Germany’s acceptance of Christian convert asylum seekers halves 25 November 2019 News Christian converts seeking asylum in Germany are half as likely to succeed in their applications today as they were two years ago, a survey has found. The survey by Christian charity Open Doors Germany reviewed the experiences of over 6,500 converts – 70% of whom are Iranian – from 179 German churches between January 2014 and September 2019. It found that the acceptance rate of Germany’s Federal Office of Migration and Refugees (BAMF) has “fallen drastically” for Christian convert asylum seekers of “almost all nationalities” since mid-2017, and that in several federal states it has halved. For the 4,557 Iranians in the survey, 50% had claims accepted before July 2017 and only 22% since. The majority of rejected claims were successfully appealed in administrative courts (AC), but Open Doors Germany says the great disparity between BAMF’s findings and those of the appeal courts “must give rise to concern”, as they show “thousands of wrong decisions”. The authors of the 100-page report estimate that the survey sample represents 15-30% of the total number of convert asylum seekers in Germany, a country that has seen an influx of over two million asylum seekers since 2014. Many of the converts – whether they converted in their home countries or in Europe – are Iranian, as indicated by the survey. As Article18 has highlighted frequently, Iranians who convert to Christianity face immense pressure, leading many to flee. Open Doors accuses Germany’s migration service of failing to recognise the dangers faced by Christian converts in primarily Islamic countries like Iran. The report notes that while Germany’s overall acceptance rate for asylum seekers has fallen largely in line with the figures for converts since mid-2017, the protection rate for converts has dropped to an even greater degree. Open Doors says converts’ “situation of special vulnerability, and thus their need of protection, is not acknowledged in many cases”. Instead, “authorities bring forward the argument that there is no sincere change of faith, therefore persecution is not to be expected in the event of deportation”. So what’s changed since 2017? The report says there is “no evidence” to suggest anything has changed in the profile of the converts seeking asylum today than pre-2017, including no indication of an increase in “strategic” conversions – as is often claimed in the verdicts for those rejected asylum. In contrast, the pastors who contributed to the report claimed confidence in the genuineness of a convert’s faith in 88% of cases. The report’s authors note how significantly Germany’s approach to asylum seekers has shifted over the past few years – from an initially warm welcome, to “the political will to remove as many asylum-seekers as possible from the country”. Open Doors says such political will “must not lead to these asylum-seekers and refugees being deprived of their human right of religious freedom”, which “includes the right to change religion, enabling converts to live their faith in public and privately”. The report says it is therefore not appropriate to claim a convert can avoid danger by keeping their faith secret upon their return to a country like Iran, where the freedom to change one’s religion does not exist. It also questions the appropriateness of interrogating asylum seekers on the sincerity of their faith. A German bishop is quoted as saying “faith tests for converts are an attack on the Constitution”. The report also suggests that, as the verdict is “almost exclusively focused on the applicant, the outcome of the hearing is therefore highly dependent on the type of person, i.e. introverted or extroverted, and on the applicant’s level of education and thus his or her ability to express himself or herself”. Recommendations Open Doors Germany calls on BAMF to treat the testimonies of church pastors seriously and to rely on them as experts in the assessment of whether or not a convert’s faith is genuine. The researchers found that, rather than proving helpful to a converts’ case, both a clerical affidavit testifying to the authenticity of a convert’s faith, and a baptism certificate, are in fact detrimental to the convert’s chances of success. The report includes observations from several pastors who express serious concerns about the current asylum process. The pastor of a church in Berlin says the discrepancy between verdicts in different parts of Germany is “insanely huge” – even in some neighbouring states. For example, the pastor says that “in the courts [just] outside Berlin, the judicial appeals of our church members, as far as I was present, were granted by far more than 90%. In the AC [of] Berlin, the recognition rate is under 20%, even at 0% with some judges”. The report says there is “no consistent legal practice concerning the fate of converts in Germany. The protection rates of the federal states differ significantly from one another”. Another unnamed pastor, whose letter to the appeal courts is included in the report, writes of his concern that the political climate in Germany “influences, or can influence, the verdict”. “In the first trials to which I was summoned as a witness,” the pastor writes, “almost all verdicts were positive for our Iranian brothers and sisters. This has changed greatly in recent months. Almost all appeals are dismissed. “For me, the question is whether the politically charged situation in Germany should have an influence on asylum decisions.” Another contributor, German MP Volker Kauder, cautions against assumptions that “strategic” conversions have increased, saying “there is simply no evidence of this”. “We must not place Iranians who have converted to Christianity under general suspicion,” he writes. “Iranian converts can be found in non-state churches, Catholic and Protestant congregations. It [should be] primarily the task of these churches to examine the sincerity of the change of faith.” Open Doors Germany’s report also includes, in full, the ten-page report released earlier this year by researchers at Open Doors International, providing “considerations for immigration officials, government agencies and advocates of Iranian Christians”. That report urges immigration officials to focus their questions on the claimant’s “personal experience of Christianity”, rather than the extent of their theological understanding; to “explore when and where the claimant’s personal experience of Christianity began, and the steps taken on the way to full acceptance of the new faith”; and for the interview “not [to] be reduced to a mere collection of data describing the journey from Iran to the country of destination, or to a description of exact dates when the person was first introduced to the new faith”. What’s the situation elsewhere? The report ends with a comparison of similar studies carried out in other European countries in recent years. A March 2019 study in Sweden also found the “rhetorical ability of converts to reflect on their faith” was central to the success of their applications, so that “ultimately it was not