Christianity in Iran

Violation of the rights of Christians in the Islamic Republic of Iran Violation of Christian rights by the Islamic Republic of Iran has been reported by human rights organizations. and have been killed. After the Iranian Revolution of 1978, the pressure on ideological minorities such as: Christians, Jews, Baha'is, Zoroastrians (and religious people and Yarsan, and even Sufis and Sunnis) intensified. The Islamist revolutionaries, who had a history of harassing the followers of religious minorities before the Revolution of 1957 (including attacking the Jewish neighborhood in Mashhad, attacking the Baha'is of Aran and Bidgol on the orders of the philosophical Mohammad Taqi ...), more and more harassed and "spied", "deviant" And they introduced "infidels". In the Islamic Republic, at least eight Christian leaders (bishops and priests) were killed in Iran, and hundreds of Christian converts (Christian Muslims) were interrogated and imprisoned.
 In the Islamic Republic of Iran, Muslims who become Christians are sentenced to death or imprisonment. "Everyone is impure and infidel. Because they know about our most private professions, even very private professions with my wife; "They listened in our house [the device]." (According to Arian Softman, the daughter of Rev. Hussein Softman, one of the victims of the serial killings in Iran.) "The Ministry of Intelligence killed and blamed the Christian priests who did not accept our political system. "The Ministry of Intelligence argued that this would free us from the Christian clerics and, at the same time, make the Mojahedin more disgraceful." (written by Akbar Ganji in Aria newspaper) Aristotle Sayyah; Date and place of death: on February 20, 1979, Shiraz; Assassination method: The veins of his hand were cut by two members of the Islamic Association of Shiraz. He was a priest of the Anglican Church, the first victim of ideological murders in Iran. After his assassination, the property of the Anglican Church was confiscated by the government of the Islamic Republic.

Bahram Dehghani Tafti; Date and place of death: 16 May 1359, Tehran; Method of assassination: shot in the car. He was the son of Bishop Hassan Dehghani Tafti (in charge of the Episcopal Circle of Iran and the Church of the Middle East). Bahram Dehghani was banned from leaving because his father did not hand over the property of the church to the government of the Islamic Republic. (Assassination against his father:) In Mehr 1358, his father was attacked by two unknown men in the bedroom together with his English wife; But he survived. (Assassination of a boy:) Bahram Dehghani was taken by several people to one of the quiet streets around Tehran prison on May 16, 1358, while he was returning from teaching at Damavand College, and he was shot and killed in his car. The pursuit of the family and friends of Bahram Dehghani Tafti to identify the killers has been unsuccessful so far.

 Manouchehr Afghani; Date and place of death: May 1367, Isfahan; Method of assassination: killed by some unknown people; Motive for terror: To create fear and terror among other Christian missionaries. He was one of the members of the Council of Priests of Isfahan Mashayikhi Church and one of the founders of the house church that was assassinated in 1367 killed.

 Hossein Soodmand; Date and place of death: 1369, Mashhad; Execution method: hanging; Reason for execution: apostasy (turning away) from Islam. He was one of the Muslims who became a Christian and was rejected by his family. He worked as an evangelist in "Sacred Books Association" and also in Isfahan Christian Blind Organization (Christopher). He married a blind girl named Mehtab Norush. In 1359, with the approval of the Council of the Congregation of the Congregation of Iran and with the official permission of the government of the Islamic Republic, Soodmand legally founded the Church of the Congregation of the Congregation of Mashhad; Although his church was closed by the government on the pretext that he had not held a mourning ceremony for the death of Seyyed Ruhollah Khomeini. He became a priest in 367; But he was arrested by the Islamic Republic regime and kept in solitary confinement for a month. He was finally hanged on December 12, 1369, due to his insistence on his belief, in Vakil Abad prison of Mashhad and was buried in a ruin without a tombstone or name, near Behesht Rezai in Mashhad. Even his stoneless and nameless tomb was destroyed in 2018.
Hayek Hospian Mehr; Date and place of death: December 1993, around Tehran; Execution method: Slaughter with 26 stab wounds; Reason for execution: Attempts to prevent the execution of a Christian convert (Mehdi Dibaj). He was twice threatened by Gorgan Islamists in the late Pahlavi period and at the beginning of the revolution. In 1986, he was elected chairman of the Council of Protestant Churches in Iran. However, all the churches it established was closed from 1988 onwards under the pressure of the government of the Islamic Republic. He opposed the declaration of banning Muslims from entering churches. On November 19, 1994, he awarded the Freedom of Religion Award to his wife on behalf of Bishop Hayek, and named November 20 World Worship Day for the Iranian Church. Hopian Mehr was killed in January 1993 during the serial killings in Iran (terrorist project of the Ministry of Intelligence); But the Islamic Republic accused the People's Mojahedin Organization of this assassination. But the leader of the Mojahedin Khalq Organization denied the accusation, and Akbar Ganji wrote: The Ministry of Intelligence argued that this would free us from the Christian clerics and, at the same time, make the Mojahedin more disgraceful. Date and place of death: 1373, around Tehran; Execution method: being slaughtered with a knife; Reason for execution: Apostasy (return) from Islam. He was a Muslim who became a Christian at the age of 14 after religiosity and later became one of the leaders of the "Bible Church". He was a writer and professor of English at the Babol Technical College (Mazandaran). In 1985, he was arrested by the government officials of the Islamic Republic on charges of conversion (apostasy) and transferred to Sari prison. Dibaj, in July 1373, when he was going to his daughter's birthday party, disappeared on the way and then his slaughtered body was found.  

