Iran is reported to have launched a brand new crackdown against Iranian Christians this month following the re-arrest of two males.
Based on a Feb. 10 report on the web site of the U.Okay.-based NGO Article18, which seeks to guard spiritual freedom in Iran, “Two Christians of their 60s who had been launched after a mixed six years in jail on prices associated to their management of house-churches have been re-arrested.”
Iranian regime intelligence brokers re-arrested the 2 Christians, Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh and Joseph Shahbazian, and incarcerated each males in Tehran’s brutal Evin Jail. Gol-Tapeh is reportedly on a starvation strike over “illegal re-arrest,” famous Article 18, which advocates on behalf of persecuted Iranian Christians.
An enormous mural of Iran’s supreme chief on Motahari Avenue on March 8, 2020, in Tehran. (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Photos)
Article18 stated a “variety of different Tehran Christians had been additionally arrested on the identical time and stay in custody.”
Iranian-Individuals and Iranian dissidents are urging the Trump administration to shine a highlight on the ever-present Iranian regime human rights violations whereas imposing punitive measures on the clerical state in Tehran.
Alireza Nader, an Iran skilled, instructed Fox Information Digital, “Christians in Iran are relentlessly persecuted by the Islamist regime. The Trump administration ought to spotlight their plight publicly whereas placing most financial and diplomatic strain on the regime.”
Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, a German-Iranian political scientist, who’s a number one skilled on spiritual minorities in Iran, instructed Fox Information Digital, in line with the Christian advocacy group OpenDoors 2025 annual report, “Christian discrimination in Iran stays extraordinarily extreme, scoring 86 out of 100 factors and rating ninth among the many worst international locations for Christian persecution.”
He added, “The federal government views Christian converts as a risk to nationwide safety, believing they’re influenced by Western nations to undermine Islam and the regime. Consequently, Christian converts face extreme spiritual freedom violations, together with arrests [and] lengthy jail sentences.”
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A lady lights a candle in St. Thaddeus Monastery in Chaldoran, Iran. (Adis Easaghlian/Center East Photos/AFP by way of Getty Photos)
Wahdat-Hagh continued, “Those that go away Islam to comply with Christianity are probably the most susceptible. They’re denied authorized recognition and are often focused by safety forces.”
One Iranian Christian who fled Iran to Germany to apply her religion free from persecution is Sheina Vojoudi.
She instructed Fox Information Digital, “As the assumption in Islam retains happening in Iran, the essential progress of Christianity has deeply alarmed the Islamic Republic, a theocratic dictatorship. Iran has seen an impressive rise within the variety of Christian converts, regardless of the decidedly oppressive atmosphere. Worldwide human rights teams usually think about Christian converts to be political prisoners of conscience, that means that even after arrest and launch, they continue to be in fixed hazard of re-arrest and extreme punishment.”
The dire scenario of Iranian Christians prompted the U.N. Particular Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, to sound the alarm bells in a video presentation organized by Article 18. “The scenario of Christians within the Islamic Republic of Iran is a matter of great concern that calls for our continued consideration,” she stated.
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The latest U.S. State Division report on spiritual freedom in Iran (2023) states, “The federal government continued to control Christian spiritual practices. Christian worship in Farsi was forbidden and official experiences and state-run media continued to characterize non-public Christian church buildings in properties as ‘unlawful networks’ and ‘Zionist propaganda establishments.”’
The variety of Christians in Iran is troublesome to pinpoint due to the widespread repression of the religion. Based on the State Department report, the Iranian regime’s Statistical Middle claims there are 117,700 Christians of acknowledged denominations as of the 2016 census.
Iranian girls prisoners sit inside their cell in Tehran’s Evin jail, June 13, 2006. (Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl )
Boston College’s 2020 World Faith Database notes there are roughly 579,000 Christians in Iran, whereas Article 18 estimates there are 500,000 to 800,000. Open Doorways experiences the quantity at 1.24 million.
The Trump administration re-imposed, in early February, its maximum economic pressure campaign on Iran’s regime to reverse Tehran’s drive to construct a nuclear weapon and cease its unfold of Islamist terrorism.
Vojoudi, an affiliate fellow on the U.S.-based Gold Institute for Worldwide Technique, instructed Fox Information Digital, “Now’s the time for European nations and the US to take significant motion, not solely by holding the Islamic Republic accountable for its help of terrorism and extremist teams, but in addition by prosecuting it on the worldwide stage for violating one of the crucial elementary human rights: the liberty of faith.
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“That is important not just for the security of Christian converts but in addition to reaffirm the values of freedom and human dignity that these nations declare to uphold.”
A number of Fox Information Digital press queries to Iran’s international ministry and its U.N. mission in New York weren’t returned. Fox Information Digital requested if the federal government would launch Iranians imprisoned for merely working towards their Christian religion.
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