by Steve Dew-Jones | 10 Jul 2023 | News
An Iranian pastor who has spent most of the past four years behind bars has now been transferred to another prison on the other side of the country, 1,000 miles from his home and family. Abdolreza Ali-Haghnejad, who is known as Matthias, was flown yesterday morning...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 30 Jun 2023 | News
Three Iranian women converts to Christianity arrested last month and held incommunicado in Tehran’s Evin Prison for 40 days face a court hearing on Sunday on unknown charges, according to a US-based Christian organisation. Shilan Oraminejad, Razieh (Maral) Kohzady,...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 27 Jun 2023 | News
A house-church leader who has already spent nearly five years in prison, and was once flogged for drinking Communion wine, has been flogged a second time and now faces two years in exile. Zaman Fadaie, who is known as Saheb, was flogged again on Sunday, 25 June,...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 22 Jun 2023 | News
Over the past three years, Article18 has reported on numerous occasions about a group of Iranian Christians in Sweden who have taken to the streets of Stockholm to protest about rights abuses in their home country. The “I Am a Christian Too” protesters have campaigned...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 20 Jun 2023 | News
There is a “critical need” for new resettlement opportunities and sponsorship programmes for Iranian Christian refugees in Turkey, says a new joint report published today on World Refugee Day by Article18 and three partner organisations. The report, which is a...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 20 Jun 2023 | Reports
There is a “critical need” for new resettlement opportunities and sponsorship programmes for Iranian Christian refugees in Turkey, says a new joint report published today on World Refugee Day by Article18 and three partner organisations. The report, which is a...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 12 Jun 2023 | Features
When he was arrested, Vahid Hakani told his interrogator he hadn’t known until that day “that gathering and worshipping and praying in the name of Christ is not legal in Iran”. His interrogator wanted him to confess that he was part of a “deviant Christian sect”, and...
by Mansour Borji | 1 Jun 2023 | Witness Statements
For a summary of Vahid’s story, you can read our feature article here. Background 1. My name is Vahid Hakani. I was born in 1982, in Shiraz, into a Muslim family. My grandmother always prayed and adhered to Islamic rules. My religious role models during my childhood...
by Mansour Borji | 30 May 2023 | News
A Court of Appeal in Tehran has cut a decade-long prison sentence for a Christian down to two years after a retrial. Joseph Shahbazian, an Iranian-Armenian Christian who was imprisoned for holding church services in his home, has spent nine months in Evin prison,...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 26 May 2023 | News
In the week of the 10th anniversary of the forced closure of the largest Persian-speaking church in Iran, the Islamic Republic’s Minister of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism has had the temerity to claim that “the people of the world should know” that...
