Format: Default

Yet another appeal hearing in the long-running court cases against an Iranian-Assyrian pastor, his wife and three Christian converts was postponed today in Tehran.

Victor Bet-Tamraz, his wife Shamiram Issavi, and converts Hadi Asgari, Kavian Fallah-Mohammadi, and Amin Afshar-Naderi are facing between five and 15 years in prison because of their Christian activities.

But since their sentencing – Victor and the three converts in July 2017 and Shamiram in January 2018 – numerous appeal hearings have been scheduled only to be postponed.

Previous excuses have included the failure to officially summon every defendant; the court being “too crowded”; and the assigning of a new judge to the case.

This time, no excuse was given. Instead, after a long wait at Branch 36 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran, Victor, Shamiram and their lawyers were simply told the hearing had been cancelled – their lawyers and those of the three converts weren’t even allowed in to the room. 

Victor and Shamiram’s daughter Dabrina said the lawyers were “actually quite relieved”, as in the hearing just beforehand, another of one of the lawyer’s clients had failed to overturn a 15-year prison sentence.

“They feared that if my parents had their hearing that their sentences would be confirmed as well,” Dabrina told Article18.

No new date has been communicated to them for when the next scheduled hearing may – or may not – take place. 

Ahead of the hearing, Dabrina had spoken of her anxieties; she has previously stated how the ongoing saga is in itself a kind of “torture” to her and her parents.

“Now that we have a new judge, we don’t know how he will react to the details of the case,” Dabrina told Article18 on Friday. “At the previous hearing he assured my parents that he will try to close the case and have it done with as soon as possible. What that means we don’t know.

“I am worried, personally, and my parents, they keep going, they are strong and believe that God’s will will be done.

“The last hearing, in February, which was postponed after they failed to summon Hadi, was before all of this coronavirus situation.

“I think that many things are now on hold due to COVID-19 and I know the prisons are still overcrowded. There’s a lot of instability in the government, but how much it influences the Christian cases we don’t know.

“My parents have tried to keep the social distancing and hygiene measures as best as they can, but if they go to prison, prisons are anyway not healthy environments for elderly people. So going to prison, at their age (Shamiram is 64, Victor 65), with my mum’s heart issues and my dad’s blood pressure issues and other problems, would be unimaginable.”

Four Iranian converts have been summoned to begin their five-year jail sentences for leading house-churches, for which they were convicted of “acting against national security”.

Hossein Kadivar, Khalil Dehghanpour, Kamal Naamanian and Mohammad Vafadar were summoned on Thursday 28 May and told they must submit themselves at Tehran’s Evin Prison by tomorrow.

They had been awaiting summonses since their appeals were rejected in February.

The four men were sentenced in October 2019, alongside five others from the same house-church network in the northern city of Rasht: Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad, Shahrooz Eslamdoust, Babak Hosseinzadeh, Mehdi Khatibi and Behnam Akhlaghi. 

Those five are already serving their sentences, having been detained since July last year, when they were unable to pay the high bail demanded from them after they insisted on being defended by their own lawyer.

The nine men were arrested in a series of raids on their homes and house-churches in January and February 2019.

Hossein and Khalil were detained following a raid on the house-church meeting they were leading on 29 January; Abdolreza was arrested on 10 February during a raid on his home; Kamal, Mohammad and Shahrooz were arrested at a house-church gathering on 15 February; Babak and Mehdi were arrested at two separate house-churches on 23 February; and Behnam was summoned to the offices of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (Sepah) that same day.

They were each helping to lead services in the absence of their imprisoned pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, alongside whom they will now all be incarcerated in Evin Prison.

Two of them – Abdolreza and Kamal – had been arrested before for their religious activities.

Seven of them – all except Abdolreza and Shahrooz – were released on bail in March 2019, after depositing the equivalent of $13,000 each. Abdolreza and Shahrooz were detained.

Then in July 2019, Abdolreza, Shahrooz, Behnam, Babak and Mehdi had their bail increased tenfold after insisting upon being defended by their own lawyer. 

Judge Mohammad Moghiseh, who has earned the nickname the “Judge of Death” for his harsh treatment of prisoners of conscience, rejected their choice of lawyer and demanded they were defended by a lawyer of the court’s choosing. 

When they refused, the judge increased their bail amount to the equivalent of $130,000 each, and, being unable and unprepared to pay such an amount, they were transferred to Ward 4 of Tehran’s Evin Prison, where they have remained.

The other four decided to defend themselves and were therefore released on their pre-existing bail (the equivalent of $13,000 each) until their next hearing, when the judge accused them of promoting Zionism and said the Bible had been falsified.

