, but when they wouldn’t accept him as a refugee he crossed into Turkey. The day after his arrival, on 29 November 2013, Iman applied for asylum with the UNHCR in Turkey. At first it seemed that the process would run smoothly – he was excited about the chance to move to the US after meeting some American Christians in Turkey – but when the process stalled, Iman began to feel more and more helpless, and has struggled with depression. Iman was initially sent to the small city of Bolu, 300km east of Istanbul, and struggled to obtain permission to travel to other cities to meet with other Christians there. In 2019, he was allowed to relocate to Istanbul, where he has more connections, after a psychiatrist acknowledged his struggles with depression, but he longs for the opportunity to find a new permanent home. You can read Iman’s full Witness Statement here.
Iman Ghaznavian Haghighi 3 September 2021 Witness Statements For a summary of Iman’s story, you can read our feature article here. Background 1. My name is Iman Ghaznavian Haghighi, and I was born in 1986 in Shiraz. My father passed away when I was 11 years old, so I had to study and work at the same time. A while later, I became a Christian and an active member of a Christian youth group in Shiraz. On 18 September 2012, I was arrested at my home and detained for 26 days in the Ministry of Intelligence Prison in Shiraz. I was then released on bail and later forced to leave my home country. Conversion 2. I was in contact with members of other religious minorities in Iran, and I watched the Apadana Christian Channel, which had two-hour Christian programmes. I liked what I heard, but at the same time I couldn’t quite accept it. I decided to email the Apadana Channel and to request a Bible, so they sent me a New Testament. I was very interested in the Gospel of John. 3. I eagerly read the Bible day and night. After a while, another Christian channel was launched and I called that channel and asked to be introduced to a church. After five to six months of out-of-church contact, they knew me better and connected me to a house-church. I took part in discipleship classes for a while, and then I engaged in Christian activities with the youth in Shiraz and other cities. Finally, in May 2009, I was baptised outside Iran. 4. A few months after I returned, on 22 June and 11 July 2009, all the leaders of our house-church were arrested by agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. All the other leaders left Iran, so I was alone in Shiraz, but after a while I continued with my Christian activities. 5. For about four years, my family had difficulties with my belief in Jesus, but after they recognised changes in me, and attended one of the house-church meetings and got to know that the church was a place where Christians had amicable relationships with each other, their point of view changed. Arrest 6. On 18 September 2012, at 7 o’clock in the morning, the doorbell rang, and I was just opening the door when three strong agents from the Ministry of Intelligence pushed me inside. They entered the house, without a warrant. They angrily asked my mother and my sister, who had come the night before to visit me, to put on their headscarves. They sat us on a sofa and put another one in front of our feet so that we couldn’t move, saying: “You’re not allowed to talk.” My mother and sister were both shocked and very scared, but I felt a strange peace, alongside a little fear. 7. They confiscated my mobile phones, laptop, books, CDs, and even a Jewish candleholder I had bought from India, and everything else related to Christianity. Then they put me into a car. Two people sat in the front, one of whom was the driver, and two others sat in the back, one on each side of me. They lowered my head so I couldn’t see anything along the way. At the same time, 13 other Christians were also arrested. They signed commitments to partake in no further Christian activity, and were released at noon that day. Detention and interrogations 8. I was detained for 26 days in the Shiraz Ministry of Intelligence Prison. They gave me clothes, trousers, shorts, a blue towel and three blankets. The light in my cell was always on. The very small cell was about three square metres, so it wouldn’t be possible to even sleep if two or three people were in that cell. It also smelled really bad. Because I was arrested in the summer, the weather was very hot, so that also made it really uncomfortable. I was alone in the cell for nine days, but after that I was put in a cell with two others, though they constantly changed who I was with. This was also a mental torture for me, because as soon as we became friends and I got used to them, they separated us. 9. On the second day, I was taken to the prosecutor’s office, where two people were in charge, who treated me very harshly. They had recently arrested some Baha’is, whose families had contacted the media to highlight how minorities were being unfairly treated. I wasn’t allowed to speak, and they made fun of me. I was told: “Shut up, you aren’t allowed to talk!” We were there for 20 minutes. They gave me a piece of paper, on which I had to answer these questions: “For how many years have you believed in Jesus Christ? How did you come to this belief? Have you been baptised? Which Christian denomination do you belong to? Have you been in contact with Christian channels abroad?” 