Shamiram Issavi’s appeal postponed until after Nowruz 19 February 2019 News Shamiram Issavi’s appeal against her five-year jail sentence for “acting against national security” was postponed after a hearing today at Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. The new presiding judge, Ahmad Zargar, appeared visibly confused at the details of Shamiram’s case and ruled that her appeal would next be heard in conjunction with that of her husband, Pastor Victor Bet-Tamraz, and the three men sentenced alongside him. Judge Zargar said the next hearing would take place after Persian New Year. Shamiram was convicted in January 2018 of “acting against national security and the regime by organising small groups, attending a seminary abroad and training church leaders to act as spies”. Her husband Victor, a well-known Assyrian pastor, was given a ten-year sentence in July 2017, alongside three of his church members – all converts – for “acting against national security by organising and conducting house churches”. Two of the converts – Kavian Fallah-Mohammadi, and Hadi Asgari – also received ten-year sentences, while the third, Amin Afshar-Naderi, was given an additional five years in prison for “insulting the sacred” (blasphemy against Islam). Shamiram and Victor led the Assyrian Pentecostal Church of Shahrara in Tehran before it was forcibly closed in March 2009. With the pressure of officials from the Ministry of Intelligence and the intervention of the Assyrian representative of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Yonathan Betkolia, the pastor was removed from the leadership of the church and the church was forced to halt all meetings in Farsi and ban all non-Assyrian members. The pastor and two of the converts – Amin and Kavian – were first arrested as they celebrated Christmas together at his home on 26 December 2014. Hadi did not attend the Christmas celebration but was arrested on 26 August, 2016, along with several other Christians, including Victor and Shamiram’s son, Ramiel, during a raid on a private apartment in Firoozkooh, near Tehran. Ramiel was later sentenced to four months in prison, then released owing to time served. In August 2018, Amnesty International launched a campaign for the release of Victor and Shamiram and their church members.
Iranian leaders sending their children abroad ‘troubling’ – US secretary of state 18 February 2019 News The US secretary of state has highlighted the hypocrisy of top Iranian officials sending their children to schools in America while at the same time claiming that Iran offers its citizens all the freedom and opportunities they need. “You have the very people that are destroying the way of life for ordinary Iranians all across the country, but they’re sending their kids … because they’re wealthy, because they’ve stolen from you, they’ve taken your money, corruptly, in a way that has really harmed the good, hard-working people of Iran … they’ve taken your money and they’re sending their kids abroad to go to school, to shop, to benefit from the very freedoms that we have here in the United States, because they know their country is not good enough for their own people. It’s good enough for you, but it’s not good enough for their families,” Mike Pompeo said in a video message broadcast by USA dar Farsi, the State Department’s virtual Iranian Embassy, on 10 February. پاسخ #پمپئو به پرسش کاربران این شبکه درمورد فرزندان و خانواده های مقامات رژیم در آمریکا. #رژیم_ریاکار pic.twitter.com/tcFLRUyzwy— USA darFarsi (@USAdarFarsi) February 10, 2019 “So we’re looking at this. We too find it troubling that they’re sending their family members abroad – not troubling for us but troubling for Iran – and we’re very hopeful that we can find a way forward, so that the Iranian people will have good lives in their country; they won’t need to come here to the United States to find liberty and freedom and prosperity.” In July last year, the former head of Iran’s Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, caused a stir when he claimed more than 5,000 privileged youths from influential and well-connected families were studying abroad and held a total of $148 billion dollars in their foreign bank accounts – an amount exceeding Iran’s foreign exchange reserves. Iranians reacted by venting their frustrations on social media using the hashtag #Where_is_your_kid. The term “Aghazadeh”, referring to young people who abuse the power and influence of their relatives for personal social, political or financial gains, has since become part of the everyday vocabulary of Iranians. USA dar Farsi’s video message showed photographs of some of the officials in question – including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif – and of their children shopping for clothes in America and driving expensive-looking cars. Assyrian representative another culprit The Assyrian Representative in Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly, Yonathan Betkolia, is another of the officials whose children and other relatives live in the US, even though he has been an outspoken critic of American interference in Iran and a defender of Iran’s human-rights record and particularly the rights of the Christian minority he represents. Despite his position as representative for Iran’s Christian minority, Betkolia has been instrumental in putting pressure on church leaders, and in the closure of at least two churches. At the same time, he has called Iran a “paradise” and the “safest place in the world” for religious minorities, and said Assyrian Christians – a recognised minority in Iran – need no protection from foreign powers. Responding to claims in 2017 from the former US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, that there was no religious freedom in Iran, Betkolia declared: “This claim cannot be true, as all religious minorities have their rights and freedoms in Iran.” He added that religious minorities in Iran were free to conduct their religious ceremonies and that the US and other Western countries should follow Iran’s example. “The Iranian government does not allow anyone to attack and violate our values, while we can all see that in some Western countries religious minority leaders have been attacked by extremists and no-one has stood up for them,” he said. He also criticised the reports of the former UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, who highlighted violations of the rights of religious minorities in Iran. Betkolia’s other public comments include: “The fact that we have many churches in Iran, even in the smallest villages, shows how religious minorities enjoy absolute freedom and security in Iran.” “Officially recognised religious minorities have no problem practising their faith in Iran. Our constitution grants them special privileges like civil and religious rights.” “Religious minorities, especially Christians, have no problem in Iran and I testify against the reports on the violation of Christian rights in Iran.” 40 years of brutality On the 40th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution last week, Article18 looked back at Iran’s treatment of its Christian minority over the four decades since the ayatollahs came to power. Ayatollah Khomeini promised freedom and religious freedom for all Iranians, but the reality has been very different, with several church leaders brutally murdered and hundreds of church members jailed or forced into exile. US leaders including the president, Donald Trump, national security advisor, John Bolton, and ambassador for international religious freedom, Sam Brownback, each released messages on their Twitter profiles, criticising the Iranian regime for its rights violations over the past 40 years. Among these is the right of Iranians & all people to #religiousfreedom. Yet many Iranian religious minorities, including Baha’is, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Sunni & Sufi Muslims, continue to face discrimination, harassment, & unjust imprisonment because of their beliefs. https://t.co/oRPttaHltg— Ambassador Sam Brownback (@IRF_Ambassador) February 11, 2019 Last month, Article18 published its inaugural annual report, documenting the “unprecedented” wave of arrests just before Christmas as the culmination of a year in which Iran continued to violate the rights of its Christian minority. Amnesty International noted the arrest of at least 171 Christians last year in its report, which called 2018 Iran’s “year of shame”.
Convert taken to Evin Prison, threatened with 10-year sentence 17 February 2019 News A Tehrani woman who converted to Christianity has been told she could face a ten-year prison sentence for “disturbing public order, propagating Christianity and connecting with foreign entities”. Simin Soheili, 40, was arrested on 30 January and transferred to Evin Prison, where she was informed of the charges against her. She was released on bail two weeks later, on 14 February, and has been left severely traumatised by her experience. Another Christian convert, Yasser Akbari, was arrested at the same time and also taken to Evin Prison, where he is still being detained. It remains unclear whether he has been formally charged. Yasser has a teenage son with severe disabilities, who needs full-time care. Many of Yasser’s contacts have been summoned for interrogation during his time in Evin Prison.