On 13 October, all nine men were sentenced to five years in prison, after a hearing on 23 September. 

Their appeals were rejected following a hearing on 25 February 2020.

Fires have been reported at three sites belonging to religious minorities, including a Christian cemetery, in just a few days in Iran.

First, on Friday, the director of antisemitism watchdog ADL, Jonathan Greeblatt, tweeted that the tomb of Biblical figures Queen Esther and her cousin Mordecai in Hamedan, west of Tehran, had been “set afire overnight”, meaning that it would have taken place on the anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

The next day, Iran International posted video footage of the aftermath of a fire inside a Hindu temple in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.

Then on Sunday, Manoto News broadcast footage of smoke billowing over the walls of a Christian cemetery in Eslamshahr, just south of Tehran.

The governor of Eslamshahr blamed the cemetery fire on a guard burning grass; the Hindu temple fire was blamed on religious artefacts catching alight; only in the case of Esther and Mordecai’s tomb has there been any accusation of intent, with journalist Farzane Ebrahimzade tweeting that someone had thrown an object at the tomb.

The US Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Elan Carr, tweeted his condemnation of the alleged attack, noting that it followed threats against the tomb’s existence.

The Alliance for the Rights of All Minorities in Iran (ARAM) reported in February that the Iranian authorities were planning to destroy the tomb and convert the site into a consular office for Palestine.

About 10 years previously, Basijis from the local university threatened to destroy the tomb in retaliation for any attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

On the day of the fire, and in the days since, a number of antisemitic tweets have been posted using the hashtag #covid1948, alongside calls for a “free” Palestine.

‘Decades-long dehumanisation’

While there is no evidence of any government involvement in any of the weekend’s fires, and the timing may only be coincidental, Iran has been condemned for directing a campaign of hate speech against religious minorities, and thereby inciting attacks and later failing to stand up against the perpetrators.

Speaking to Article18, Kamran Ashtary, executive director of the Amsterdam-based NGO Arseh Sevom, said: “It is not a secret to anyone that the Islamic Republic of Iran, from the first day of the revolution, has had a problem with minorities, especially religious minorities. 

“We’ve seen a decades-long dehumanisation of Baha’i people that has led to harassment, murder, arrests, and marginalisation. In addition, we know that the regime distributes and creates hateful and antisemitic propaganda and tolerates its spread online via servers located in Iran.”

Yesterday the Iranian Parliament approved a bill barring any cooperation with Israel, including the use of any Israeli computer hardware or software. They had also proposed banning any Iranian athletes from competing with their Israeli counterparts, but this was removed at the last minute.

Meanwhile, this coming Friday will be Quds Day in Iran, an annual event established by the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to express support for Palestine on the last Friday of Ramadan.

Khomeini’s successor Ali Khamenei has regularly spoken out against minorities, including Christian converts, and implicitly given the green light for his security forces to target them.

In a speech in October 2010 he named house-churches among the “critical threats” facing the Islamic Republic, and in June 2017 he went further by saying: “Officers against the soft war [of Western influences] should recognise their duty, make decisions and act in a fire-at-will form.”

As the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) reported at the time, “Iranian officials often refer to Western cultural influences as a ‘soft war’ against their national and religious values”.

Meanwhile, many of the charges levelled against Christians include alleged “actions against national security” and links to “Zionist” groups.

Following his June 2017 speech, renowned Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi told CHRI: “Iran’s leader spoke about firing at will only recently, but as a matter of fact, this policy has been in place and enforced for many years. Firing at will means to ignore the law and usher in chaos and anarchy. If someone can fire at will, others will feel they have that right too, and this will only lead to disorder and lawlessness.”

Saeed Peyvandi, a Paris-based sociologist and university professor, told Article18: “The government’s identity-centred discourse and blatant rejection of non-violence have led to a culture of intolerance among some sections of society, especially among pro-government groups. 

“At the same time, in recent years, the judiciary has not taken any serious action against those who harass minorities. Assailants have a kind of judicial immunity for doing what the government cannot do directly, and sanctioned by the words of Mr Khamenei.”

An Iranian Anglican Church member has been re-convicted of membership of a “Zionist Evangelical Christian” group “hostile to the regime”, and convicted of the additional charge of “propaganda against the state”.

Esmaeil Maghrebinezhad, 65, was informed of the verdict on Saturday, 16 May, following a judge’s review of his verdict the previous Saturday at the 1st Branch of the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz.

Judge Seyed Mahmood Sadati reached the same verdict as in his initial February ruling by giving Esmaeil a two-year sentence for “membership of a hostile group”, but added an additional year in prison for “propaganda against the state”.