10. They took me for interrogations at different times of the day, and the interrogations took at least 10 hours each day, with repeated questions such as: “When and how did you start to believe in Jesus Christ? Where did you get your Bible? How many people did you evangelise? Why did you evangelise? What was your responsibility in the church?” And also they told me I had to write down the names of the leaders and other members of the house-church. From those who had been arrested before, I had learned that I should confess the names only of those Christians who had already left the country, as they would not be in any danger. 11. I was blindfolded while I was interrogated, and they cuffed my left hand to a chair and left my right hand free so that I could write. I could only see the sheets of paper out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t see any of the interrogators, and they only called each other by the same nickname: “Abdullah”. They insulted me and said, “You are dirty! Why did you change your religion? You have made yourself miserable!” They pushed me around, and belittled me. 12. I have inherited high blood pressure, and it was much higher in the prison because of the stress. I had a lot of headaches at night and suffered from a nosebleed, but no doctor examined me during my detention. After my release from prison, I went to a doctor, who was very surprised by my condition and told me: “It’s a miracle you haven’t had several strokes!” 13. During one of the interrogations, for two hours I was sitting alone in a room facing the wall, and under the blindfold I could see a person who was being tortured with a stun gun and thrown to the ground. He moaned and screamed and was thrown to the ground every time he was attacked with it. When I was brought back to my cell, after a while they brought that same person, who was called Khalil, to my cell. 14. He told me he had escaped from prison 11 times and had been brought from the city of Jahrom [200km southeast of Shiraz] for raping the son of the city’s intelligence chief. He also tried to injure himself so that he would have to be taken to hospital. I prayed seven to eight hours every day, and despite my fear, I decided to speak to him about Jesus Christ for about an hour. When I finished speaking, Khalil’s face and the face of the other cellmates who had listened were wet with tears. Khalil said: “You changed my point of view towards God. I had never heard someone speak about God like this before.” He asked me to talk more about Jesus that night. We talked for a day and a half about Jesus, and I would be very happy even if all that happened to me during my detention was for Khalil to be redeemed. Release 15. The day before my release, on 15 October, I was forced to make a video confession. They said: “Be sure to take a shower first.” Then they gave me the clothes I’d arrived in on my first day to change into. They asked me again all the questions they had asked me during the interrogations, but this time in front of the camera. They asked me to testify against Christianity and other Christians, and provoked me with these words: “Your friends have betrayed you, and given us your name.” But I testified to my faith in Jesus Christ and said: “My friends have never done me wrong before. Even if they gave you my name, they must have been under pressure, and I forgive them.” Their goal was to divide us so that we wouldn’t be in contact with each other after our release. 16. My bail amount was set at 150 million tomans [approx. $50,000]. Our house was examined by an expert, and he set the worth of the house at lower than the bail amount, so in addition to the deed for the house, a relative’s salary slip also had to be pledged as a guarantee. Also, my family was called from prison and told: “You have to pay for the food we gave to your son during these 26 days.” 17. Before my arrest, I used to study at night, and my dream was to study business administration at university, but unfortunately, after my arrest, the university told me my name wasn’t on the registration list. I was also very good at the profession of laying tiles and ceramics and, with a lot of difficulty, I had managed to get myself a license to work for myself in that profession. But after my release, no license was approved for me. I decided to work for someone else, who told me how much they appreciated working with me. But a week later, when I went to his workplace, he said: “Unfortunately, I can no longer work with you.” 18. It was a time of confusion for me. On the one hand, I didn’t know what sentence the court would issue; and on the other, I didn’t have a job. This waiting period was very difficult for me. Before believing in Jesus, I had longed for education, a car, and so on, and after my conversion I