Arrest of Approximately Seventy Christians in Eleven Cities

Organization “Article 18” reported the arrest of approximately seventy Christians in eleven cities over a period of one and a half months.

Approximately seventy Christian citizens have been arrested from June until now in eleven cities including Tehran, Karaj, Eligodarz, Urmia, Rasht, Shiraz, Semnan, Garmsar, Varamin, Isfahan, and Islamshahr. Some of them were released after one week in detention by signing a commitment not to attend Christian services, while others have been in detention for more than a month.

It should be noted that most of those arrested are Christians who have converted from Islam to Christianity, but among them two Armenian citizens have also been arrested. Their arrests occurred despite the fact that in the Islamic Republic’s constitution, religious minorities including Armenians, Assyrians, and Zoroastrians enjoy freedom of religion and the ability to practice their religious ceremonies.

From the aforementioned individuals, ten people remain in detention, and those who have been released have been summoned again and subjected to further interrogations. It should be noted that the bail amounts set for the temporary release of some of them range from 400 million to two billion tomans. Some of them have even been pressured by security authorities to leave the country, the country that is their place of residence and work.

According to information released from informed sources, a group of Christians who have been released have been forced to participate in ideological and Islamic sessions by judicial authorities.

One of these citizens, after release, was fired from his workplace without any explanation. The government has also repeatedly deprived Christians of economic activities, these deprivations including prevention from continuing business operations and dismissal from employment, and in some cases deprivation from education.

Regarding the arrest of Christians by government forces, a campaign called “Church is the Right of All Christians” was launched with the support of “Article 18” organization, and this campaign posed a question to the officials of the Islamic Republic government asking “Where can Persian-speaking Christians worship without their fate ending in arrest and imprisonment?” Because the Islamic Republic government has not only closed Persian-language churches but has also attacked home churches and subjected them to security pressures.