Three converts arrested at Yousef Nadarkhani’s church 12 February 2019 News Three converts from Islam standing in for the imprisoned pastor Yousef Nadarkhani in leading services in their church in Rasht have been detained by officers from the Ministry of Intelligence. Abdolreza (Matthias) Ali-Haghnejad was arrested on Sunday, 10 February, during a raid on the ‘Church of Iran’ group, and taken to an unknown location. Two weeks previously, on 29 January, fellow church members Hossein Kadivar and Khalil Dehghanpour were detained following another raid. Their pastor, Yousef, and three other church members – Zaman (Saheb) Fadaie, Mohammad Ali Mossayebzadeh, and Mohammad Reza Omidi – are currently serving ten-year jail sentences for “acting against national security” by “promoting Zionist Christianity” and running “house-churches”. They were sentenced in July 2017 and taken to serve their sentences a year later, in July 2018, after violent raids on their homes, having received no warning, nor summons. Yousef previously spent nearly three years in prison after he was sentenced to death for apostasy in 2010. He was acquitted of the charge in September 2012. In the latest raids on the non-Trinitarian group, Hossein and Khalil were arrested when officers from the Ministry of Intelligence scaled the wall of the property where the “house church” service was being held. They arrested Hossein and Khalil, who were leading the service, and threatened all other attendees, confiscating their ID cards and mobile phones. London-based Manoto TV, a Farsi-language station that broadcasts internationally, reported news of the arrests yesterday. https://youtu.be/77obGmssa1M In its report, Manoto TV spoke to Behnam Irani, a ‘Church of Iran’ pastor who served six years in prison for “acting against national security” before his release in 2016. He explained two tactics used by the Iranian regime against Christians: firstly, refusing to enrol Christian schoolchildren – including the children of Pastor Yousef – unless they agree to take classes in Islamic studies and Quranic studies; secondly, sending arrested converts for “re-education” classes with a Muslim cleric – a similar practice, he noted, to the tactic used by the Chinese government in sending members of its Muslim minority in Xinjiang to “re-education” camps. Manoto TV also cited the recent report by Amnesty International, which called 2018 Iran’s “year of shame” for its crackdown on civil-rights activists. In its report, Amnesty cited Article18 as it noted that “at least 171 Christians were arrested in 2018 solely for peacefully practising their faith… Some received sentences of up to 15 years in prison”. The Iranian government recently announced plans to release 50,000 prisoners in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the revolution, but prisoners of conscience and political prisoners will not be included in the show of clemency. Article18 yesterday published a review of Iran’s treatment of its Christian minority in the 40 years since Ayatollah Khomeini came to power with the pledge of ensuring human rights and religious freedom for all. In January, Article18 published its inaugural annual report, highlighting the “unprecedented” wave of arrests ahead of Christmas 2018 as the culmination of a year in which religious freedom continued to be violated in Iran.
40 years of religious apartheid: Christianity in post-revolution Iran 11 February 2019 Analysis By Mansour Borji When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned to Iran in February 1979 as the face of the Iranian Revolution, he found a nation longing for social justice, freedom and equality. In his initial speeches, the former exile rode this wave, speaking about human rights, the dignity of people, and the eradication of poverty – all of which he promised would become a reality under a new Islamic republic: “Islam has given freedom to religious minorities more than any other religion; they must also enjoy their natural rights, which God has bestowed to all human beings. We will protect them in the best way. In the Islamic Republic, communists are also free to express their ideas.” (7 November, 1978) “All religious minorities under the Islamic government can freely exercise all their religious rites, and the Islamic government is obligated to protect their rights in the best way.” (8 November, 1978) “In Islam, there is no difference between the groups of nations. In Islam, the rights of all [people groups] are respected: the rights of the Christians are observed; the rights of the Jews and Zoroastrians are observed; all people are considered human beings with human rights; it views the entire world affectionately and wants the world to be saved.” (2 April, 1979) Due to the tone he adopted, Khomeini’s message appealed to everyone from the leftists and modernists to the conservatives, but though he spoke about freedom, the ayatollah’s ultimate agenda was the establishment of an Islamic state based on a rigid, centuries-old interpretation – an interpretation that offered little room for any other expressions of faith. 