the sincerity of their faith that was assessed, but their intellectual capacity”. A 2018 study in the Netherlands said the Dutch migration agency’s guidelines on cases involving Christian converts were “deficient” in 60% of cases and that newly published guidelines in July 2018 “had not led to a noticeable improvement” because “new, inappropriate arguments had been added on the grounds of which conversions were rejected as implausible”. A 2017 study on Denmark found that “statements by pastors/churches were explicitly mentioned” in a quarter of cases “evaluated as plausible”, and that asylum was granted in 75% of those cases. However, it was denied in the remaining 25%. And earlier this year the United Kingdom hired clerics to train its staff in religious literacy after a 2016 report by a UK parliamentary group noted a discrepancy between “guidelines and actual practice” and recommended that “all cases involving persecution should be reviewed by a higher-level specialist in order to grant consistency and proper proceedings”. Meanwhile, a June 2019 report for the UK Foreign Office on the persecution of Christians worldwide showed “few instances of assaults of Christians were recorded for Afghanistan … lead[ing] to the misconception that violence against Christians did not occur in Afghanistan and that it was secure to deport Christians to that country”.
Assyrian Christian among Iran protest dead 21 November 2019 News An Assyrian Christian has been named among the scores killed so far in nearly a week of protests in Iran over a sharp rise in fuel prices. Ashoor Kalta (Human Rights in Iran) Ashoor Kalta, 37, was killed on Sunday during protests in Fardis, near Karaj, according to the NGO Human Rights in Iran. Estimates of the total number killed vary, but Amnesty International said yesterday that “at least 106″ protesters have been killed in 21 cities, according to “credible reports”. Other reports suggest the figure may be as many as 200, while many more have been injured. Precise figures are hard to come by, since the Iranian government shut down the Internet for days in order to make it harder for protesters to communicate with one another and to share the reality on the ground with interested observers outside Iran. Monitoring site NetBlocks reported over 100 hours of Internet shutdown, before around 10% of connectivity was restored today. The Iranian authorities have claimed the arrests of over 1,000 protesters, referring to them as “thugs”, “traitors” and agents of the USA. The Assyrian representative to the Iranian parliament, Yonathan Betkolia, has yet to respond to the death of the Assyrian Christian, though he earlier encouraged Christians not to participate in the protests, which he blamed on “enemies of the regime”. The controversial figure is one of five representatives in the Iranian parliament for recognised religious minorities – there are also two Armenian Christians, a Jew and a Zoroastrian. However, all five are extremely restricted in what they can say, and must always be seen to toe the party line. The Jewish representative, Siamak Moreh Sedgh, was among a delegation from the Iranian government at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva earlier this month, where Iran’s human rights record was reviewed as part of the four-yearly Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of all UN member states. Mr Moreh Sedgh, in a short statement as part of the Iranian government’s presentation on its own rights record, said Iranians had “total religious freedom” and that he was “sure that all of the problems of religious minorities can be solved within the framework of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its constitutional law”. However, several other member states voices “serious concerns” about the “ongoing severe limitations” to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief for minorities in Iran, and a resolution was passed calling on Iran to “end widespread and serious restrictions, in law and in practice, on the right to freedom of expression and opinion … and the right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and to end its harassment, intimidation and persecution of … persons belonging to recognized and unrecognized religious minorities and their families, wherever it may occur”. The resolution also instructed Iran to stop: “monitoring individuals on account of their religious identity”; “incitement to hatred” against members of religious minorities; denial of education to children of minorities; “unduly harsh sentences … including long-term internal exile”. It also called on Iran to: “release all religious practitioners imprisoned for their membership in or activities on behalf of a recognized or unrecognized minority religious group”; “ensure that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of their choice, in accordance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”; provide “legal representation of one’s choice” to all defendants. Just last week, Christian convert Ebrahim Firouzi was sent into internal exile following six years in prison, while Article18 has also highlighted the proliferation of hate speech against Christians in Iran; the denial of education to the children of imprisoned Christian convert Yousef Nadarkhani; Iran’s harassment of family members of Christian converts; and how earlier this year five Christian converts had their bail amounts increased tenfold when they insisted on their own choice of lawyer. The resolution also called on Iran to provide access to the country to the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, who has been highly critical of Iran’s mistreatment of its religious minorities, including Christian converts, who are not recognised by the government. In response, the leader of the Iranian delegation, Mohammad-Javad Larijani, said that “while we don’t have any hostility with [Mr Rehman] … we think that his appointment is both unjustified and unwarranted” as “Iran is the most important and greatest democracy in the west of Asia” and shouldn’t have been “singled out for special reporting” when there are “nearby countries” where “even the women cannot drive the car ” – a thinly veiled attack on Saudi Arabia. He also accused Mr Rehman of “indulging in media manipulation … moving from one side of television to another, and engaging in propaganda against Iran”. Mr 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 was “not feasible” for the rapporteur to “see whether this list of 1,000 accusations is correct or not” during a three-day visit. He further blamed Mr Rehman’s reports on “the views that he gets from the MKO”, which he said were “put in the mouth of the special rapporteur” in [the MKO’s] “safe havens” in Berlin, London and the USA. Mr Larijani did not respond specifically to the problems faced by Christians in Iran, though he did remark on the situation of the Baha’is, saying that although they were not a recognised religious minority, they are “supported and shielded by the government” and that the “issue made of them outside [Iran]” is very different from the “reality on the field”.
