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The Iranian authorities’ “systematic” and “targeted” dissemination of disinformation about religious minorities, including Christians, has been highlighted in a report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). 

The report, ‘Misinformation and Disinformation: Implications for Freedom of Religion of Belief’, released last month, says disinformation about Jews, Sunni Muslims, Gonabadi Sufis, Christian converts and Baha’is in Iran is “often” disseminated through state media.

“Iranian state-linked media have claimed falsely or without evidence that … Christian converts from Islam are part of a ‘Zionist’ network that poses a national security risk,” the report notes, adding that “such false claims create a restrictive environment for FoRB [freedom of religion or belief] in Iran in the context of arrests, imprisonment and sometimes executions of Baha’is, Gonabadi Sufis, Christians, and members of the Erfan-e-Halgheh movement.”

The report, which also includes examples from China, Russia, Pakistan and India, says the spreading of false claims about religious minorities represents a “global challenge to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), with social media and the Internet allowing the claims to “spread faster and wider than ever before”.

USCIRF warns that government misinformation and disinformation can cause “profound harms” by “amplify[ing] intolerance from individuals who may believe the content of these campaigns and harass, intimidate, or threaten the targeted religious groups”, “increas[ing] the risk of violence that targets religious minorities” and creating “an environment enabling violations of their international legal right to FoRB”.

The false claims also “signal to targeted religious communities that governments will not ensure their freedom of religion or belief and may actively seek to restrict it,” USCIRF says, “… affect[ing] community members’ perception of how safe it is for them to teach, practice, worship, and observe their religious beliefs. Many may self-censor or otherwise shy away from exercising FoRB as a result.”

The report concludes that governments are “increasingly using such tactics to threaten, harass, intimidate, and attack individuals and communities on the basis of their religious beliefs”, and calls on the US government to “collaborat[e] with like-minded governments … to develop strategies to counter governments using misinformation and disinformation to encourage or justify restrictions on FoRB”.