1979-1981: Violent beginnings In the violence and turmoil of the early months and years after the revolution, radicals sought to alienate the communities they felt were the weakest. Christians were among the first victims. Just eight days after the revolution, Arastoo Sayyah, an Anglican pastor, was brutally murdered in his church office. In the following decade, there were attempts to take over Christian churches, schools, hospitals – both Protestant and Orthodox; everything that had been built over decades by missionaries. Churches that had organisational links with overseas groups – such as the Anglicans in the UK and Presbyterians in the US – were considered dangerous, and many of their church workers and missionaries were labelled “spies of the West” (photographs of those deported in the newspaper cutting below). But not all churches were targeted. Among the people who had welcomed Khomenei when he first arrived at the airport were leaders of the historic Armenian and Chaldean churches, who in so doing ensured their protection under the new Islamic state. 1981-1990: Consolidation of power; attempt to force Church into submission As the years went by, the crackdown on dissidents became the major preoccupation of the regime as it consolidated power; Christians and their activities became a lesser concern. Seeking both national approval and a place around the table of the international community, the regime used a more pragmatic approach towards Christians, trying to portray itself as tolerant towards them and other constitutionally recognised religious minorities. The brutal violence of the early revolution gave way to systematic pressure to align the Church with the propaganda machine, and the churches that did not conform faced increasing restrictions. Those who resisted were punished, such as Bishop Hassan Dehghani-Tafti, whose son, Bahram, was shot dead after the bishop refused to hand over church-property deeds. The bishop had earlier only narrowly survived an assassination attempt. 1990-1997: Violence resumes as church growth accelerates In the early 90s, revolutionary fervour began to dissipate as, a decade since the toppling of the shah and after a bloody war with Iraq, none of the revolutionary promises had materialised. Disillusioned with the rigid reading of Islam propagated by the state, many people began to look elsewhere for a spirituality that could give them hope and meaning. This is when Farsi-speaking churches began to see an increasing number of converts attending their services – something the Islamic government of Iran was not happy to see. Their displeasure at this new wave of conversions showed itself in Iran’s most religious city, Mashhad, where a special court of clergy sentenced Pastor Hossein Soodmand to death for apostasy. (He pastored an Assemblies of God church consisting mostly of fellow converts.) His death marked the beginning of a new chapter in the life of Christians in Iran, as the 1990s witnessed the most brutal treatment of church leaders who did not conform to new, restrictive demands aimed at stemming the tide of conversions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jgGMgj9E4Q Iran’s Bible Society was shut down and churches were prohibited from baptising new members; strict limits were placed on when services could take place; proselytism and the publication of Bibles and other Christian literature in Farsi were banned; attempts to register church organisations were blocked; and leadership development was inhibited. But the new wave of persecution came to the attention of the international community through the advocacy efforts of Pastor Haik Hovsepian, who pleaded on behalf of his fellow clergyman, Mehdi Dibaj, already in prison for nine years and sentenced to be executed for apostasy. Haik eventually secured Mehdi’s release, but paid the ultimate price. Just three days later, Haik was forcibly disappeared and later found dead, with multiple stab wounds to his chest. The Iranian regime never accepted responsibility for Haik’s death (25 years ago last month). However, years later, when a group within the intelligence service were charged with the killings of dissidents, intellectuals and opposition party leader – a series of killings that became known as the Chain Murders – a number of pastors, including Haik, also appeared in the victims’ list. The pressure on Farsi-speaking churches continued. Just six months after Haik’s murder, Rev Tateos Michaelian was shot dead. A few days later, the pastor whose release came about as a direct result of Haik’s campaigning, Mehdi Dibaj, was kidnapped on his way back from a retreat centre on the outskirts of Karaj. His brutally stabbed body was found days later. The Iranian government pointed the finger of blame for all three murders at opposition groups, in an unconvincing stage show, where they lined up a few defectors confessing to the murder of these pastors, and plans to eliminate a few more. These claims were largely discredited, as evidence continued to emerge in the following years, pointing the finger of blame squarely upon agents within the Ministry of Intelligence itself. 1997-2005: The birth of ‘house churches’ The escalation of violence continued as more church leaders – including Mohammad Bagher Yusefi, known as Ravanbakhsh (1996), Ghorban Tourani (2005), Abbas Amiri (2008) – were murdered in suspicious circumstances widely believed by the Iranian Christian community to have been orchestrated by the government. The relentless pressure forced the Church to go underground, giving birth to the “house-church” movement, which soon spread like wildfire across the country – in both rural and urban areas, among affluent as well as poverty-stricken communities. There are many other factors that could have contributed to this phenomenon, but many believe that the primary factor was the broken monopoly of Iran’s Islamic republic. Leaders from the Armenian and Chaldean churches were among those to welcome Ayatollah Khomeini as he returned in February 1979. The new generation, guided by what sociologists call “rational choice”, were less likely to unquestioningly inherit their beliefs, and instead began to be make their own choices. People’s increasing willingness to embrace the Christian faith illustrated cracks within the legitimising ideology of the Islamic republic. The ensuing period of extraordinary church growth caused major concern for the establishment, which was reliant on the religious convictions of its people, especially in the rural areas that it considered strongholds. 