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A member of Iran’s Expediency Council of religious leaders appointed in an advisory capacity by the Supreme Leader has implied that Muslims who convert to Christianity are stupid, poor and easily manipulated.

Seyed-Hashem Bathaee, in an interview with Shabestan news agency, blames the government for being unable to eradicate poverty, saying that as a result people are poorer and vulnerable to “religious corruption”.

He adds that anyone found guilty of apostasy deserves the death penalty – whether “man or woman, boy or girl”.

“Those who go towards Christianity – they don’t hate the Muslim prophet, but they are being influenced by the promotion of corruption in society,” he says.

Article18’s Advocacy Director, Mansour Borji, notes that Bathaee “doesn’t specify whose corruption, but we know from many recent admission by Iranian clergy and politicians that it is mostly due to the authorities themselves”.

Iran is among the most corrupt countries in the world, according to Transparency International.

The cleric adds: “We should know that today’s Christianity in many aspects is corrupt. Even the Bible is corrupted.”

His comments are the latest example of public denigration of Christianity in Iran and amount to an incitement to religious hatred, says Borji.  

“He is basically accusing anyone who has converted of being a brainless person who’s been easily manipulated and deceived to convert,” Borji explains.

“And then, as a religious authority and member of the Expediency Council, he claims that the punishment for people who convert, regardless of their gender or marital status, is death.”

The cleric’s comments come just a few weeks after Iran’s Minister of Intelligence for the first time publicly admitted to collaborating with Shia religious seminaries to combat the perceived threat of mass conversions to Christianity across the country.

Mahmoud Alavi, addressing a gathering of Shia clerics in Qom on 4 May, admitted to summoning converts to Christianity for questioning “to ask them why they were converting”, as it was “happening right before our eyes”.

“Some [of the converts] said they were looking for a religion that gives them peace,” Alavi said. “We told them that ‘Islam is the religion of brotherhood and peace’. They responded by saying that: ‘We see Muslim clerics and those who preach from the pulpit talk against each other all the time. If Islam is the religion of peace, then before anything else, there must be cordiality and peace among the clerics themselves.”

In his speech, Alavi also admitted that “these converts are ordinary people, whose jobs are selling sandwiches or similar things”.

This represented a “huge shift away from Iran’s usual rhetoric that converts are agents of the West who have undergone significant training to undermine national security,” according to Borji.

“It is also especially alarming for the Iranian regime to acknowledge that ‘ordinary Iranians’ are converting, as it is they who have formed the regime’s hardcore support for the past 40 years – support the regime is now losing in huge numbers.”

The UK’s immigration service has hired clerics to train its staff in religious literacy, following years of criticism that workers are ill-equipped to deal with the complex claims of converts and others claiming persecution on religious grounds.

The issue came to particular prominence in March when a Home Office worker used verses from the Bible to contradict the claims of an Iranian asylum seekerwho said he’d converted to Christianity because it was a “peaceful” religion. 

The convert was told that suggesting Christianity was “peaceful” was inconsistent with verses such as “You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you” – from the book of Leviticus.

“These examples are inconsistent with your claim that you converted to Christianity after discovering it is a ‘peaceful’ religion, as opposed to Islam which contains violence, rage and revenge,” read a letter from the British Home Office, which was shared online by the Iranian’s lawyer, Nathan Stevens.

Church of England spokesman Bishop Paul Butler said he was “extremely concerned that a government department could determine the future of another human being based on such a profound misunderstanding of the texts and practices of faith communities”. 

One of the clerics who took part in the first session for Home Office case-workers last month told the Church Times “there have been a number of bad decisions over the years, highlighted as far back as 2004 by an Evangelical Alliance report, All Together for Asylum Justice”. 

Rev Mark Miller, whose church has a large number of Iranian converts and translates its services into Persian, added: “I have been involved in training to share some of my experiences of working with Christian conversion, and how to go about assessing whether someone is genuine. In the session, I asked staff what they thought was basic knowledge, but most of what they suggested back to me wasn’t basic knowledge; it was ‘Name the Ten Commandments’, rather than the significance of a faith in Jesus.”

Converts to Christianity are regularly targeted in Iran, as was recently admitted by Iran’s Minister of Intelligence, who said he had “summoned [converts] to ask them why they were converting” and had been told it was because “they were looking for a religion that gives them peace”.

In recent years, many converts have been arrested and charged with “actions against national security”, then given lengthy sentences of up to 15 years in prison. 

Once arrested, they often face pressure to recant their faith or sign commitments not to meet with other Christians. In many cases, converts have been released after paying huge sums for bail, then given their passports and encouraged to leave Iran. 

As a result of the harsh treatment they face, many converts decide to leave Iran, as Article18 highlighted in its inaugural annual report, released in January.