Jailed lawyer who helped Christian convert demands retrial 19 November 2019 News Amirsalar Davoudi (Center for Human Rights in Iran) A human rights lawyer who helped an imprisoned Christian convert with his failed bid for a retrial is now seeking a retrial of his own. Amirsalar Davoudi was sentenced in June to 30 years in prison for “collaborating with an enemy state through interviews,” “propaganda against the state,” “insulting officials,” and “forming a group to overthrow the state”. The US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said the “trumped-up charges” related to his work defending prisoners of conscience – one of whom was the Christian convert Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, alongside whom Mr Davoudi is now incarcerated in Tehran’s Evin Prison. “The state does not like lawyers to be independent and puts pressure on those who defend political cases for free, or for a very low fee to cover the cost of the judicial tax,” an unnamed source told CHRI. “They want lawyers to charge a lot so that the political prisoners won’t be able to afford legal counsel. In effect, they want to put lawyers in a bind.” Mr Davoudi, who is 28 years old, was arrested (one year ago tomorrow) before he had the chance to submit Nasser’s retrial petition, so one of his deputies stepped in. Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh has served two years of his ten-year sentence. (Article18) After the petition failed, Nasser wrote an open letter from prison, questioning why involvement in house-churches was considered an “action against national security”, and saying he could not understand why he had been given such a long prison sentence – of ten years – as Christians are one of Iran’s “recognised” religious minorities. “Today marks more than two years since I have been detained in prison for the fabricated charge of acting against national security by running house churches,” he wrote, “even though religious ceremonies are part of our religion.” Nasser, who is 57 years old, was sentenced to ten years in prison in May 2017 and failed with his appeal six months later. Mr Davoudi decided not to file an appeal in his own case as, according to CHRI’s source, he “totally rejected the sentenced” and believed he had “not done anything that would require an appeal”. Instead, he has filed for a retrial. This means that legally he has the right to be released on bail until the outcome of the judicial review – though it is by no means certain his request will be granted. CHRI’s source said: “There are no proper legal procedures for political prisoners. They’re arbitrary. We just hope that [Mr Davoudi] is treated according to the law … and released until the completion of the judicial review.” Two other human rights lawyers have been given long custodial sentences in Iran over the past year. Nasrin Sotoudeh was sentenced in March to 38 years in jail and 148 lashes on charges including an allegation she helped to set up house-churches, while Mohammad Najafi faces a total of 19 years in prison, having received a series of additional jail sentences since his incarceration last October. Meanwhile, Yousef Nadarkhani and two fellow Christian converts currently serving ten-year prison sentences on national-security-related charges – Mohammad Reza Omidi and Zaman (Saheb) Fadaie – have been granted their own request for a retrial, though they too have yet to be granted bail and remain in Evin Prison.