2005-2009: Church members also targeted The election of reformist president Mohammad Khatami in 1997 did not make a radical difference to the strategy and general policy of the Iranian government in dealing with the native-grown, Farsi-speaking churches. Any change in this policy would have to have come from the Supreme National Security Council, consisting of all major legislative, judicial and executive leadership, and spearheaded by the representative of the Supreme Leader himself. But with the election of the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, more radical elements returned to the Ministry of Intelligence and pursued an even more intolerant approach towards religious minorities, and especially evangelical Christians. A systematic approach to the elimination of Protestant churches began, with the closure of churches, confiscation of church property and arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of Christians extending beyond church leaders to include regular church members – particularly converts, who faced apostasy charges in Revolutionary Courts, which were punishable by death. International outcry and a potential diplomatic crisis often resulted in these convictions being overruled in the appeal process, such as in the case of Pastor Hamid Pourmand. 2009: Elimination of Farsi-speaking churches resumes With the re-election of Ahmadinejad in 2009 came a new wave of crackdowns on Farsi-speaking churches. The security forces, unsuccessful in controlling the spread of the house-churches, began targeting the mainstream churches, which they saw as a breeding ground. They began a campaign of intimidation and extensive pressure, forcing the church leadership to submit the names and national ID numbers of all their members, in the hope that most converts would refuse and thereby forfeit their right to attend. To their surprise, many of these church members, risking their lives, willingly submitted their names. Furthermore, security officials demanded that these churches limit their services to only one meeting on a Sunday, closing down all midweek, as well as Friday, services. (Friday is Iran’s day off, and most people could only attend church on that day.) Despite all these pressures, many Farsi-speaking churches continued to thrive and attract new members. Therefore, some of them were forced to shut down completely, and their leaders were ordered to either leave the country, or their posts, or they were threatened with consequences ranging from long-term imprisonment to harm to their loved ones. 2010 onwards: Evangelicals considered national-security threat October 2010 marked the beginning of a new stage in the treatment of Christians in Iran, as Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, addressed the crowds in the conservative stronghold of Qom, home to the religious seminaries that had provided the theological framework for the revolutionaries for the past 40 years. Offering his analysis of the threats facing Iran in modern times, Khomeini’s successor explicitly named the spread of house churches among critical threats facing the Islamic regime: “They [our enemies] … resorted to different things, ranging from promoting debauchery to propagating fake schools of mysticism – fake forms of genuine mysticism – the Baha’i Faith and the house-church network. These are some of the things that the enemies of Islam are pursuing today through studying, planning and prediction. And the goal is to undermine religion in society.” (19 October, 2010) Security officials and religious leaders appointed by the Supreme Leader throughout the country picked this up not just as a subtle gesture but as an official memo to crackdown on Christian activities, and especially house churches. From this point onward, religious-sounding charges against Christians – such as apostasy – gave way to charges related to acting against national security. Just two months after his speech, the most unprecedented, widely spread arrests of Christians across the country signalled a new era. Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, as well as other, parallel security forces, were eager to show the Supreme Leader and concerned religious clergy that they were dealing with the threat. The many documented cases of arrests and imprisonment since 2010 show a continuing trend of intolerance towards Christians, which shows no sign of abating. Just before Christmas, 114 Christians were arrested within just six days during a series of raids in nine different cities. The arrests have continued into 2019. Looking back 40 years to the first speeches made by the founder of the Islamic republic, it is the 2010 speech by his successor that has ensured intolerance against Christians continues to this day. Yet, so too, remarkably, has the growth of Christianity in Iran.