Amnesty International has called on Iranian lawmakers to “urgently revise” a proposed amendment to the criminal code that would deny detainees facing charges such as “actions against national security” the right to a lawyer.

The proposal, which would also apply to detainees charged with “terrorism” or “financial corruption”, could have significant ramifications for the country’s Christians, many of whom have faced charges relating to alleged actions against national security, leading to jail sentences of up to 15 years.

Amnesty notes that while denial of a lawyer is only permitted for 20 days, the proposal enables undefined “judicial authorities” to extend this indefinitely, “if deemed necessary”.

Amnesty calls the proposal “contemptible” and “a huge backward step” that would “reintroduce the kind of restrictions found under the previous Code of Criminal Procedure of 1999, under which prosecution and judicial authorities could effectively bar detainees’ access to a lawyer for the entire investigation phase in a wide range of criminal cases, including those concerning ‘national security’”.

The current criminal code, which came into force in 2015, decrees that all detainees must be given access to a lawyer, albeit only one chosen from a small pool of lawyers approved by the head of the judiciary. 

When an initiate to reform the code was announced in June 2018, it was hoped that this provision would be scrapped, but the lawmakers have “turned the initiative on its head”, Amnesty says, “by proposing, instead of the annulment of the existing provision, a new flawed provision”.

The proposal was announced by the spokesperson of Iran’s legal and judicial parliamentary commission, Hassan Norouzi, on 6 May and is expected to be voted upon in the coming weeks.

Amnesty’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther, said the “regressive” proposal, if passed by MPs, “would be a crushing blow to Iran’s already deeply defective justice system and could further consolidate patterns of torture and other ill-treatment against detainees to extract forced confessions during interrogations”.

“Iranian lawmakers should focus their attention on introducing legal reforms that would strengthen rather than further undermine the right to a fair trial,” he added. “The Iranian parliament must urgently revise this proposed amendment to bring it into line with Iran’s obligations under international human rights law and guarantee the right of all detainees to access a lawyer of their choice from the time of arrest and at all stages of judicial proceedings, including pre-trial detention, questioning and investigation.”

A young woman who was jailed for six months for being part of a Tehran “house church” has written an open letter to Iran’s Minister of Intelligence, accusing him of violating the constitution by targeting Christians.

Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi admitted earlier this month to “inviting” Christian families for questioning to ask them why they had converted.

In her letter, Fatemeh Mohammadi, 19, accuses him of violating Article 23 of the constitution, which states that “no-one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief”. 

She adds that intelligence officials were wrong to search the properties of the converts because the Christians had committed no crime, and says they were “summoned”, not invited, to “inspect their opinion and attempt to remove them from their beliefs”.

Fatemeh was arrested at a house-church meeting in November 2017 and sentenced to six months in prison in April 2018; she was then released, owing to time already served in the women’s ward of the notorious Evin Prison. 

Her letter, which was published by the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), references Mr Alavi’s acknowledgment that the Christians who were questioned were “ordinary people”, who had jobs “such as selling sandwiches”. As Article18 reported, this statement marked a huge shift away from Iran’s usual rhetoric that converts are agents of the West who have undergone significant training to undermine national security. 

Fatemeh’s letter queries whether the members of her house church were not also “ordinary”, saying it comprised “several housewives, a salesperson, guard, agricultural engineer, taxi driver, student and others with similar professions … aged between 19 and 60”.

“Were we not ‘ordinary people’ who were threatened by plainclothes agents who searched the house and ransacked everything, without hesitating?” she asks.

Fatemeh also questions why Christians are prevented from “talking about their ideas with their peers”, while Muslims can freely engage in “propaganda” at schools, universities, mosques and shrines.

She adds that those who had been interrogated would no doubt have seen all these advertisements about Islam, yet, “for whatever reason, they have decided to believe in Christianity, while they are not allowed to go to church, will not hear church bells … not see Christian TV and not have the experts available to them to add to their information”.

She calls for “open, free and secure spaces” where people can discuss their ideas with “peace of mind” and says “identifying Christians in an attempt to harass them and enquire into their beliefs is a flagrant violation of the constitution and other domestic and international laws”

Fatemeh also calls on human rights groups to do more to highlight the “oppression” of Persian-speaking Christians in Iran, whom she says are an overlooked minority, recognised and researched only by the international community.

She says Iranian officials should devote their energies to compiling statistics on the numbers of converts in order to “learn the well-founded roots of their problems in this country and society as Christians, not identifying them just for the purpose of inspecting their opinions”.

Fatemeh published another letter in June last year, in which she accused her interrogators of sexual harassment.

Fatemeh was arrested alongside Majidreza Souzanchi, 35, who is still in Evin Prison, serving a five-year sentence – for his membership of the house church and “conducting evangelism” – that in January was reduced to two years. 

