Arrest of Christian citizen Mozhdeh Fallahi
Mozhdeh Fallahi, a Christian citizen, was arrested last week by the Ministry of Intelligence.
According to published reports, Mozhdeh Fallahi, a Christian citizen, was arrested last week on Monday, September 10, by the Ministry of Intelligence in Shiraz. After her arrest, she was transferred to the detention center No. 100, which operates under the supervision of the Ministry of Intelligence and is close to Adelabad Prison.
On Monday, she went to the prosecutor's office to present the documents needed to release one of her Christian friends who had been arrested the day before, and was immediately arrested. It is likely that her friend, under duress and pressure from the Ministry of Intelligence, asked Mozhdeh to take documents to the prosecutor's office for his release, which is why she was immediately arrested.
The charges against Mozhdeh Fallahi include “Christianity” and “illegal Christian activity.” This is despite the fact that Ms. Fallahi has been a believer in Jesus Christ for many years and has not been very active in relation to Christianity, only working as a hairdresser.
Mozhdeh's family has repeatedly visited the prosecutor's office to meet their child over the past week, but they have not been able to meet with her, who is even denied the right to a lawyer. It should be noted that Maryam and Marjan Fallahi are Mozhdeh's sisters who were arrested in Bushehr with their husbands in July 2019, and a year later, Maryam and Marjan were fined a total of 14 million Tomans in cash.
Maryam Fallahi was a nurse at the time of her arrest, and upon her release, she was banned for life from working in any government institution, including the hospital where she had worked for 20 years. In late 2019, a judge also issued a ruling terminating custody of their adopted daughter. The judge had declared that Maryam and her husband, Sam Khosravi, could no longer retain custody of their adopted daughter, Lydia, because they are Christians and the judge considered Lydia to be Muslim. Thus, Christian citizens are not allowed to accept custody of a Muslim child.
When the judge issued this ruling, more than 120 lawyers, civil society activists, and children's rights activists wrote an open letter to Ebrahim Raisi, the head of the judiciary at the time, demanding that the Bushehr court's ruling denying the Christian couple the right to adopt a child be overturned.
Mansour Borji, the director of the Article 18 organization, wrote: "Mozhdeh's mother, who is now in her 60s, suffered greatly following the arrest of her two daughters five years ago because of their Christian beliefs, and has been deeply traumatized by this. She has never fully recovered from the trauma and grief caused by their arrest, and now, after the arrest of her third daughter, she is forced to relive the nightmare of the past. By arbitrarily arresting Christian citizens, the Islamic Republic is also inflicting irreparable harm on their families and loved ones."
The arrest of Mozhdeh and many other Christian citizens, many of whom are not even publicly known, is a case in point, despite the fact that the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran have repeatedly stated that no one is arrested for their beliefs. However, Christians, especially those who have converted from Islam to Christianity, are arrested and sent to prison solely for their Christian beliefs and peaceful religious activities, which include praying, possessing and reading the Bible, and performing religious ceremonies.