Iran’s religious freedom failings laid bare at UN 15 November 2019 News The Iranian delegation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week, led by Mohammad-Javad Larijani (centre). UN member states have urged Iran to provide freedom of religion or belief for all citizens, including members of both recognised and unrecognised religious minorities. The member states adopted a resolution yesterday, expressing “serious concern” about “ongoing severe limitations” to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief for minorities “including Christians alongside Gonabadi Dervishes, Jews, Sufi Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Yarsanis, Zoroastrians and members of the Baha’i faith”. The resolution calls on Iran to “end widespread and serious restrictions, in law and in practice, on the right to freedom of expression and opinion … and the right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and to end its harassment, intimidation and persecution of … persons belonging to recognized and unrecognized religious minorities and their families, wherever it may occur”. It also instructs Iran to “cease monitoring individuals on account of their religious identity, to release all religious practitioners imprisoned for their membership in or activities on behalf of a recognized or unrecognized minority religious group and to ensure that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of their choice, in accordance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”. The resolution also calls on Iran to stop “incitement to hatred” against members of religious minorities, and denial of education; to rescind “unduly harsh sentences … including long-term internal exile”; and for all defendants to be provided with “legal representation of one’s choice”. Just this week Christian convert Ebrahim Firouzi was sent into internal exile following six years in prison, while Article18 has also highlighted the proliferation of hate speech against Christians in Iran; the denial of education to the children of imprisoned Christian convert Yousef Nadarkhani; Iran’s harassment of family members of Christian converts; and how earlier this year five Christian converts had their bail amounts increased tenfold when they insisted on their own choice of lawyer. The resolution also asks Iran to provide access to the country to the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, Javaid Rehman, who has been highly critical of Iran’s mistreatment of its religious minorities, including Christian converts. UPR Article18 joined with two fellow advocacy organisations, CSW and Middle East Concern, in submitting recommendations on Iran ahead of its latest Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last week. Iran’s human rights record was the subject of a three-hour-long hearing on 8 November, during which the representatives of over 30 countries expressed concern over Iran’s mistreatment of religious minorities and failure to ensure religious freedom. The plight of Christians was raised by the representatives of Bahrain, Haiti, the UK and the USA – who called for the release of prisoners of conscience including Yousef Nadarkhani – while the representatives of Norway and the Netherlands made special mention of the problems faced by Christian converts. Among the other issues raised by UN representatives were Iran’s failure to ensure fair trials for defendants; denial of medical care to prisoners; and the use of torture in obtaining forced confessions. The Iranian delegation, led by Mohammad-Javad Larijani, did not respond specifically to the problems faced by Christians in Iran, though Mr Larijani did remark on the situation of the Baha’is, saying that although they were not a recognised religious minority, they are “supported and shielded by the government” and that the “issue made of them outside [Iran]” is very different from the “reality on the field”. Meanwhile, the Jewish representative to the parliament, Siamak Moreh Sedgh, said Iranians had “total religious freedom” and that he was “sure that all of the problems of religious minorities can be solved within the framework of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its constitutional law”. Mr Larijani also responded, at length, to the repeated questions regarding denial of access to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran. He said that “while we don’t have any hostility with the gentleman … we think that his appointment is both unjustified and unwarranted” as “Iran is the most important and greatest democracy in the west of Asia” and shouldn’t have been “singled out for special reporting” when there were “nearby countries” where “even the women cannot drive the car ” – a thinly veiled attack on Saudi Arabia. He also accused Mr Rehman of “indulging in media manipulation … moving from one side of television to another, and engaging in propaganda against Iran”. Mr 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 was “not feasible” for the rapporteur to “see whether this list of 1,000 accusations is correct or not” during a three-day visit. He further blamed Mr Rehman’s reports on “the views that he gets from the MKO”, which he said were “put in the mouth of the special rapporteur” in [the MKO’s] “safe havens” in Berlin, London and the USA. This was one of several attacks made by the Iranian delegation against the US – and its “cruel economic sanctions” – and European nations, whose recommendations Mr Larijani said “we didn’t appreciate”.
Christians’ appeal hearing postponed again as court ‘too crowded’ 13 November 2019 News Left to right: Victor Bet-Tamraz, his wife Shamiram, Kavian Fallah-Mohammadi, Amin Afshar-Naderi, and Hadi Asgari. Yet another scheduled hearing in the drawn-out cases of five Christians facing between five and 15 years in prison was postponed today. Assyrian pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz and his wife Shamiram are facing ten and five years in prison, respectively. Converts to Christianity Hadi Asgari and Fallah-Mohammadi also face ten years in prison, while fellow convert Amin Afshar-Naderi faces 15 years. But it is now nearly two and a half years since the sentences against Victor and the four converts were pronounced, while Shamiram has also been waiting nearly two years for her own appeal to be heard. The case against the Christians has drawn international attention as a result of the advocacy efforts of Victor and Shamiram’s daughter, Dabrina, and a campaign by Amnesty International. Reacting to the latest development today – or lack thereof – Dabrina told Article18 the judge had said the court was “too crowded” and there were “too many cases”, so there “wouldn’t be time” to hear the Christians’ case. When their lawyers asked when the next hearing may take place, they were given no answer. Dabrina said she thinks that “because of everything that’s going on at the moment” – Iran has just this past week been the subject of a UN review into its human rights record – “they’re trying to buy some time for themselves and let the situation calm down before they make a decision regarding my parents”. Dabrina added that the continuing postponements of scheduled hearings is preventing her parents from moving on with their lives. “It’s different for my mum and dad – my mum is more anxious, she just wants to know, whatever happens, whether they go to prison or not. My dad is happier that it didn’t take place, but it does leave them in that state of not knowing what’s going to happen, and it’s nerve-racking every time you get a new court hearing date, and then nothing … and again … and then the whole time you’re nervous – what’s going to happen tomorrow?” “And it also doesn’t allow us to plan ahead, and it limits their lives so much, and everything they want to do, because every time they say, ‘Well let’s see what the court says; we’ll have to wait and see what will happen, and then we can plan’.” Dabrina added that yesterday and today had been “awful, really awful” for her, as she waited to hear what happened. “I was worried that the publicity I’ve done would backfire, and then I would really blame myself,” she said. “And the whole situation now – they’re being more strict on Christians; they’re not pardoning anybody, which makes you more concerned.”
