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The daughter of an Iranian Christian pastor executed for “apostasy” 30 years ago has called on the Iranian authorities to return his burial place to his family.

Rev Hossein Soodmand’s grave was found demolished when his family went to visit it on the 29th anniversary of his execution in December last year.

And Rashin, speaking with Christian charity Release International yesterday, said: “When they first introduced us to the place he was buried, it was a very dusty and unmarked grave, so we constantly asked them to allow us to install a headstone – even a simple sign with his name – but they didn’t give us permission. And now this has happened…

“As Christians, we believe our father is with the Lord Jesus Christ, so now he’s enjoying himself in His presence. However, here on earth, for his family and friends, we can see how important burial places are, even in the Bible. So our only request is to give us back his burial place.”

Rashin was speaking on the annual ‘Day of the Christian Martyr’, 29 June, which is also the anniversary of the killing of another Iranian Christian leader 26 years ago: Rev Tateos Michaelian.

As Rashin noted, in the years since her father’s execution in 1990 the situation for Christians in Iran “hasn’t changed” for the better, especially for Christian converts.

“They can’t go to church buildings,” Rashin explained, “so they have to stay at home and worship the Lord, or feed themselves spiritually, without having connections with other believers.”

Converts who meet together face the constant threat of arrest and imprisonment, as Article18 has reported.

Indeed, the most recent case, reported yesterday, involving seven converts from the south-western city of Bushehr, shows that even possession of Christian literature or symbols is enough to be charged with “propaganda against the state”. 

The seven Christians are now facing sentences ranging from prison and exile to work restrictions and fines.

You can watch the whole of Rashin’s interview in the video below:

Article18 welcomes the extension of the mandate of the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran by another year.

Last week, Article18 joined 38 rights groups in sending a letter to all Permanent Missions to the UN to call for a renewal of Mr Javaid Rehman’s mandate. 

The letter highlighted the “discrimination in law and practice” facing Iran’s religious minorities and “extensive” and “systematic” disregard that Iran continues to show for its citizens’ right to freedom of religion or belief.

Mr Rehman’s mandate was renewed at the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, after 22 member states voted in favour, compared to eight against and 15 abstentions.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said the decision was “politically motivated” and failed to recognise the steps Iran had taken to “develop and promote human rights at the national, regional and international levels … and commitments made to adhering to them”.

Mr Rehman has not held back from calling to light the severe violations of Iranians’ rights, including their right to freedom of religion or belief, despite repeatedly being denied access to the country and facing severe criticism from Iranian officials.

In a report last year, Mr Rehman focused especially on the challenges facing unrecognised religious minorities in Iran, including Christian converts.

Responding to the report at Iran’s Universal Periodic Review last year, the leader of the Iranian delegation, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, said Mr Rehman had created a list of “more than 1,000 accusations” against Iran by using “scissor and paste from the media”, and that it would “not be feasible” for him to “see whether this list of 1,000 accusations is correct or not” during a three-day visit.

A human rights lawyer whose clients include jailed Christian convert Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh says a recent change to the law in Iran “will facilitate the repression and punishment of Christian converts and others belonging to unrecognised religious groups”.

Amendments to articles 499 and 500 of the Islamic Penal Code passed through Iran’s parliament last month, meaning that those found guilty of “deviant psychological manipulation” or “propaganda contrary to Islam”, whether in the “real or virtual sphere”, can now be labelled as “sects” and punished with imprisonment, flogging, fines, or even the death penalty.

“The law should protect citizens, including Christian converts and Baha’is, against the government,” Hossein Ahmadiniaz, who now lives in the Netherlands, told Article18, “but in Iran the law has become a tool to justify the government’s violent treatment of converts and other unrecognised minorities.

“I have seen it many times when defending religious prisoners of conscience, like Sunni Muslims or Christian converts, when they can use laws like this to carry out their oppression and then say, ‘We are acting according to the law.’”

Asked why the government had chosen this moment to introduce the new law, Mr Ahmadiniaz said there had been a “legal vacuum” since it became too internationally sensitive to convict religious prisoners of conscience, such as Christian converts, with religious charges such as “apostasy”.

There was an international outcry when Christian convert Yousef Nadarkhani was sentenced to death for apostasy in 2010, an outcry that eventually led to his sentence being quashed.

Yousef is now back in prison, alongside Mr Gol-Tapeh, also serving a 10-year sentence on charges of “actions against national security”.

Such charges are now much more commonly used against Christians than religious-sounding charges, noted Article18’s advocacy director, Mansour Borji, during a webinar yesterday responding to the recent developments in Iran. 

