by Steve Dew-Jones | 1 Jun 2020 | News
Left to right: Khalil Dehghanpour, Mohammad Vafadar, Kamal Naamanian, Hossein Kadivar. Four Iranian converts have been summoned to begin their five-year jail sentences for leading house-churches, for which they were convicted of “acting against national security”....
by Steve Dew-Jones | 29 May 2020 | Reports
Article18 has submitted a new report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, highlighting the “multiple layers” of religious-freedom violations faced by Christians and other religious minorities in Iran. The report, released in collaboration with partner...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 19 May 2020 | News
Fires have been reported at three sites belonging to religious minorities, including a Christian cemetery, in just a few days in Iran. First, on Friday, the director of antisemitism watchdog ADL, Jonathan Greeblatt, tweeted that the tomb of Biblical figures Queen...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 18 May 2020 | News
An Iranian Anglican Church member has been re-convicted of membership of a “Zionist Evangelical Christian” group “hostile to the regime”, and convicted of the additional charge of “propaganda against the state”. Esmaeil Maghrebinezhad, 65, was informed of the verdict...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 15 May 2020 | News
Ramin Hassanpour, his wife Kathrin Sajadpour, Moslem Rahimi and one other have been sent to Lakan Prison. Four Iranian converts have been sent to Lakan Prison in the northern city of Rasht, having been unable to afford the bail set for them. Moslem Rahimi, Ramin...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 13 May 2020 | News
A group of lawyers and their family members protest outside the Iranian Bar Association in Tehran in December 2014. Among them is Nasrin Sotoudeh (bottom row, fourth from right), who is now serving a long prison sentence. (HRANA) The Iranian judiciary is seeking to...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 6 May 2020 | Features
On 6 May 1980, at the age of just 24, Bahram Dehqani-Tafti, the only son of the first ethnic Iranian Anglican bishop, was ambushed as he drove home from work, and shot dead. Bahram, whose mother Margaret was the daughter of British missionaries, was working as a...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 1 May 2020 | Analysis
A migrant health centre and women’s refuge in Bursa, Turkey (Photo: UNFPA) The coronavirus outbreak couldn’t have come at a worse time for many of Turkey’s asylum seekers. Just a few months before, on Christmas Eve, the Turkish government withdrew its offering...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 28 Apr 2020 | News
USCIRF’s map, showing ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ in red and those on its ‘Special Watch List’ in yellow. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has once again listed Iran among the world’s worst violators of religious...
by Steve Dew-Jones | 28 Apr 2020 | Reports
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has once again listed Iran among the world’s worst violators of religious freedom. In its latest annual report, USCIRF recommends that the US State Department re-designates Iran as one of 14 “Countries of...