Iranian Yarsani kicked out of university because he won’t say he’s Muslim 12 November 2019 News Siavash Hayati (Center for Human Rights in Iran) An Iranian follower of the Yarsan faith has been prevented from completing his university dissertation because he refused to deny his religious beliefs. Siavash Hayati told the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran that the dean at his university, in the western city of Kermanshah, said he could no longer study unless he wrote on his forms that he was Muslim. Like the Baha’i Faith, Yarsanism is an unrecognised religion in Iran, so its followers have no constitutional right to education, unlike the adherents of the three recognised minority faiths: Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, whose right to education is protected, at least in principle. But in reality the rights of even the recognised religious minorities are often violated, as was seen earlier this year when religious-minority teachers were banned from teaching at nursery schools other than those for minority children. And while the rights of Christian children to education are protected in the constitution, this right does not extend to the children of converts to Christianity, as was seen when Yousef Nadarkhani’s youngest son was barred from school at the start of the new academic year because he refused to take Islamic classes. Youeil Nadarkhani, 15, was told he could not return to school as he had not yet been certified to have completed the previous grade – because he did not complete his Islamic education. His older brother, Danial, 17, was later accepted as a “guest” to his school, but has not received a certificate showing his completion of an academic year since leaving 9th grade. Yousef went on hunger strike for three weeks in protest, only ending the strike when he was given reassurances by the prison authorities that the matter would be looked into. Earlier this year Iran’s Minister of Education said children who profess an unrecognised religious faith at school were engaging in “propaganda” and should be banned. He seemed to partially retract the comments in a later Twitter post, saying “free and quality education is the right of all children” and paraphrasing Article 23 of the Constitution, which states that “no-one should be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief”. However, he added that “illegal sects should not be promoted in school, which is a place for legal education”. This was a clear reference to unrecognised faiths such as the Baha’i faith and Evangelical Christianity, both of which have been regularly referred to as “sects” by Iranian officials including the Supreme Leader.
Ebrahim Firouzi sent into exile 1,000 miles from home 11 November 2019 News Two weeks after returning home from six years in prison, Christian convert Ebrahim Firouzi is on his way to the remote city of Sarbaz, 1,000 miles from his home, to begin two years of internal exile. Ebrahim, who will be 33 next month, left his home in Robat Karim, near Tehran, early this morning and will arrive in Sarbaz tomorrow lunchtime, having been forced to travel by bus at his own expense. He is the first Iranian Christian to endure such a punishment, though others such as Yousef Nadarkhani and Mohammad Reza Omidi – like Ebrahim, converts to Christianity – also face exile at the end of their sentences. At the time of Ebrahim’s initial sentencing, the judge added two years of exile to the maximum sentence for the charges he faced because he showed no remorse for his actions – meeting together with other Christians to pray and read the Bible, for which he was charged with “gathering and collusion” and “actions against national security”. Before his release on 26 October, Ebrahim had not seen his home since August 2013. Now he faces another two years away, during which time he will not be allowed to leave Sarbaz unless granted a temporary furlough – something he was never granted during his time in prison. Ebrahim is allowed to find work, but nothing is provided for him, including accommodation, so he will have to stay in a hotel while looking for work. Before his release from prison, Ebrahim was forced to submit property deeds, which will remain with the court during his time in exile, in case he chooses to run away. During his two weeks at home, Ebrahim was able to visit the grave of his mother, Kobra Kamrani, who passed away while he was in prison. Ebrahim had pleaded for a temporary leave of absence to see his dying mother in her last weeks, but this was rejected and he was also prevented from attending her funeral. A source close to Ebrahim told Article18 he had “mixed emotions” about his exile. “So long as the church is not free [to worship freely with other believers], Ebrahim believes there is no difference between home or elsewhere,” the source said. “He said, ‘God was in control when I went to prison, and I am sure he will still be in control in my exile. He will show me His ways in His own time.’” Background Ebrahim was first arrested in 2011 as part of a wave of arrests of Christian converts from all over Iran. He was initially sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment on charges of “propaganda against the regime, insulting Islamic sacraments and acting against national security”. Ebrahim was re-arrested in March 2013 and charged with “establishing and managing a website about Christianity, receiving and distributing Bibles, cooperating with student activists, promoting Christian Zionism, and acting against national security”. In July 2013, he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment to be followed by two years’ exile. On 21 August 2013, prior to commencing his sentence, Ebrahim was re-arrested in Karaj and returned to Tehran’s Evin Prison. Six weeks later he was relocated to Rajaei Shahr Prison in Karaj. He was due to be released in January 2015, but he was instead detained and re-tried on new charges of “gathering and collusion”, as well as “actions against national security”. In April 2015 he was sentenced to five years in prison. His appeal was eventually heard 18 months later, in December 2016, when the sentence was upheld. Ebrahim went on hunger strike in July 2017 after several fellow converts were given ten-year prison sentences. In an open letter, he wrote that he was protesting against “the mistreatment of new Christian believers and converts by the judicial authorities, refusing Christian prisoners access to Christian literature, and issuing unjust and hefty verdicts and sentences against new Christian believers and converts”.
