Two UN experts sent an official communication to the Islamic Republic of Iran over the summer, demanding a response to allegations that the oldest Protestant church in Iran faced confiscation and the residents of its compound eviction.

The communication about St Peter’s Church in Tehran, sent on 10 July but only made public 60 days later in accordance with UN protocols, said the move risked “rendering members of recognised religious and ethnic minorities homeless and depriving a long-standing Christian community of its place of worship”.

The experts – the Special Rapporteur (SR) on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mai Sato, and SR on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Nazila Ghanea – added: “We are also concerned that these developments do not appear to constitute an isolated incident, but rather the culmination of a decades-long pattern of measures directed against the Christian community in the Islamic Republic of Iran, and in particular against Persian-speaking Christian worship.”

The communication cited the examples of the confiscation, closure, demolition or repurposing of other church properties in Tabriz, Mashhad, Gorgan and Karaj, and asked “what measures have been taken to provide redress in respect of the properties and affected Christians concerned”.

“These closures and confiscations have had a cumulative effect,” the rapporteurs said. “There were once around 50 Protestant churches offering services in Persian in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Today there are effectively none because the three Anglican churches that were permitted to preach in Persian in Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz have not been allowed to reopen since the COVID-19 pandemic.”

In a joint message to Article18 after the communication was made public, the rapporteurs said: “We put specific questions to the Government and have not received a response to date. Since then, the compound has been confiscated and the resident families, members of Iran’s recognised Armenian and Assyrian Christian minorities, have been evicted from homes many had occupied for decades. The church has been forcibly closed and guards placed outside to prevent worshippers from re-entering. Forced evictions of this kind are incompatible with international human rights law, and these measures have deprived a long-standing community of both its homes and its place of worship.”

In their communication, the rapporteurs had asked for responses to questions including:

• The “factual and legal basis” for the 1998 ruling that transferred ownership of the church compound to a state organisation, and for the confiscation, closure, demolition or repurposing of church properties in Tabriz, Mashhad, Gorgan and Karaj.
  
• “The legal basis for the order requiring the 27 residents of the compound to vacate their homes within two weeks”, and “what procedural safeguards, including genuine consultation, adequate and reasonable notice, access to legal remedies, compensation, and the provision of adequate alternative housing, have been afforded to them”.
  
• An explanation for why the original owner of the property, the Synod of Evangelical Churches of Iran, has “not been permitted to re-register since 1980” and “what steps are being taken to restore its legal recognition”.
  
• An explanation for “why the Bible Society remains closed more than 35 years after its ‘temporary’ closure in 1990” and “what steps are being taken to permit its reopening”.
  
• An indication of “what measures are in place to ensure that Persian-speaking Christians, including Christians of Muslim background, are able to worship freely in their mother tongue, free from fear of arrest and prosecution”.

You can read the full communication here.