Both of their cases were highlighted in Article18’s annual report, which documented rights violations against Christians in 2018. Majidreza was one of at least 14 Christians still in prison in Iran at the start of 2019.

The daughter of an Assyrian pastor and his wife still awaiting the outcome of their appeals against prison sentences for their Christian activities says their lives are “on hold”.

Dabrina Bet-Tamraz told the Gatestone Institute that her father, Victor, and mother, Shamiram, are “trying to survive, not knowing what is going to happen next, not being able to make plans about their future”. 

“They are living with constant anxiety, powerless, not having security and safety even in their own home,” she said. “They are fully aware of the dangers around them but are not able to do anything to protect themselves. They are watched, controlled and wiretapped; it is their everyday life. Every time they get a phone call, they are filled with fear: It might be Iranian intelligence officers calling them for an interrogation session or a court hearing.”

Last year, Dabrina told the UN Human Rights Council the charges against her parents were “baseless”.

Her father, Victor, was sentenced to ten years in prison in July 2017 for “action against national security by organising and conducting house-churches”. In January 2018, her mother, Shamiram, was sentenced to five years in prison on similar charges.

Now, Dabrina says all her father’s money has been “frozen”.

“He has no income now and is not allowed to have a government job,” she said. “He is 65 years old and is living on a pension that is not even enough to pay for food.

“Also, my brother [who was also given a prison sentence] was constantly accused by his interrogators of carrying on my father’s ministry – of teaching and preaching the Bible, since my father is no longer able to do so.”

Dabrina noted that the judge who recently took over her mother’s appeal “has not even found enough evidence to sentence my mother”. 

“The case was not clear to him,” she said. “He requested more information and documents from the interrogators. He will most likely take all the cases – of my father, mother and brother – together and call them all in for the next court hearing.”

Dabrina, who now lives in Switzerland, said that she too had been “arrested many times in Iran, threatened [and] forced to cooperate with the government against pastors, Christian leaders and church members”. 

She said she was “kept in custody with no legal permit, with no female officer present and in male surroundings”.

Although she said she now feels “safe” in Switzerland, Dabrina was recently forced to move home after “Iranian MOIS [intelligence agency] officers published an article on social media with my pictures and home address, encouraging Iranian men living in Switzerland to ‘pay me a visit’”.

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Iran’s Minister of Intelligence has for the first time publicly admitted that his agency is collaborating with Shia religious seminaries in seeking to combat the perceived threat of mass conversions to Christianity across the country.

Mahmoud Alavi, addressing a gathering of Shia clerics in Qom on Saturday, admitted to summoning converts to Christianity for questioning – a clear breach of Article 23 of Iran’s constitution, which states that “no-one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief”, and a contradiction of the claims of other Iranian officials, such as the Foreign Minister, that members of religious minorities are not targeted in Iran.

Alavi said he had “summoned [converts] to ask them why they were converting”, as it was “happening right before our eyes”.

“Some [of the converts] said they were looking for a religion that gives them peace,” Alavi said. “We told them that ‘Islam is the religion of brotherhood and peace’. They responded by saying that: ‘We see Muslim clerics and those who preach from the pulpit talk against each other all the time. If Islam is the religion of peace, then before anything else, there must be cordiality and peace among the clerics themselves.”

Article18’s Advocacy Director, Mansour Borji, says Alavi’s comments are a clear indication that “it is not Western propaganda, or even Christian evangelism, that is the primary driving force leading Iranians to distance themselves from the rigid version of Shia Islam propagated by the Iranian regime; rather it is the irresponsible behaviour of Iranian clergy and the mass corruption that is visible for all to see within all elements of the regime”.

In his speech, Alavi also admitted that “these converts are ordinary people, whose jobs are selling sandwiches or similar things”.

Borji says this admission again represents a “huge shift away from Iran’s usual rhetoric that converts are agents of the West who have undergone significant training to undermine national security. 

“Indeed, such proclamations have often formed the basis of official court rulings against converts – that their actions have represented collusion with the ‘Zionist’ enemies of Iran. The minister’s statement completely undermines the basis for such claims.”

It is also especially alarming for the Iranian regime to acknowledge that “ordinary Iranians” are converting, Borji says, as it is “these ordinary Iranians who have formed the regime’s hardcore support for the past 40 years – support the regime is now losing in huge numbers”.

It is also interesting to see the intelligence minister admit to “whole families” converting, Borji says, as this is “an admission that such conversions are far from a rare event; rather they are happening en masse, and across the country. 

“Perhaps this is why the minister chose to make these comments to a gathering of Shia clergy about to be commissioned and sent off to various parts of the country to propagate the Shia Islam of the regime.”