Tatas Mikaelian Date and place of death: July 1, 1994; Execution method: how many shots; Reason for execution: Propagation of Christianity. Mikaelian was a law graduate, priest, former director of the Iranian Bible Association, and former chairman of the Iranian Evangelical Church Council. He translated 60 volumes of the book. He was assassinated and killed by several bullets on July 1, 1994, a few days after the assassination of Rev. Mehdi Dibaj; However, Ali Akbar Velayati, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in a meeting with the Special Rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Commission, Abdul Fattah, claimed: given to them” (Muhammad Baqir Yousefi); Date of death: October 26, 1996; Execution method: hanging in the forest; Reason for execution: Apostasy from Islam and Christianization of 300 Shiite Muslims. He also converted from Islam to Christianity and later became a priest. Yousefi left the house at six o'clock in the morning to perform a prayer; But his hanging body was found in one of the forests of Sari. The government of the Islamic Republic declared his death a suicide and elsewhere, an accident (driving) (while he was also one of the victims of the serial killings). His wife Akhtar Rahmanian was also pressured to say that he had a dispute with him and that this led to his suicide. The government of the Islamic Republic did not hand over the body of Yousefi to his family. He was an Iranian Muslim who converted to Christianity and was eventually killed during the Islamic Republic (apostasy). The number of murders and assassinations In some official sources, the number of people killed in the Iranian serial murder project is from 300 (three hundred) to more than 1,000 (thousand), 180 of whom were assassinated and killed from 1990 to 1998 alone.
Summons, arrests, imprisonment and torture "flogged to pray." Effat Mahbaz, a political prisoner in the 1981s, men of three Christian converts, Babak Hosseinzadeh, Behnam Akhlaghi, and Sahib Fadai, were sentenced to long-term imprisonment by the government of the Islamic Republic for becoming Christians. Safari Moghaddam was tried in a court in Isfahan province in 1983, and the verdict was sentenced to eighty-two lashes and four years in exile for his connection with churches outside Iran and propaganda against the regime, due to ignorance and the absence of a lawyer and human rights organization. Hamid Pourmand was a Muslim who converted to Christianity and was arrested and imprisoned for apostasy. Yousef Nadarkhani was arrested in 2009 and sentenced to death for apostasy. However, due to international pressure and reactions, his sentence was reduced by Saeed Abedini; Christian convert and priest Ismail Dadashi Karchengi. Muslimzadeh Mazandarani, who was called an apostate Christianity and was sentenced to 14 years in prison and murder in 2009. In March 2008, they were arrested for apostasy and were released after 259 days in prison under pressure from the international community. On February 17, 1400, Sakineh Behjati, a Christian convert who was sentenced to 2 years in prison just because of her beliefs. He was sentenced to four years in prison and was sentenced to "membership in groups or groups with the aim of disrupting the security of the country" forcing Armenian-Zadeh prisoners to pray Mehrdad Neshati Malekis, an Armenian ideological-political prisoner; But later became a communist (member of the People's Fedayeen Guerrilla Organization) says that he was flogged to pray to pray. The general prohibitions and persecutions of the Islamic Republic do not recognize the marriage of Christian converts unless it is done according to Islamic law and in Islamic way. The list of some other general prohibitions of Christians as well as the persecution of the government of the Islamic Republic to them is the ban on the publication of Christian religious books in Persian; The closure of many churches; avoiding church rites; Confiscation of a number of Christian buildings and assets (including the confiscation of the Shiraz Christian hospital and renaming it to the Islamic Revolution); imprisoning Christian converts; Assassination of some Christian missionaries.