Pastor’s wife still has nightmares about prison 7 November 2019 News The wife of an Iranian pastor still has nightmares about the months they spent in prison, the pastor says. Farhad Sabokrooh and his wife Shahnaz spent nearly a year in prison following their arrests at Christmas 2011. Two years later they fled Iran after being threatened with execution for apostasy if they didn’t leave the country. They are now resettled in the US, but Shahnaz still has nightmares, Pastor Sabokrooh revealed in an emotional interview with Joseph Hovsepian, son of the murdered pastor Haik. “As a woman and a mother, Shahnaz was a lot more vulnerable and fragile to all she had to go through,” Pastor Sabokrooh said. “Even though she did not serve as long a sentence as myself, but still… All the trauma Shahnaz experienced is still affecting her today. “She still has nightmares about her time in prison. She endured much. She was transferred to a criminal ward of the prison, which belonged to very dangerous inmates. “She stayed with 85 other women, all charged with murder, in one room. “Shahnaz, who’d never seen or associated with these groups of people, was filled with anxiety and fear for her life. “In the first few days and nights, she constantly was in fear of being attacked in the middle of the night. “Some of these prisoners were extremely broken, with mental or emotional issues, charged with murdering their husbands. “She spent the first seven months among them, without any contact or communication with me.” Pastor Sabokrooh explained how he served as a pastor in the southwestern city of Ahvaz from the age of 21, having become a Christian aged 14. “I remember experiencing many challenges and difficult times early on in our ministry,” he recalled. “The second year into our ministry, I was arrested by the secret service and was taken in for questioning. I was forbidden to go back home and spent three days in prison. After the third day, they released me, which was the exact time when brother Haik Hovsepian was martyred. So from the beginning of our ministry, we were made aware of the dangers we could possibly face.” Pastor Sabokrooh was arrested twice more and said he was “constantly pressured not to preach the gospel, evangelise or baptise new converts, but we did not stop. How could we back down?” Of the arrest of Christmas 2011, Pastor Sabokrooh recalled: “As we were worshipping with the congregation in our house-church, a group of 40 intelligence and secret-service agents – some armed, some with their faces covered – broke through our front door and forced their way into our home. “The meeting was stopped. They took my wife, Shahnaz, and me, along with other pastors. We were blindfolded and handcuffed, and driven in a large black security car, with tinted windows, to an unknown location. “We spent two months there, in separate cells, not knowing where we were, without any communication or contact with each other or the outside world. “After two months of intense questioning, almost every day – sometimes 10 to 15 hours a day – we were granted leave on bail. “This was a temporary release as we had to appear in court again. And we were sentenced to one year in prison.” Pastor Sabokrooh was a supervising pastor with Iran’s Assemblies of God network for 25 years. He and his wife fled to Turkey in March 2014 and resettled in the United States in 2016.