The birth of a minority: Iranian Christians 8 February 2019 Analysis By Fred Petrossian Despite four decades of state-run repression, Iran’s Christian community of just a few thousand Muslim converts in 1979 has grown to several hundred thousand, or even one million according to some sources. Churches have been closed down, the Bible in Persian banned, Christian leaders murdered, and hundreds of women and men sent to jail and forced into exile. This has been part of the Islamic Republic’s policy over the past 40 years, with the aim of eradicating Muslim converts and Persian-speaking churches in Iran. This policy does not respect any red lines, but it has failed. In 2019, we can witness the birth of a new Christian minority in Iranian society, beyond ethnic lines and despite harsh persecution. This minority is deprived of basic rights, and, each Christmas, they must wait to see if security forces will attack. First blood Attacking Iranian Christians began soon after the Islamic Revolution’s victory. Arastoo Sayyah, a Muslim convert and pastor of the Anglican Church, was killed by unknown murderers only eight days after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power. After that, the property of the Anglican Church was seized by the Islamic Republic. The government then stepped up the pressure on Farsi-speaking pastors and Muslims converts. While Iranian leaders claim that no one has been imprisoned for his or her beliefs or religion in Iran, Hossein Soodmand, a pastor of the Assembly of God-Mashhad congregation, was detained and tortured in December of 1990. And Mehdi Dibaj, a Christian activist, was imprisoned for nine years for his beliefs, only to be murdered and his body cut into pieces in February 1994, one month after his liberation. Pastors from traditionally Christian ethnic groups who proselytise or perform ministries of service to the Muslim-origin population, such as Haik Hovsepian Mehr and Tateos Michaelian, two Protestant church leaders, also became the victims of Islamic Republic death squads in 1994. Since the revolution, at least seven church leaders in Iran have been killed, and hundreds of Christians have been interrogated and imprisoned. The Bible is banned in Persian, and many churches have been closed down. In 2010, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei openly warned about the country’s underground house churches, saying they “threaten the Islamic faith and deceive young Muslims”. International organisations have repeatedly made statements on human-rights violations, the repression of civil society and the rights of minorities, including Christians, in Iran. Smile in New York, stick in Tehran The Islamic Republic’s leaders take every opportunity to present an upside-down reality regarding human rights in Iran, during international meetings and interviews with Western media. Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and current foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif often use Western platforms for government propaganda, without facing any challenge from the host, despite countless documents that prove human-rights and minorities-rights violations during the last 40 years. Zarif tries to convince Western audiences that people are not persecuted in Iran because of their beliefs. Zarif recently said at a meeting of the US Foreign Relations Council, a think-tank in New York, that people are not being imprisoned for being Baha’i, or due to any personal convictions, and that Christians and other minorities are recognised in the Islamic Republic’s Constitution and have many privileges. Western hosts appear to be paralysed, preferring to make their guests happy, and, despite the hundreds of reports of systematic human-rights violations in Iran, including the crackdown on Baha’is, civil-society activists and Christians, they keep silent or even nod their heads, as if “the show must go on”. A few months after Zarif’s claim, Amnesty International in its report called 2018 a year of “shame” for the Islamic Republic and reported that 171 Christians were arrested in the previous 12 months. The Islamic Republic recently showed once more that it does not forget the Christian community, when it arrested hundreds of them over the Christmas period of December 2018. Under this Orwellian regime, baseless accusations against Christians have changed as the Islamic