longed to serve in the Church. I felt hopeless after my release and said to myself: “Why am I alive?” The only reason I lived for was my family.19. I kept receiving calls from the intelligence service, and was told: “We’re watching you everywhere you go!” So I couldn’t keep in touch with other house-church members. Every two weeks, the Ministry of Intelligence would call and say: “Your crime is very serious! If you write a blog against Christianity, or travel abroad to spy on the activities of the Christians, we will acquit you.” 20. Once a week I had to go to a cleric named Mr Momeni, who talked to me about Islam, the Quran, and so on. A book titled ‘The Evangelising Christianity’ was given to me to read, and he went through every page with me. Those were very difficult days, because I had no knowledge of any Christian apologetics, and Mr Momeni’s words challenged me. I once said to him: “Have you ever been electroshocked?” He said: “Yes, when I was a child.” I said: “You don’t see the electricity, but you can feel the effect. In the same way, I have met Christ and experienced being with him.” He became so angry that, although he usually took me home, that time he said: “Go home yourself!” Court 21. About 10 months after my release, the court trial was held in Branch 1 of the Revolutionary Court of Fars Province. The judge in my case was Seyyed Mahmoud Sadati. In the first days after my arrest, they had told me my charge was “acting against the security of the regime”. After my release, I was interrogated again and my charge was replaced with “forming small groups to overthrow the regime”. This charge was later removed and, finally, in the court, a verdict was issued to me on the charge of “propaganda against the regime”. 22. I didn’t have a lawyer, either at the prosecutor’s office or at the court. It took about a month and a half from the time of my trial until the sentencing. The court sentenced me to five years’ suspended imprisonment. Another Christian woman, who I used to do Christian activities with at the house-church, was also sentenced to five years’ suspended imprisonment. They read the verdict out to us, but didn’t show us the written verdict. No exit ban was imposed on me. 23. In court, I had to promise that I would go to the Ministry of Intelligence once every two months in the first year, every six months in the second year, then once in the third year of my sentence, to introduce myself and give my signature. The only evidence I have now of all that happened to me is one document that was given to me at Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz, the day my suspended sentence began. 24. Two weeks later, I fled Iran.
Iranian Christian among prisoners to be ‘adopted’ by UK parliamentarians 1 September 2021 News Iranian Christian Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh will be one of the first four prisoners of conscience to be “adopted” by UK parliamentarians as part of a new initiative to highlight abuses of religious freedom around the world. Nasser and the three others – Vietnamese Buddhist Nguyễn Bắc Truyển, Nigerian Christian Leah Sharibu, and Nigerian humanist Mubarak Bala – will be adopted by members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief, who will advocate on their behalf. “The aim is to highlight their cases – and those of all who are unjustly imprisoned as a result of their faith or belief, regardless of whatever that faith of belief might be,” said a press release from the APPG. “Through these efforts we will establish a much more focused and continuous advocacy on their behalf.” In the explanatory paragraph on Nasser, the APPG noted: “Nasser, an Iranian Christian convert, has been in Tehran’s Evin Prison since January 2018, serving a 10-year sentence for his membership of a house-church. “He has had three requests for retrials rejected in that time, and was recently denied parole, despite being eligible after serving more than one third of his sentence. “He was told the reason for the denial was that he had “not changed his position” – i.e. that he continues to maintain that he is a Christian. “Nasser, who was his elderly mother’s primary carer before his incarceration, has not once been allowed out on furlough, despite the Covid pandemic. “He celebrated his 60th birthday on 3 August – in prison.” In announcing the nominations, the chair of the APPG, Jim Shannon, said: “To encourage parliamentarians and, through this, our government to take action to speak for the voiceless and stand for the oppressed has always been my goal since my election to the House of Commons in 2010, and today is the next step in seeing Freedom of Religion and Belief becoming a priority for Members of this House. “The individual targeting that is taking place is not designed to attribute importance to one case over another but is simply doing what we can to help individuals in parallel with working on policy changes that will help the many. “This APPG seeks to help in a practical and policy driven manner and I grateful to be a cog in the mechanics of making religious freedom a reality.”