Six years on, Christian couple who fled persecution in Iran still stuck in Turkey 6 November 2019 Features It’s now more than six years since Maryam Bateni Nia and her husband Reza Mousavi fled Iran, where Maryam faced a one-year jail sentence for her involvement in house-churches, to seek asylum in Turkey. And there they remain. Tired, fearful and devoid of hope. In those six years, Maryam, now 37, and Reza, 39, and their eight-year-old son, Daniel, have been threatened with deportation, rejected for resettlement in the US and have had to travel long distances every two weeks to sign at a police station to prove they are living in their registered city – except that they aren’t. Because they can’t. Eight months after their arrival, the couple were designated Samsun, a city on Turkey’s north coast, as their city of residence. But by then they had already settled in Istanbul, had found a church, and Reza had found work. Unable to find a new job in Samsun, and with no money in the bank, they decided to stay in Istanbul, even though Samsun was a 12-hour drive away. But a year later, with Reza snowed under at his work in the tourism industry at the time of the Persian New Year, the couple missed three consecutive signings at the police station in Samsun, and the next time they went they discovered they had been served a deportation order. “We were so frightened,” Maryam recalls. “It was two days after this order that we were called by the UN staff. And usually when they call they have an interpreter, but that day a Turkish woman called, spoke to my husband, and said, ‘Tomorrow, 8 o’clock, you need to be here at the UN office.’ She was very serious. And we were frightened to death. We thought, ‘This is for our deportation. The police have informed them and now they have summoned us to deport us.’” In fact, the UN had called to tell them that they had been successful with their application to register as refugees. To their relief, they found out this meant they were exempt from any deportation order. But their joy at this news was only temporary as, one year later, in March 2016, the US rejected their asylum claim. “It was right at the time when they were blocking entry for new refugees to Europe and the US,” Reza explained. “And from what others who have gone before or after us have said – about how they were treated – it was completely different from our experience.” Not only were the couple rejected; they were also advised by US officials not to bother appealing the decision, as they had a “one to 99 chance” of success. And so they were back to square one. A year later, they successfully applied for their designated city to be reassigned to a city much closer to Istanbul, but still one in which Reza has found it difficult to find work. And still every two weeks there is the process of trekking back and forth to the police station to sign-in, which Reza says is an uncomfortable experience in itself. “The interviewer is a Muslim and not necessarily sympathetic to our situation,” he says. “Their main question is, ‘OK, why did you convert from Islam to Christianity?’ And I have to explain this. And another question is, ‘What was wrong with Islam that you converted?’, which puts us in a really difficult situation. We have to talk negatively about the faith that we held and this guy is a believer in.” For Maryam, the greatest challenge is the waiting. “We just want to leave Turkey, really,” she says. “It’s been way too long a wait. Reza is most of the time at work and has to really work hard for us to live here.” An additional complication is the fact that asylum seekers in Turkey aren’t even legally permitted to work – but Maryam says it is otherwise impossible for them to meet their needs. “We are torn between abiding by the law or meeting our basic needs,” she says. “In other countries, refugees have support systems. They receive housing or work opportunities, but here we’re denied those and we’re sent to cities where we can’t meet the basic standards of living.” Reza adds: “For us who fled persecution, we fled without organising a plan. We didn’t have savings to take with us, that we could carry on spending for a couple of years. We didn’t have any plan for learning the language, or work, or anything like that. So we got here, we found ourselves in the middle of all this refugee process. The Turkish government, UN, ASAM [Association for Solidarity with Asylum Seekers and Migrants], any of these authorities do not financially help in any way at all. I had to actually sign in my first interview a document saying that I do not have any claim on receiving help or support. “They don’t offer you any accommodation – somewhere to sleep. Even when you want to rent a house, it will be more expensive for you than a Turkish resident. So this all shows you the basic financial needs asylum seekers have. “In small cities, any jobs that you may be able to find are very hard labour, and then you’ll be lucky if you will be paid for the work that you do. I have a slipped disk and I can’t do heavy physical labour. That’s personal for me, but maybe others are in a similar situation.” Reza says he has “no grievance” with either the Turkish or American governments, but wishes there was consistency in the application process. “We know that there are people around us who have asylum cases based on false claims. So I can understand that they would see me as somebody similar to them,” he says. “But what I would expect, and I think is reasonable, is that they would have an expert eye to look at these cases, to discern the genuine cases of persecution of Christians. What I can’t understand is that a few people would end up being accepted and others would be refused, all with similar circumstances.” Reza adds that he would like to see a better support network for persecuted Christians, similar to those enjoyed by the LGBT community and Baha’is – also persecuted minorities within Iran. “I may have seen you [Article18] representing Christians in one of the TV channels, but not many people are involved in this work of supporting persecuted Christians,” he says. “I wish at least there was a support system for families,” Maryam adds. “Especially those with children.” “You know, we and a lot of those who come fleeing persecution in Iran, they have their own lives and livelihood – they may have been doing well, meeting their own needs back in their own home country. Now they have come here and in addition to enduring all that hardship, they feel responsible for what has happened to their children. So somebody like our child comes and now he is at the age that he understands why we are here and what circumstances led to our escape from Iran and he questions, ‘What would happen if we weren’t arrested? Would we be in a similar situation, or not?’ “So I’m not expecting any sort of financial help, but at least something to facilitate a support for these families so that this period of waiting would be shortened for them, or at least somebody to hear them out and understand what they are going through.” For now, Maryam and Reza sit and wait in the hope that another country – perhaps Canada or Australia – will take on their case. But until that time, all they can do is wait, with no idea of how long it may take. “For us the timing itself is not an issue,” Reza says. “We’ve been here for too long, but at least if we knew the direction we were heading in, then we could manage the time.”