Republic’s propaganda machine has failed; false accusations range from acting against national security to sabotaging the economy. A new minority In reality, the Iranian Constitution recognises Christian natives, such as Armenians and Assyrians, who are second-rate citizens but are not hunted down like Muslim-origin Christians.The explosive growth of house churches around the country despite 40 years of repression shows that a Christian minority exists, beyond ethnic lines, as an indigenous community of up to 800,000 or even one million members. They are a community deprived of basic rights, including even having a Bible in their mother-tongue, and they walk under the shadow of death.Iran is a signatory of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that considers the freedom of religion a right. International organisations, such as the United Nations and the European Union, must apply pressure and urge the Islamic Republic to respect the basic human rights of the Iranian Christian minority.What the Christian community in Iran needs is support and not silence from the international community. As Martin Luther King reminds us: “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
Convert, 64, charged with ‘insulting sacred Iranian establishment’ 4 February 2019 News Sixty-four-year-old Iranian Christian convert Esmaeil Maghrebinezhad has been released on bail after being charged with “propaganda against the state and insulting the sacred Iranian establishment”. Esmaeil, who was arrested on 25 January at his home in Shiraz, was released on Thursday, 31 January, on bail of 10 million tomans (around $800). The authorities initially demanded five times more but agreed to the smaller sum after he protested. Sources close to Esmaeil told Article18 that during his detention he was given little food, held in solitary confinement next to a noisy ventilator that made it impossible to sleep, and interrogated for 14 hours a day. They said he was insulted harshly, repeatedly ordered to revert to Islam, and asked why he had evangelised – even though his interrogators found no evidence of their claims during a thorough search of his house and belongings. Family members made several visits to the detention centre belonging to Shiraz’s Intelligence Ministry (MOIS), but each time they were told Esmaeil was not being held there and that if they remained concerned they should go to the police and record him as a missing person. Esmaeil’s arrest was itself a distressing event, as plainclothes officers rang his doorbell at 3am, then slapped him in the face when he answered the door, before dragging him away. They returned five hours later to search his belongings and confiscate many of his personal items, including his laptop, mobile phone, Christian books and daily notebook. Esmaeil converted to Christianity nearly 40 years ago and has since been regularly harassed by Iran’s security forces, despite Iran’s own constitution and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Iran ratified in 1975, guaranteeing freedom of religion, including the right to hold a religion of one’s choosing and to propagate that religion. No date has yet been set for when Esmaeil will appear in court to face the charges. Background Article18’s sources reported that around ten years after Esmaeil’s conversion, an attempt was made on his life, which he only narrowly survived. Esmaeil’s late wife, Mahvash, also converted to Christianity, in 1999, but when she died, in 2013, Esmaeil was prevented from burying her in a Christian cemetery, despite a letter from the head of the Anglican Church in Iran, Bishop Azad Marshall, stating that Mahvash was a “committed member of the Anglican Church in Iran, who had been baptised and confirmed”. Instead, her body was taken to a Muslim cemetery, where she was buried following a Muslim ceremony in the presence of security guards, with only five family members allowed to attend. Mahvash had also been interrogated on numerous occasions during the first years after her husband’s conversion. She was also fired from her job. Last month, Article18 published its inaugural annual report, noting the “unprecedented” wave of arrests of Christians that took place at the end of 2018 – a pattern that appears to be continuing into 2019. In one week alone, 114 Christians were arrested in raids on “house churches” in ten different cities.