Evin videos show ‘institutionalised’ abuse in Iran’s prisons 28 August 2021 Analysis A series of leaked video clips have highlighted the shocking abuse of detainees inside Tehran’s Evin Prison, where over a dozen Christian converts are among hundreds of prisoners of conscience. In one clip, a detainee is beaten by prison guards, while in another an elderly prisoner is dragged across the floor and up some stairs, after a cleric casually steps over him. Article18 has heard first-hand testimonies from many former prisoners of conscience, reporting similar mistreatment, including beatings. But the leaked clips are a rare example of concrete evidence of the long-suspected abuse within Iran’s prisons. Dr Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, told Article18: “We have received hundreds of reports of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners, and I have personally spoken to many victims of torture. “I know that much worse things have happened in Evin Prison, but the clips are still shocking. We must also keep in mind that the situation is worse in smaller prisons across the country. “The most horrible part is that we see that the brutality and humiliation of prisoners is institutionalised, and one can only imagine how prisoners are treated in the interrogation room, when they want to force prisoners to confess.” In response to the clips, the head of Iran’s prisons, Mohammad Mehdi Haj-Mohammadi, said he “accepted responsibility for these unacceptable behaviours”, while new head of the judiciary Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei promised an investigation by the attorney-general. However, Hossein Ahmadiniaz, a lawyer who has represented clients including Evin prisoner of conscience Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, told Article18 such apologies and promises “will not cure any pain”, because the judiciary itself is responsible for authorising such abuses. “The judiciary know that the principles of the constitution and the provisions of the Islamic Penal Code absolutely forbid torture and ill-treatment, and that such actions should lead to criminal prosecution,” he said, “but the problem is that the judiciary that has to prosecute these torturers is part of this same system, so it will not happen.” He called for independent rights monitors to be allowed access to Iranian prisons, saying that Mr Ejei and new president Ebrahim Raisi have both been “at the highest levels of the judiciary for 42 years”, and are “the cause of this terrible situation”. “All prosecutors, investigators, judges and judicial authorities are aware of this behaviour, and all these atrocities have been committed with their full knowledge,” he said. “In actual fact, the judiciary specifically orders such torture and ill-treatment.” Mr Ahmadiniaz added that “political and security prisoners”, including members of ethnic and religious minorities such as Bahai’s and Christians converts, are the “main victims of this dire situation”. “The situation in other prisons is also terrible,” he said, “such as the Greater Tehran Central Penitentiary, Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz, and the prisons under the supervision of security agencies.” A group of political prisoners currently held in Evin Prison also issued a statement, calling for an investigation by rights groups into the situation of Iranian prisoners. They said that torture took place in Evin that was “not recorded on any camera”, including “psychological and mental torture of detainees in solitary confinement [white torture] and the interrogation room”. Dr Amiry-Moghaddam said he hopes “these videos will make the international community pay more attention to the human rights crisis in Iran”. He added: “They will also be important evidence in the future international tribunal against the leaders of the Islamic Republic, and those directly responsible for the inhuman treatment of prisoners.”