The webinar, which was hosted by the International Organization to Preserve Human Rights (IOPHR), also included comments from advocates for Iran’s Baha’i, Jewish, Sunni and Sufi Muslim communities, as well as renowned human rights defender Shirin Ebadi. 

IOPHR representative Hamid Gharagozloo said the new amendments to articles 499 and 500 of the penal code were “part of a greater plan” by the Supreme Leader to “form an iron-clad form of rule, where the slightest dissent, or even hint of dissent, is dealt with abruptly and violently”.

“By making it a crime to be part of a sect,” he said, “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.”

Article18’s Mansour Borji said that in bringing forward the new measures, the Iranian government was responding to its “lost monopoly”. 

“They’ve lost the hearts and minds of people and therefore they impose further controls to ensure their longevity and survival in power,” he said, “which means there’s fear, and there’s weakness. And there’s also hope, that the further we expose these hypocritical attitudes, policies and laws – not just to the elite but also to the general public and international community, and the people around the world – it furthers forces this government to either review its attitudes, policies and practices, or we have given a voice to people who long to see the right to religious freedom established.”

Article18 today joined 38 other rights groups in calling for the renewal of the mandate of the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran.

In a joint letter, sent today to all Permanent Missions to the UN in Geneva, the groups call on the UN Human Rights Council to renew Javaid Rehman’s mandate, in recognition of the “persistence of serious, chronic and systematic violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights” in Iran.

Mr Rehman’s position will be voted on at the end of the week.

The full text of the letter can be read below:

Your Excellency,

We, the undersigned Iranian and international human rights organizations, urge your government to support resolution A/HRC/43/L.8 on human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran renewing the mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran during the 43^rd session of the Human Rights Council. 

The renewal of this mandate is essential in light of the persistence of widespread and systematic violations of a large array of human rights in the country, many of which stem directly from Iran’s restrictive laws, state policies and practices. It is further warranted by Iran’s ongoing failure to avail itself of the scrutiny of human rights monitors, to uphold the right of people in Iran to truth, justice and reparation, and to hold perpetrators of human rights violations to account. 

Iran’s violent repression of nationwide popular protests that erupted in November 2019 has illustrated yet again this failure, with deeply tragic consequences for thousands of victims and their families. The intentional use of lethal force by security forces between 15 and 18 November 2019 resulted in the unlawful killing of hundreds of protesters and bystanders, including children, who posed no imminent threat to life or serious injury. Amnesty International has documented the deaths of 304 men, women and children but has noted that it believes the death toll to be higher. The scale of lethal force and other unnecessary or excessive force used against unarmed protesters is a deeply alarming escalation of past abusive practices of Iran’s security and intelligence forces, who have previously unlawfully killed and injured protesters and other dissidents with impunity. 

This severe crackdown has also involved the arrest of around 7,000 people, according to a spokesperson for Iran’s parliamentary committee for national security and foreign policy, as well as widespread patterns of enforced disappearances, incommunicado detentions, and torture and other ill-treatment of detainees. Iranian officials called for charges that carry the death penalty against protest “leaders”, creating an urgent concern for the fate of those arrested; three men have already been convicted of “enmity against God” (moharebeh) and sentenced to death in a grossly unfair trial in connection with acts of arson that took place during the November 2019 protests. Hundreds more have been convicted of vague and broad national security-related charges, often stemming from the peaceful exercise of their rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, and sentenced up to 10 years in prison as well as, in some cases, flogging. Courts relied on torture-tainted “confessions” as evidence on which they based their verdicts, even when retracted by defendants.

The repression took place under the cover of a near total shutdown of the global Internet in Iran, and ongoing severe restrictions on the free flow of information, and free expression, both online and off-line. The call of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for transparency and for Iran to undertake “prompt, independent and impartial investigations into all violations that have taken place” has remained unanswered. The Iranian authorities have been carrying out systematic reprisals against the families of the victims to enforce silence and perpetuate impunity. Disturbingly, top officials in the country have been making statements that, in fact, praise the security and intelligence forces for swiftly ending the unrest, and celebrate the crackdown as a “crushing victory” against what they have described as “a vast and very dangerous conspiracy plotted by the enemy”. 