Christian converts ‘consistently persecuted’ in Iran, says UN Special Rapporteur 5 November 2019 News The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran has reiterated his concerns over the “disturbing” treatment of religious minorities in Iran, including Christian converts, who he says are “consistently persecuted”. Javaid Rehman, speaking at a press conference in New York on 22 October, said house-churches are “consistently targeted” by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and that “all forms of harassment and intimidation are bestowed, unfortunately, on the Christian converts”. Mr Rehman said he had chosen to focus the “bulk” of his latest report, which he presented at the UN General Assembly on 23 October, on ethnic and religious minorities because of the “disturbing pattern of human rights concern we are witnessing”. “Also I think I can be more constructive if I go into more detail, analyse and build up stronger recommendations through a deeper analysis,” he said. Mr Rehman said he had particular concern for those minorities “who are not recognised within the Iranian legal system, and Christian converts are [among] those”. “In my report, I have called for the desperately needed legislative and policy changes in order to guarantee the rights of all Iranians,” he said. Mr Rehman said that of the estimated 350,000-500,000 Christian converts in Iran, “there are a significant number who are persecuted because they are engaging in their freedom of religion and belief”. Mr Rehman said ethnic and religious minorities “represent a disproportionate number of individuals executed on national-security-related charges and a disproportionate number of political prisoners. “They are subject to arbitrary arrests and detentions for their participation in a range of peaceful activities. And they are subject to hatred, incitement and discrimination for which the national legal framework provides little or no protection.” What does the report say? As Article18 reported in August, Mr Rehman notes that Iran, as a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is obliged to provide its citizens with “freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of their choice, or not to have or adopt a religion, and the freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest their religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching”. He points out that, while Christians are a recognised religious minority, alongside Jews and Zoroastrians, such recognition is not afforded to Muslims who convert to Christianity. “Even for the recognised religious minorities, there is no provision under the legal system of the Islamic Republic of Iran permitting conversions from Islam, which is considered apostasy,” he writes. “This puts Christian converts from Islam at risk of persecution. Apostasy is not codified as an Islamic Penal Code offence, but conversion from Islam is punishable by death.” While in reality it is rare for converts to Christianity to be sentenced to death, Mr Rehman notes that the possibility remains and has precedent in the case of pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who was sentenced to death in 2010. Meanwhile, as converts are “not granted access to officially recognised Christian churches,” Mr Rehman says this “forces them to gather clandestinely in informal ‘house churches’”, attendance of which can lead to “arrests, detention and repeated interrogations about their faith”. “Most Christian converts who have been arrested and detained have been charged with ‘propaganda against the system’, ‘propagation of Zionist evangelical Christianity’ or ‘administering and managing the home churches’,” Mr Rehman adds. He cites the recent example of Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad, one of nine Christians arrested in Rasht in early 2019, and also the case of pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, who is facing a ten-year prison sentence, and his wife and son, who were also given prison sentences because of their Christian activities. Mr Rehman adds that converts have been “subjected to sexual abuse and ill treatment” during detention. “One young woman had reportedly been repeatedly subjected to sexual assault by a policeman, leaving her traumatized and requiring treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in a psychiatric hospital,” he writes. “In a separate case, a young male Christian convert detained in Tehran was allegedly hit with wooden sticks and his head banged against a wall.” Mr Rehman’s very first recommendation to the Supreme Leader is an amendment to Article 13 of Iran’s Constitution, such that “all religious minorities and those who do not hold any religious beliefs are recognized and able to fully enjoy the right to freedom of religion or belief”. He calls for amendments to “all articles in the Islamic Penal Code that discriminate on the basis of religious or belief”, and for due process and fair-trial guarantees, “including access to a lawyer of their choosing” to be afforded to all persons accused of a crime. (Matthias and four of his co-defendants recently had their bail amounts increased tenfold after insisting on being allowed to choose their own lawyer.) Mr Rehman also calls on Iran’s government to “refrain from targeting members of recognized and non-recognized religious minorities with national security-related charges”, to “refrain from persecuting peaceful religious gatherings in private homes and other premises, refrain from convicting religious leaders and cease the monitoring of citizens on account of their religious identity”,and to “end the criminalisation of the peaceful expression of faith”. He also asks for new places of worship for all religious minorities, including “new churches throughout the country”. In July, Mr Rehman had pledged to look into the treatment of Christian converts in Iran “very seriously”, saying he was “personally very concerned” about the issue.