Christian convert given leave from prison 27 August 2021 News Christian convert Hamed Ashouri has been released on leave from prison. Article18 understands that the 31-year-old, who is serving a 10-month sentence for “propaganda against the Islamic Republic”, may be permitted to spend the rest of his sentence at home, with an electronic tag. At least two other Christian converts have been released with electronic tags so far this year, in what appears to be an increasing trend. Hamed has so far spent just less than one month in Karaj’s Central Prison, having begun his sentence on 27 July. He was arrested by Ministry of Intelligence agents as he left his home in Fardis on the morning of 23 February 2019. The intelligence agents proceeded to raid his home and confiscate all Christian items, including Bibles and other literature, as well as computer hard drives. He was then taken to Rajaei Shahr Prison in Karaj, where he was held in solitary confinement for 10 days, before being transferred to Ghezel Hesar Prison, also in Karaj, for another two days. During interrogations, Hamed was offered a large monthly salary if he “cooperated” by becoming an informant against other Christians. When he refused, he was beaten. Hamed was finally released on bail after submitting guarantees in the form of payslips. Hamed and another family member were then forced to attend “re-education” sessions with an Islamic cleric. After four such sessions, Hamed refused to participate in any more, and it was then that the court proceedings against him began. The case against him was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, but Hamed was eventually sentenced in April 2021 following a court hearing a month earlier at the 4th Branch of the Revolutionary Court in Karaj. He was summoned to begin his prison sentence after the failure of his appeal on 26 June. Hamed was initially told to submit himself to prison within 10 days of his failed appeal, but he was later given a few weeks longer.
Christian converts’ sentences reduced but appeals rejected 26 August 2021 News Left to right: Milad Goodarzi, Amin Khaki, and Alireza Nourmohammadi. Three Christian converts were informed today that their appeals against five-year prison sentences have been rejected, but their sentences reduced to three years. Amin Khaki, Milad Goodarzi and Alireza Nourmohammadi were given the maximum five-year prison sentences in June for “engaging in propaganda that educates in a deviant way contrary to the holy religion of Islam”. They were also each fined 40 million tomans ($1,800), though that has now been removed on appeal. They were the first Christians convicted under controversial new amendments to Article 500 of the penal code, which came into force earlier this year. The charges against the three men followed coordinated raids by intelligence agents on their homes, and on the homes of nine other Christian families in Fardis, in November 2020. None of the Christians were arrested at that time, but many of their personal belongings were confiscated – including phones, laptops, Bibles, Christian literature and anything else to do with Christianity. The Christian items have not been returned. Then in the space of two weeks in January and February 2021, a member of each family was summoned for interrogation and ordered to sign commitments to refrain from meeting together – either in person or online. As Article18 noted at the time, Iranian Christians are routinely asked during interrogations to sign commitments to refrain from gathering together in house-churches, but this was the first known example of intelligence officials demanding they sign a commitment to have no further social engagements together at all, including online. And again, it was a direct result of the newly amended Article 500, which prohibits “psychological manipulation” or so-called “mind control” by members of “sects” – in the “real or virtual sphere”, i.e. in person or online. When the Christians refused to sign the commitments, they were threatened with long prison sentences and told it would be better for them if they left the country. Then in May, Amin, Milad and Alireza were officially charged and each forced to submit bail of 250 million tomans (around $12,000) and told they must report weekly to the intelligence branch of Iran’s police force for the next six months. The other Christians have also been threatened with imprisonment or other ramifications, such as employment restrictions. Background The amendments to Article 500, and also 499, which relates to membership or organisation of “anti-security groups”, were ratified by Iran’s Guardian Council in March, having been signed into law by President Hassan Rouhani in February. They were initially proposed in Iran’s parliament in May last year, but were twice rejected by the Guardian Council, which must approve all bills. Ever since the amendments were proposed, rights groups including Article18 have warned they could be used to further clamp down on unrecognised religious minorities, including Christian converts, as the two articles were already routinely used in the prosecution of converts. ARTICLE 19, an organisation dedicated to the protection of freedom of speech, called the changes to Article 500 in particular “a full-on attack on the right to freedom of religion and belief”. And Article18’s advocacy director, Mansour Borji, labelled both amendments “a catastrophe” and “disservice to justice”, which will “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”. He added that the new amendments would be “celebrated by Iran’s intelligence agencies, who are always in the background in court cases against Christians, pressuring judges to impose the harshest possible sentence”. Human rights lawyer Hossein Ahmadiniaz had previously warned that the amendments would “facilitate the repression and punishment of Christian converts and others belonging to unrecognised religious groups”. Meanwhile, Hamid Gharagozloo from the International Organisation to Preserve Human Rights (IOPHR) cautioned: “By making it a crime to be part of a sect, and banning a group as a ‘sect’, it gives them an open hand to crush any form of uprising or dissatisfaction with the government… Any form of defiance will be labelled as a ‘sect’, and then it will be punishable by law.”