This recent and ongoing human rights crisis is taking place against the backdrop of a long-term systemic refusal of the Iranian authorities to uphold the rights of people in Iran to freedom of expression, freedom of association and peaceful assembly. Individuals expressing dissenting opinions, human rights defenders, trade union activists, journalists and media workers have been routinely harassed and under attack throughout 2019 and in 2020. The Iranian authorities also intensified their crackdown against women’s rights defenders campaigning against discriminatory forced veiling laws, sentencing some to harsh prison terms. Similarly, labour rights activists have been tortured or otherwise ill-treated and unjustly sentenced to lengthy prison terms for activities related to their peaceful activism. Sixteen activists who had signed or supported an open letter calling for the resignation of the Supreme Leader and demanding fundamental changes to the country’s political system were arrested in August 2019 and are facing long-term imprisonment. 

Journalists and media workers faced intimidation, harassment, summons, interrogations, and arrests, sometimes leading to prison sentences, with a surge in the aftermath of the November 2019 protests, and in the lead-up to the February 2020 Parliamentary elections, as documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Even journalists based outside Iran faced harassment and threats. Obstruction to the work of journalists and online media users seeking and publishing information in relation to the downing of the Ukrainian Airlines plane in January 2020 and to the spread of Covid-19 in Iran has also been reported. In this context, transparency and openness to independent journalism and to human rights monitoring are more than ever necessary. 

After a trial lacking minimum standards of due process, a Revolutionary court also convicted and sentenced eight conservationists detained since January 2018 to prison terms ranging from six to 10 years for “cooperating with the hostile states against the Islamic Republic” in relation to spying for the United States, relying almost entirely on “confessions”, allegedly made under torture and later retracted, as the main evidence against them. 

As abundantly documented in the reports of the United Nations Secretary-General and the Special Rapporteur, discrimination in law and practice remains pervasive and a daily reality for women and girls, for persons belonging to ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, including non-recognized religious minorities, as well as for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals. In 2019, parliament approved a bill amending the Civil Code to allow Iranian women married to non-Iranian men to pass on the Iranian nationality to their children upon request and following a security screening of the children; the new law came into force after the Guardian Council ratified it in October 2019. Parliament, however, failed to pass a long-standing bill on violence against women. Ethnic minorities, including Ahwazi Arabs, Azerbaijani Turks, Baluchis, Kurds and Turkmen have continued to face entrenched discrimination, which curtails their access to education, work, health, housing and elected or appointed political office, and violations of their cultural, civil and political rights. 

Freedom of religion or belief continues to be extensively and systematically disregarded, including for Baha’is who face widespread and systematic persecution, hate speech and obstacles to access to education and work. Christian converts and Yarsanis (Ahl-e Haq) as well as Sunni Muslims and non-believers are also persecuted for expressing or practising their faith or beliefs or face widespread discrimination. Members of Iran’s LGBT community continue to live under the threat of a penal code criminalizing same-sex sexual relations between consenting individuals with punishments ranging from flogging to death, and of a stigmatizing public discourse that make them vulnerable to police harassment, discrimination and violence. 

Throughout the year, torture and other ill-treatment, including prolonged solitary confinement, was widespread and systematic in places of detention. Many of those jailed have been deliberately denied access to essential medical care. A number of human rights groups have received information from victims’ families indicating that their loved ones, who were arrested in relation to the November 2019 protests, have died in detention in suspicious circumstances, possibly resulting from torture. Human rights organizations have documented the executions of over 240 individuals in 2019. Among persons who were executed in 2019, at least four were under 18 at the time of the offence, and a dozen executions were carried out in public. 

Iran’s judicial system, which should be the ultimate guardian of the rights of all people in Iran, has instead been perpetuating patterns of grave violations of human rights. The Secretary-General in his report presented at this session observed a “deterioration of fair trial guarantees” in 2019, pointing to a recent instruction from the head of the judiciary that allowed appeal proceedings to take place in writing and without a hearing, and a proposed amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure that, if adopted, would further limit the access of a person accused of national security crimes to a lawyer. These developments have come in the context of systematic violations of fair trial standards, including closed, summary trials, individuals facing national security or other charges being systematically denied access to independent lawyers at the investigation stage and some defendants being denied access to their lawyer even at trial, and extensive use of torture and other ill-treatment, especially during interrogations, to extract “confessions”, that are in many cases used as evidence on which judges base their verdict, and that are sometimes broadcasted on state television. 

In an opinion adopted in August 2019, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention raised alarm at “a systemic problem with arbitrary detention in the country, which amounts to a serious violation of international law”. In a number of opinions adopted in recent years, the Working Group has further reminded the authorities that under certain circumstances, widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, in violation of fundamental rules of international law, may constitute crimes against humanity.

