Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) has admitted to having arrested over 50 Christians since the end of the conflict with Israel, accusing them of involvement in “anti-security” activities and even possession of arms.

The admission was made as part of a wider announcement of activities taken by the intelligence agency since the war, including a reported crackdown on Baha’is, Kurds, Baluchis, monarchists and journalists alleged to have participated in anti-regime activities during the conflict.

Regarding the Christians, the MOIS claimed to have “neutralised” 53 “Mossad mercenaries” who had been “trained abroad” by churches in the United States and Israel, and had acted “under the guise of the Zionist Christian evangelisation movement”.

Typically, the statement draws a distinction between evangelical Christians, who are labelled “Zionists”, and the historic Christian communities of Armenian and Assyrian descent, who are described as “loyal” supporters.

(Armenian and Assyrian Christians in Iran, who today number less than 100,000 in total, are a recognised religious minority, who are permitted to meet together to worship in their own languages, but are not permitted to teach in the national language of Persian, nor to allow Iranians from Muslim backgrounds to attend their churches. Meanwhile, the majority of Christians in Iran today – the estimated 800,000 converts to Christianity – are not recognised as Christians, nor do they have any place to worship since the forced closure of churches that once offered services in Persian.)

Commenting on the announcement, Article18’s director, Mansour Borji, explained: 

“Many churches around the world make their services accessible to online audiences, and as in Iran Christian converts are prohibited from attending the churches of Armenians and Assyrians, many seek to access the teachings on offer from churches abroad.

“In this case, we know that some of the arrested Christians recently attended a gathering in a neighbouring country organised by an overseas church – again because they are prohibited from attending any such gatherings inside Iran – and were then arrested on their return to Iran.

“But while the preposterous claim of the Ministry of Intelligence is that these Christians have been ‘trained’ for some anti-security purposes, the reality is that they have simply received advice on spiritual matters from abroad, as none is available to them at home.

“Such statements are an attempt by the Ministry of Intelligence to save some face with their superiors, in the wake of the humiliating intelligence failures in the 12-day war with Israel. Similar statements about arrests of Christians have been made in the past, usually in response to criticism, either from state officials or their support base: the clergy.

“In this sense, the arrest of these Christians may have been an attempt to present a more defendable account of their actions, and they have gone after the most vulnerable and easy-to-get scapegoats: Christians.

“None of these Christians have been officially charged yet, but the serious nature of the baseless allegations are alarming, given that the Ministry of Intelligence has been proven to influence the rulings of the judiciary.”

Human rights lawyer Hossein Ahmadiniaz, speaking to Article18, added: “Unfortunately, there is no independent or fair judicial system in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Therefore, all those who are arrested on security, political, ideological or ‘spying’ charges are deprived of a fair and just trial, are severely tortured, and do not even have access to an independent lawyer. 

“The statement of the intelligence service has no legal basis and the accusations are not justified by any reason, document or evidence, but are merely based on illusions of conspiracies. 

“The truth is that the Islamic Republic has always made such false claims to mislead public opinion and divert attention away from its failings, such as in the war with Israel.”

At the time of writing, at least 11 of the 54 Christians arrested since the conflict have been released on bail. However, over 40 others remain detained, on top of those already serving prison sentences.

Prior to the conflict, over 60 other Christians were either detained or in the process of being tried on charges related to their faith in Iran, and this number has now nearly doubled.