Intelligence agents ‘refusing to return Christians’ property’ 26 August 2021 News Left to right: Mohammad Ali (Davoud) Torabi, Mohammad Kayidgap, Esmaeil Narimanpour, and Alireza Varak-Shah. Intelligence agents in the southwestern city of Dezful are reportedly refusing to hand back the personal belongings of four Christian converts recently charged with “propaganda against the Islamic Republic”, despite being ordered to do so by the court. The lawyer for the four men, Iman Soleimani, told Mohabat News that the Christians cannot afford to purchase replacement items, and that several of the items, such as phones and computers, are “urgently needed” for their children ahead of the new academic year. The four Christians – Esmaeil Narimanpour, Alireza Varak-Shah, Mohammad Ali (Davoud) Torabi, and Mohammad Kayidgap – were charged on 3 August at the 4th branch of the prosecutor’s office of the Civil and Revolutionary Court of Dezful. Meanwhile, four other Christians who are part of the same case – Hojjat Lotfi Khalaf, Alireza Roshanaei Zadeh, Masoud Nabi, and Mohsen Saadati Zadeh – have not yet been officially charged, but are also expected soon to be summoned to face the same charges. No date has yet been set for the next hearing, but the four charged Christians were each forced to appoint a guarantor to pay their 30 million toman ($1,300) bail should they fail to attend. Four of the eight men – Esmaeil, Davoud, Hojjat, and Alireza Varak-Shah – were arrested in April and released two days later, after signing statements pledging to appear when summoned. The other four named Christians and several others were interrogated at the same time and ordered to sign commitments to refrain from further Christian activities. Some of the Christians, including Esmaeil, were beaten during these interrogations. The charges against the men fall under Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, one of two articles controversially amended earlier this year. Several other Christian converts have faced charges under the amended Article 500 so far this year, including three men in Karaj who in June were given the maximum prison sentence of five years. Two other Christian converts, Hamed Ashouri and Reza Zaeemi, recently began serving their own prison sentences – of 10 and nine months, respectively – on the same charges. In every case, the charges relate to their membership of house-churches, which Iran’s judiciary has labelled “enemy groups” of a “Zionist cult” but in reality are no different from the “house groups” attended by Christians around the world, with members coming together to read the Bible and sing Christian worship songs. In Iran, Christian converts are not permitted to attend the churches of the Assyrian and Armenian ethnic minorities – recognised as “Christian” by the regime – while converts are not allowed to build churches of their own. Therefore, these underground house-churches are converts’ only option for worshipping together with other Christians, and they only remain “underground” because they are not allowed to exist “above-ground”.