The situation for Christians and other minorities in Iran “has reached an alarming stage”, according to a new report conducted on behalf of the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The report, which comes after the UK’s Foreign Secretary called for a global review into the persecution of Christians worldwide, notes that the state is the “main actor” in Iran, and that “though most cases involve converts, indigenous Christians such as Pastor Victor [Bet-Tamraz], an Assyrian Christian, with his wife Shamiram Issavi and their son, [Ramiel], have also been targeted and imprisoned”.

The case of Christian convert Ebrahim Firouzi is used to highlight how “unjust trials are commonplace” in Iran. The report notes that although Ebrahim was “originally arrested in March 2013 on allegations of ‘promoting Christian Zionism’ … since 2015 been serving a further five-year prison sentence on charges of acting against national security”.

Ebrahim is serving that second sentence alongside Sevada Aghasar, an ethnic Armenian Christian – another example of how the Iranian authorities target indigenous Christians as well as converts.

“Arrest, detention and imprisonment are common [for Christians] in Iran,” the report notes, referencing the 114 Christians arrested over just six days before Christmas, “with court cases left pending as a form of intimidation”. 

The analysis by Article18’s Advocacy Director, Mansour Borji, ’40 years of religious apartheid: Christianity in post-revolutionary Iran’, is cited as the source of that information; Mansour was one of the expert witnesses called to give evidence to the review team on the situation of Christians in Iran.

The report also notes the “rise of hate speech against Christians in state media and by religious leaders” in Iran, which it says has “comprised the safety of Christians and created social intolerance”; and highlights the confiscation of church properties in Iran, such as the retreat centre in Karaj taken over last year by EIKO (the Executive Headquarters of Imam’s Directive) for “being funded by the CIA”.

The focus of the report is global, with the report’s author, Bishop Philip Mounstephen, citing research from the International Society for Human Rights in claiming that as much as 80% of religious persecution around the world today targets Christians.

“Persecution on grounds of religious faith is a global phenomenon that is growing in scale and intensity,” he writes, and “it is to our shame … [that] we have abjectly failed to implement the best system that women and men have yet devised to protect universal freedoms” – the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18 of which guarantees freedom of religion or belief.

The bishop concludes by challenging the UK government to turn his recommendations into “workable solutions that can be implemented”.

Iran remains among the world’s most egregious violators of religious freedom, according to the 20th annual report of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).

The report, released today, recommends that, as in every year since 1999, Iran be listed among the US State Department’s Countries of Particular Concern (CPCs) “for engaging in or tolerating systematic, ongoing, egregious violations”.

“In 2018, religious freedom conditions in Iran trended in a negative direction relative to 2017,” USCIRF says, adding that the Iranian government “heightened its systematic targeting” of religious minorities such as Christians, Baha’is, and Sunni and Sufi Muslims.

The report notes the “dramatic uptick” in documented arrests of Christians – 171 in 2018 compared to 16 in 2017 – particularly in the run up to Christmas, when 114 Christians were arrested in just one week.

“Christians arrested in Iran are often treated and charged as enemies of the state, and lawyers who take on their cases face the threat of detention,” the report says.

“Christians have been sentenced to prison terms for holding private Christmas gatherings, organizing and conducting house churches, and traveling abroad to attend Christian seminars. Evangelical Christian communities face repression because many conduct services in Persian and proselytize to those outside their community. Pastors of house churches are often charged with national security-related crimes and apostasy.”

USCIRF specifically references the cases of Youcef Nadarkhani, Hagi Asgari, Amin Afshar-Naderi, Saheb Fadaie and Fatemeh Bakhtari, and the Bet-Tamraz family, all of which have been highlighted by Article18.

USCIRF also notes that despite President Hassan Rouhani “signalling his intent to address some religious freedom violations, these promises have yet to be implemented”. It notes that in December 2016 he released a Charter on Citizens’ Rights that promised, among other rights, recognition of all religious identities and nondiscriminatory legal protection. “However, since his reelection in May 2017, religious minorities in Iran have seen little change based on this document.”

USCIRF makes the following recommendations to the US government:

• Speak out publicly and frequently at all levels about the severe religious freedom abuses in Iran, and highlight the need for the international community to hold authorities accountable in specific cases;

• Identify Iranian government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom, freeze those individuals’ assets, and bar their entry into the United States, as delineated under the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA), the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and related executive orders, citing specific religious freedom violations;

• Press for and work to secure the release of all prisoners of conscience, including Youcef Nadarkhani, Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, and Mohammad Ali Taheri;

• Work with European allies to use advocacy, diplomacy, and targeted sanctions to pressure Iran to end religious freedom abuses, especially leading up to Iran’s 2019 Universal Periodic Review;

• Develop and utilize new technologies to counter censorship and to facilitate the free flow of information in and out of Iran.

And for the US Congress to:

• Reauthorize and ensure implementation of the Lautenberg Amendment, which aids persecuted Iranian religious minorities seeking refugee status in the United States.