In such a context, the work of the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran is critical to monitor, document and report on the many systemic human rights challenges that people in Iran are facing, to engage with Iranian authorities on issues of concern, and to transmit potentially life-saving urgent communications on behalf of victims of human rights abuses, including individuals convicted of offences committed while  under the age of 18 and at risk of imminent executions or prisoners being denied access to medical care. The Special Rapporteur’s work amplifies the voices of victims within the UN system, and this mandate’s expert findings and recommendations steer and inform stakeholders’ efforts to encourage Iran to undertake long overdue human rights reforms.

For all these reasons, we urge your government to voice concern at the dire situation of human rights in the country, to call for transparency and accountability, and to support the renewal of the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran at this session.

Abdorrahman Boroumand Center
The Advocates for Human Rights
All Human Rights for All in Iran
Amnesty International
Arseh Sevom
Article 18
ARTICLE 19
ASL19
Association for the Human Rights of the Azerbaijani people in Iran (AHRAZ)
Association for Human Rights in Kurdistan of Iran – Geneva (KMMK-G)
Balochistan Human Rights Group
Center for Human Rights in Iran
Center for Supporters of Human Rights
Child Rights International Network (CRIN)
CIVICUS – World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Committee to Protect Journalists
Conectas Direitos Humanos
Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM)
Freedom from Torture
Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI)
Human Rights Watch
Impact Iran
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)
International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR)
International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
Iran Human Rights
Iran Human Rights Documentation Center
Justice for Iran
Kurdistan Human Rights Network
Minority Rights Group International
OutRight Action International
Reprieve
Siamak Pourzand Foundation
Small Media
United for Iran
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
World Organization Against Torture (OMCT)
6Rang – Iranian Lesbian & Transgender Network

The US State Department’s latest annual report on international religious freedom includes a comprehensive overview of Iran’s continued persecution of its religious minorities, including Christians.

The report, released yesterday, leans heavily on the information provided by rights groups including Article18.

Among the violations of Christians’ right to religious freedom, the report references:

• The violent arrest of Christian convert Sina Moloudian in Isfahan in January 2019, and confiscation of his property.

• The admission by Iran’s Minister of Intelligence, Mahmoud Alavi, in May 2019 that his officials summoned Christian converts for questioning about why they had converted.

• The confiscation by officials from the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO) and Ministry of Intelligence of the Assyrian Presbyterian church in Tabriz in May 2019, and tearing down of its cross. (Article18 cited as source.)

• The arrest in July 2019 of eight Christians in Bushehr and confiscation of their property. (Article18 cited as source.)

• The sentencing in July 2019 of 62-year-old Christian convert Rokhsareh (Mahrokh) Ghanbari to one year in prison.

• The sentencing in August 2019 of bookseller Mostafa Rahimi to three months and one day in prison for selling copies of the Bible.

• The sentencing in September 2019 of nine Christian converts from Rasht to five years in prison.

• The exile in November 2019 of Christian convert Ebrahim Firouzi after six years in prison. (Article18 cited as source.)

• One of several postponements in the trial of Assyrian pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, his wife Sharmiam Issavi and three Christian converts, in November 2019, because the court was said to be “too crowded”. (Article18 cited as source.)

• The increasing surveillance of Christians in the days leading up to Christmas.

• The imprisonment of at least 17 Christians at the end of 2019 on charges related to their faith. (Article18 cited as source.)

• Government-sponsored anti-Christian propaganda aimed at deterring conversions to Christianity – such as referring to house-churches as “illegal networks” and “Zionist propaganda institutions” – and concurrent societal pressure against converts, including rejection by family or community members.

• Monitoring of activities by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and monitoring of churches by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The report also highlights abuses against other religious minorities, such as Baha’is and Yarsanis, as well as Sufi and Sunni Muslims.

Among the violations affecting several groups, the report references:

• The ban in May 2019 on religious minority teachers working in nursery schools, except special schools where all children already belong to that minority.

• The claim in September 2019 by Iran’s Minister of Education, Mohsen Haji Mirzaei, that children who profess an unrecognised religious faith at school are engaging in “propaganda” and should be banned.

The report also says religious minorities suffered:

• Arbitrary arrest and detention.

• Denial of the right to a fair trial, including access to a lawyer.

• Poor conditions within prisons and treatment including torture, beatings and denial of medical care.

• Discrimination in the areas of employment and education, including denial of access to higher education and mandatory Islamic classes. “Books published by religious minorities,” the report notes, “regardless of topic, were required to carry labels on the cover denoting their non-Shia Muslim authorship.”

• The denial of the right to convert to a religion other than Islam.

• The denial of the right to freedom to worship unless proven to belong to a historically recognised religious community, i.e. Jew, Zoroastrian or Armenian or Assyrian Christian.