While it is likely that Esmaeil will only have to serve the longer sentence of two years, he also faces an additional three years in prison for his January conviction at a civil court for “insulting Islam”, which he would have to serve separately.

Esmaeil, who is appealing against all three convictions, initially faced four charges after his arrest in January 2019 – also “apostasy”, for which he could have faced the death sentence.

That charge was dropped during a November 2019 hearing, but the other three charges were found “applicable”, although the charge of “propaganda against the state” was not cited in his 17 February conviction, so it appeared that it had been combined with the other charge of “membership of a hostile group”.

Why the review?

Judge Sadati said he had been unhappy with his initial verdict and wanted to make some “corrections”, giving hope to Esmaeil and his family that the judgment may be quashed.

However, despite the protestations of his lawyer, Farshid Rofoogaran, that Esmaeil had “in no way, shape or form been a member of any hostile organisation”, he was given an even stiffer sentence.

In his ruling, Judge Sadati referred to the findings of the intelligence agents of Iranian armed forces, who were responsible for his arrest, and Esmaeil’s alleged “admission” of guilt – for acknowledging that a Bible verse from the book of Philippians had been sent to his phone by a Christian satellite TV channel. 

A printout of the verse was shown to him in the court, which he acknowledged, after which he was dismissed from the room. 

His lawyer, Mr Rofoogaran, proceeded to argue that the court had not been presented “with one single reason, piece of evidence or document that would justify the verdict issued”.

He added that the indictment was “very vague” and “lacked any supporting statement”, and that Esmaeil’s only “crime” had been to receive a message from a Christian satellite television channel; he hadn’t even forwarded it to anyone.

“Even if those groups that have Telegram or WhatsApp channels are accepted as ‘hostile’,” Mr Rofoogaran said, “receiving messages without forwarding them to anyone else does not constitute membership of that organisation.”

Mr Rofoogaran went on to criticise the way the case had been handled, noting that the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” had not been observed.

Article18’s advocacy director, Mansour Borji, pointed out that “Esmaeil’s arrest took place without any prior evidence being found against him. Instead, the intelligence agents went through his personal belongings and tried to dig up evidence against him. The charge that didn’t stick they had to drop; the charges that remain have no legal basis.”

Four Iranian converts have been sent to Lakan Prison in the northern city of Rasht, having been unable to afford the bail set for them.

Moslem Rahimi, Ramin Hassanpour and his wife Kathrin Sajadpour, and one other who does not wish to be named were arrested in February for their membership of a house-church. 

They appeared yesterday at Branch 10 of the Revolutionary Court in Rasht, where they were charged. 

The precise nature of the charges against them are as yet unclear, though they are certain to relate to their membership of the house-church, which are deemed by the Iranian regime to be “hostile” entities linked to foreign “Zionist” groups. 

Their bail was set at 500 million tomans each – the equivalent of around $30,000. Being unable to come up with the amount, they were transferred to Lakan Prison.

Ramin and Kathrin have two sons – one of whom is 16 years old and is now staying at home by himself, and the other just seven years old and who has therefore gone to stay with his grandfather.

The four arrested are part of the Rasht branch of the “Church of Iran”, a non-Trinitarian group, which has been especially targeted by the Iranian authorities.

Of the 15 Iranians currently detained on charges relating to the practice of the Christian religion, 13 are from the “Church of Iran” in Rasht, including pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who was once sentenced to death for apostasy.

The other two are from Tehran: Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, 58, and Majidreza Souzanchi.

All apart from Majidreza and the newly detained quartet are in Tehran’s Evin Prison. Majidreza was recently moved from Evin to the Greater Tehran Prison, upon the completion of his two-year sentence for membership of a house-church. He is now serving a separate two-year sentence for theft, a charge he has consistently denied. He was also sentenced to 74 lashes.

The other detainees are Mohammad Reza (Yohan) Omidi, Zaman (Saheb) Fadaie and Mohammad Ali Mossayezbazeh, who are serving 10-year sentences alongside Yousef, and Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad, Shahrooz Eslamdoust, Babak Hosseinzadeh, Mehdi Khatibi and Behnam Akhlaghi, who are serving five-year sentences.

Nasser, Yousef, Saheb and Yohan are currently awaiting the outcome of their retrials against their 10-year sentences. Their families had hoped to hear news of the verdicts this Monday, but they still anxiously await news, having made several petitions for their loved ones to be released since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

Both Nasser and Saheb have suffered health issues, while Nasser is the oldest of those detained, so their families are especially concerned for them.

Seven other Christians were among the reported 100,000 prisoners released from Iran’s prisons since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak – most on temporary furloughs – but rights groups have called for Iran to go further by releasing all remaining prisoners of conscience.