‘If you won’t recant your faith, you’re no longer my sister!’ 13 August 2021 Features When Arina’s brother came to visit her in prison, he told her that if she refused to give up her Christian faith, he would no longer consider her his sister. Like her interrogators before him, Arina’s brother told her she had been “deceived” into converting to Christianity and said he felt guilty for not supporting her enough through her divorce. Arina replied: “I have been a Christian for three years now, and I am active in the church. My faith isn’t an emotional reaction to what I’ve been through. I have come to faith as a result of personal research, and I’m not willing to give it up.” Arina, whose full name is Fatemeh Zarei, was one of half a dozen Christian women arrested during a raid on a house-church leader’s meeting in Shahin Shahr, near Isfahan, in February 2013. It was around 8.30pm when the agents arrived. By 10pm, they were ushering Arina out of the apartment, into her own car. Two agents accompanied her, while another followed in a separate car. Throughout the 45-minute drive to her home in Isfahan, Arina says “they humiliated and insulted me as much as they could, and said such nasty things to me”. But what really worried Arina was the thought of her elderly mother, whom Arina cared for and helped to get ready for bed. During the raid, Arina says she “begged the agents and their supervisor many times” to let her phone her mother, while “at the same time my mother kept calling, and the phone rang continuously”. Eventually, she was allowed to answer, and told her mother she was “still at work and wouldn’t be home until later”. But now Arina was on her way home, she says she was “very worried that their presence in our home would cause my mother to have a stroke through shock and anxiety, so I did everything to warn them about this danger, but it was useless and they insisted on coming with me to my home anyway”. Arina was somehow able to shield her mother from the reality of the raid, leaving the agents to search the property while she put her to bed. But she says she remained scared that at any moment her mother might wake up, particularly after the agents discovered that the family received some governmental aid because one of her brothers had been killed in the Iran-Iraq War. “Seeing our Martyrs Foundation card, one agent was filled with anger and rage,” Arina explains. “He raised his voice, and began to swear and say inappropriate things. He was very angry to discover I belonged to a martyr’s family, and that I had become a Christian. I warned him to keep his voice down so my mother wouldn’t wake up.” Finally, after searching her home for more than an hour, the agents told her: “You’ll be our guest for a few days, so collect your clothes and personal things, and bring them with you.” Arina asked where they were taking her. “Dastgerd Prison,” came the reply. At the prison, Arina and her friends were interrogated through the night. The raid had begun at 8.30pm. It wasn’t until 8.30am the next morning that the Christians were finally allowed to go back to their cells to get some sleep. Arina recalls how an interrogator put a piece of paper in front of her and told her to answer the questions on it. “One of the questions was about religion,” she says. “I left this part blank, but the interrogator kept coming and leaning over my head and insisting that I write something there. Finally I wrote: ‘Christianity, but Christianity is not a religion but a way to reach God.’ “When the interrogator saw this answer, he kicked me in the thigh so hard that my chair was knocked over, and I fell against the wall.“‘What did you write!’ he shouted at me. ‘Why are you wasting this paper the government paid for!’ He gave me a new sheet, and told me to fill it out again. This time I only wrote ‘Christianity’.” Later on, Arina was separated from the rest of her friends and told: “We understand these people have tempted you, and you have been deceived. We want to help you.”Arina answered: “No, I have become a Christian as a result of research, and in full awareness. I have neither been deceived, nor am I ignorant!” Arina spent a week in the “Alef-Ta” ward of Dastgerd Prison, and was interrogated every night. Meanwhile, she says that from the cell she and her friends could “hear the sound of other people crying out in pain”. “They inflicted a lot of psychological torture on us like this,” she says, “and threatened us, and asked us many insulting questions about our families.” One interrogation experience was particularly chilling. “I was once taken to a cell, and in the middle of the cell was a chair, with its back to the door,” Arina recalls. “The interrogator, knowing that I had severe back pain, said: ‘Sit on the chair and don’t look behind you until we get you up!’ “I had been sitting on that chair for more than two hours when I heard Bita [one of the other women arrested] screaming and crying. Once, during Bita’s interrogation, I heard the sound of a chair breaking, and because I had been beaten, I wondered what was happening to her. “I was very scared that night. Because they didn’t allow me to turn my head, I felt that they were standing behind me, waiting for me to move so that they could beat me.” After a judge set the bail for Arina’s release, she asked if she could call her family, but was told: “You don’t seem to know where you are! Even if we were to deliver your corpse to your family, we would have done you a great favour; let alone allowing you to call them!” When Arina was finally allowed to call home, she says she “worried about who might be willing to bail me out. For some of the others, their husbands or parents did, but I wasn’t sure if my religious family, who were against my faith, would be willing to post bail for me”. Eventually, another of Arina’s brothers agreed to pay her bail, and she was released after 12 days in detention. Three months later, Arina and her friends were sentenced to a year in prison for “anti-state activity through conducting house-church services”. She appealed against the sentence, but left Iran before the verdict. (Her appeal was rejected.) Just six months later, her mother died. Arina now lives in the United States, where she attends an English-speaking church. You can read Arina’s full Witness Statement here.