BosNewsLife looks at the findings of a new report from the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran…
Iran has launched the “systematic persecution and prosecution” of “Protestants and Christian converts” with a Muslim background, closing churches, detaining believers and threatening some with execution, a new report claims.
The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, a major network of Iranian activists, said believers “face severe restrictions on religious practice and association, arbitrary arrests and detentions” for practicing their faith, “and violations of the right to life through state execution for apostasy and extrajudicial killings.”
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US DEMANDS RELEASE OF AMERICAN PASTOR FROM IRANIAN PRISON Stepping up the urgency of American response, the White House on Friday called on Iran to release a jailed American pastor facing a trial that could send him to the gallows. Saeed Abedini, a native of Iran and a naturalized American citizen, is expected to enter one of Iran’s revolutionary courts today to face accusations that he is a threat to national security. His lawyers say he faces a lengthy prison term and even the death penalty at the hands of one of Iran’s most notoriously severe judges. On Friday, US National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor issued a statement demanding Abedini’s release. “We remain troubled by the case of US citizen Saeed Abedini, who was arrested by Iranian officials more than three months ago on charges relating to his religious beliefs,” Vietor said in the statement. “We call upon Iranian authorities to release him immediately.” It’s not known what precise charges Abedini will face, said Tiffany Barrans, international legal director for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington, DC-based attorney group that uses litigation to press for religious and speech freedom. But Barrans said it was Abedini’s background as an organiser of house churches in Iran that has angered the government, and for which he will be tried. Earlier this week, 49 members of Congress sent letters to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging the US to apply diplomatic pressure on Iran to force Abedini’s release. The US does not have diplomatic relations with Iran. |
Its extensive report, The Cost of Faith: Persecution of Christian Protestants and Converts in Iran, cites cases of 31 Christians throughout Iran from April 2011 to July 2012, including Farshid Fathi, a Christian leader from Tehran who was detained in December 2010 as part of “a Christmas crackdown” on Christians.
The 33-year-old Fathi is serving six years imprisonment on charges of “acting against national security,” “contact with enemy foreign countries,” and “religious propaganda.”
“Since 2005, authorities have arrested and prosecuted Protestants most often for security crimes against the state,” said the report obtained by BosNewsLife on Friday.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, noted in September last year that at least over 300 Christians have been arbitrarily arrested and detained throughout the country since 2010.
The report said several of Christian inmates face life danger and some are killed. It recalled that Christian pastor, Hossein Soodmand, was executed by the state for “apostasy”, or abandoning Islam, in 1990.
Other church leaders sentenced to death for apostasy, included Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who was eventually acquitted after intense international pressure.
The campaign’s research revealed what it said were “numerous reports of security officials threatening Christian detainees with execution on apostasy charges”.
Additionally, it said, there were many cases of “suspicious deaths involving Christian leaders” as investigations “were so lacking in due diligence that government complicity in the killings or the cover-ups is strongly suggested.”
Iranian officials have strongly denied wrongdoing saying Christian converts are part of a foreign inspired “soft war” against the state and members of sects threatening the state.
Hojjat Al-Islam Abbas Kaebi, a member of the influential Assembly of Experts, said in 2010 that “the Zionists and Westerners have targeted (through Christian converts) our society’s identity and people’s religion.”
Authorities have not provided licensing of any new church since the 1979 Revolution, restrict church attendance and closed many churches. They also shut down Iran’s main Persian–language Bible publisher and have restricted the distribution of Bibles while monitoring and harassing church groups, according to the campaign’s report.
Activists also expressed concerns that “interrogators, prosecutors and courts consistently refer to standard Christian practices, such as membership in a house church, evangelical activities, and participation in a Christian conference, as ‘criminal acts’.”
Security officers “routinely confiscate standard Christian items such as bibles, religious literature, and crosses during arrests,” the report said.
The report also said there was “systematic discrimination” of Christian Protestants and converts in employment, education, in laws governing marriage and family, and in Iran’s penal code.
“The egregious violations of Christians’ rights, which include not only the inability to freely practice their religion, but also the threat of torture and death at the hands of state officials, go against all international law. The international community must let the Iranian government know this is unacceptable,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director for the campaign.
Under Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Iran is obligated to safeguard freedom of religion, he said.
Iran’s government claims it respects the rights of its recognized religious minorities within the laws of the Islamic state, but devoted Christians say they face persecution.
“From apostasy charges that threaten the lives of converts to the imprisonment of church members involved in proselytising, authorities have engaged in a pattern of human rights abuses that effectively criminalises faith and manifestations of it,” Ghaemi said.
The campaign said it has urged Iran allow its Christian converts “to freely practice their religion, without further threat or intimidation, as is required under international and Iranian domestic law.”
There are at least 100,000 evangelical Christians in Iran, including many former Muslims, according to missionaries, with some saying that figure is several times higher.
The campaign’s report is based on testimonies by Iranian Christians, defense lawyers, Christian rights activists and Iranian Christian journalists, as well as Iranian court verdicts and religious edicts by Shi’a jurists and Iranian laws.