Convert forced to receive religious ‘instruction’ from Islamic cleric 31 January 2019 News (Middle East Concern) A 61-year-old woman who converted to Christianity has been forced to visit an Islamic cleric to receive religious “instruction” and be offered the chance to revert to Islam. Rokhsareh (Mahrokh) Ghanbari has also been charged with “propaganda against the system”. This follows her appearance before a prosecutor two weeks ago. Mahrokh was one of five female converts arrested just before Christmas during a raid on her home in Karaj. The names of the other four women have not yet been made public. The officers confiscated several of Mahrokh’s belongings, including her mobile phone, Bibles and other Christian materials. Mahrokh was then detained and interrogated from morning until evening for ten days, before being released on bail of 30 million tomans (around $2,500).
UK launches review into persecution of Christians globally 30 January 2019 News The UK government today launched an independent review into the persecution of Christians globally. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the review would focus especially on “key countries” in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, where the severest persecution of Christians is believed to occur. Among them will no doubt be Iran, which was ranked the 9th hardest place to be a Christian on Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List. Article18 noted in its inaugural annual report earlier this month that there was an “unprecedented” wave of arrests of Christians in Iran ahead of Christmas 2018: 114 Christians were arrested in just one week across ten different cities, following raids on private house gatherings of Christians – known as “house churches”. Those arrests have continued into 2019. In the past few days, Article18 has reported on the arrests of two more Christian converts: Sina Moloudian, 26, in Isfahan, and Esmaeil Maghrebinezhad, 64, in Shiraz. “The Iranian regime feels under siege,” says Article18’s Advocacy Director, Mansour Borji, “And with the rising unrest resultant from economic hardship as a consequence of sanctions and widespread corruption, they are cracking down on civil liberties. “They seem to have began this campaign of terror by arresting and detaining groups that they feel most vulnerable against. This includes human rights activists, who expose injustice and corruption, and religious groups like Christians, whose continued growth exposes the weak legitimacy and broken monopoly of the theocratic state.” The UK government’s review is set to conclude by Easter, which this year falls on 21 April. The Foreign Office estimated that 215 million Christians worldwide faced discrimination or abuse in 2018. Hunt said recommendations made following the review would be used to build a “cohesive and comprehensive policy response”. “So often the persecution of Christians is a telling warning sign of the persecution of every minority,” he said. “We wanted to do this not just because freedom of worship is a fundamental human right, but also because freedom of worship is the invisible line between open societies and closed societies.”
Christian convert’s jail sentence reduced on appeal 29 January 2019 News An Iranian Christian convert sentenced last year to five years in prison for “membership of an evangelical group and conducting evangelism” has had his sentence reduced to two years. Majidreza Souzanchi, 35, has been in Evin Prison since his arrest on 17 November 2017, due to his membership of a “house church” in Tehran. He was sentenced to five years in prison – the maximum possible sentence for the charges he faced – at Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court on 25 April 2018, by Judge Ahmed Mashallah. His appeal took place at Branch 54 of the Tehran Regional Court of Appeals, where Judge Hassan Babaei reduced his sentence. Majidreza was arrested and sentenced alongside Fatemeh Mohammadi, 19, who received a six-month prison sentence for “membership of an evangelical group”. Fatemeh was allowed to go free after her sentencing, owing to time already served in the women’s ward of Evin Prison, but she left with a criminal record. Both Majidreza and Fatemeh were mentioned in Article18’s inaugural annual report, documenting rights violations against Christians in 2018. Majidreza was one of at least 14 Christians still in prison in Iran at the start of 2019. An unprecedented wave of raids on “house churches” at the end of 2018 led to over 100 Christians being arrested. Most of those arrested were released after a few hours, but only after they had written down details of their Christian activities and been ordered to have no more contact with other Christians. Their mobile devices were confiscated and they were told they would soon hear from Ministry of Intelligence. Those suspected of being leaders of “house churches” remain in detention.