What the US Religious Freedom Report Says About Iran
The U.S. State Department released its new annual International Religious Freedom Report on Tuesday, saying the situation for religious freedom in the Islamic Republic of Iran has worsened, both for official religions and for religions that the Islamic Republic does not recognize.
General situation
The report says that the Iranian government discriminates against its citizens based on their religion and beliefs, and all laws and regulations are based on the principles of the Jafari Shia sect of Islam. In Iran's penal code, moharebeh has a vague and unclear definition and is often used by the government for political purposes.
Apostasy is not mentioned as a crime in Iran’s penal code, but people are still tried under the title of apostasy, because the constitution states that Sharia law applies to anything not even mentioned in the law. The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, as well as the UN Secretary-General, have said that such crimes are inherently vague, with very broad definitions that have led to their arbitrary interpretation and application to different individuals.
Since the 1979 revolution in Iran, many members of Iran's religious minorities have been arrested or executed, and many have fled Iran for fear of government persecution.
The situation in Iran in 2017
In Iran, the situation of religious freedom has worsened, with Baha'is and converts to Christianity in particular being targeted by government persecution.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appointed Shahindokht Molaverdi as his assistant for civil rights affairs in August 2017, but the harassment has continued.
During nationwide protests last winter , the head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court said that detained citizens could be tried on charges of "moharebeh," which carries the death penalty.
Regarding religious reformers , the report says Shiites who call for religious reform have faced long prison sentences and even the possibility of execution.
Christian converts and house church leaders have faced prison sentences of at least ten years for their religious practices, and their situation is increasingly worsening.
In a worrying new development, a Zoroastrian elected to the Yazd city council has had his membership suspended, the report says, sparking a national debate about the limited political rights of religious minorities in Iran.
The report says that while the government of Hassan Rouhani has indicated that it wants to address the issue of religious freedom violations, this has remained only a promise and the number of people imprisoned in Iran for their religious beliefs is increasing.
The report recommends that Iran be placed back on the list of “countries of particular concern” in 2018. The report says that Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemien Boroujerdi , who was arrested in 2006, was released from prison in January 2017 after suffering physical and psychological abuse while in prison, but he remains under de facto house arrest and has been summoned and interrogated repeatedly. The government has also banned visitors from visiting him.
The report says that Iran’s Sunnis are present in underdeveloped areas and are discriminated against in their recruitment or use in political leadership. Many Sunni activists have reported extremely harsh treatment by the government for religious activities. The report says that at least 140 Sunnis are imprisoned for activities related to religious and ideological activities. According to human rights groups, the situation of Sunni detention has also worsened since the Islamic State (IS) group attacked Tehran in 2017. Sunnis’ requests to build an official mosque in Tehran have been rejected and they are limited to praying in smaller halls called “prayer rooms.”
In September 2017, Mawlawi Abdul Hamid , a prominent Sunni leader, and Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, exchanged letters that addressed the issue of discrimination against Sunnis in hiring and mosque construction. Khamenei wrote that such discrimination is prohibited in the institutions of the Islamic Republic. But the annual report of the US State Department says that this claim by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic is in clear contradiction with the current reality of Sunni communities.
Dozens of dervishes have been arrested in Iran in 2017, many of whom have been sentenced to prison, fines, and flogging. Iranian television regularly broadcasts programs that demonize dervishes. Several administrators of a popular dervishes website are in prison on charges such as membership in a group that threatens national security.
In December 2017, as protests spread, security forces arrested five Gonabadi dervishes who had gone to visit the director of a Sufi website in the hospital.
The Baha'i community in Iran, numbering over 300,000, is the largest non-Muslim minority in Iran. However, the government labels them a "deviant sect" and considers them infidels. As a result, Baha'is are the most severely persecuted religious minorities in Iran. The government does not recognize them and has deprived them of their political, economic, cultural, and religious rights. Despite Hassan Rouhani's promises in 2013 to end religious discrimination, the amount of propaganda against Baha'is through the official channels of the Islamic Republic of Iran has increased. Since 2014, some 26,000 official or semi-official Iranian channels have broadcast media propaganda against Baha'is.
Over the past decade, more than a thousand Baha'is have been arbitrarily detained. In April 2017, a UN working group said that the long-term sentences handed down to 24 Iranian Baha'is in 2016 were based solely on their religious beliefs, describing them as "violations of their rights as a religious minority."
In October, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of the founder of the Baha’i Faith, Islamic Republic authorities arrested about 20 Baha’is and raided the homes of 25 others . By the end of the period, more than 90 Baha’is were in prison solely for their religious beliefs.
Of the imprisoned Baha’is, four were among the seven prominent members of the Baha’i leadership known as the “Friends of Iran” or “Associates.” Three of these individuals, Mahvash Sabet, Fariba Kamalabadi, and Behrouz Tavakoli, were released from prison in September, October, and December 2017 after serving 10-year sentences on false charges of espionage and propaganda. The other four, Jamal al-Din Khanjani, Afif Naimi, Saeed Rezaei , and Vahid Tizfahm , remained in prison until the end of that term.
Two Baha’i instructors who were imprisoned for working at a Baha’i educational institution for higher education were released in 2017 after completing five years in prison. The Islamic Republic has outlawed the Baha’i educational institution. However, five other Baha’i instructors remained in prison at year’s end, and two more were summoned to begin their prison terms in November and December 2017.
In April, July, and October 2017, Islamic Republic authorities closed dozens of Baha’i shops for being closed in accordance with the Baha’i faith. Authorities temporarily closed some shops, but many shops that had been closed in 2016 remained closed at the end of 2017 despite legal requests to reopen them. More than 600 Baha’i shops have been closed by authorities since 2014. In November 2017, Shahindokht Molaverdi, the Iranian presidential aide for civil rights, said the government was pursuing the matter legally.
Although government officials say that Iranian Baha'is are free to attend university, in practice government policy is to prevent Baha'is from accessing higher education. Since 2013, more than 50 Baha'i students have been expelled from universities in academic years despite having good grades.
In November 2017, three Baha'i students wrote a letter to the government protesting why they were being prevented from attending university. Each of these Baha'i students was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of "membership in an anti-government Baha'i sect."
In September 2016, Farhang Amiri , a Baha’i citizen, was stabbed to death by two brothers outside his home in Yazd. The two later confessed that they killed Farhang Amiri because they considered him an infidel and that his murder would guarantee them entry into heaven. In July 2017, the older brother was sentenced to 11 years in prison and two years in exile for murder, and the younger brother to 5.5 years in prison.
Under Islamic Republic law, the punishment for killing a Muslim is the death penalty, but the killing of a Baha'i or followers of other religions that the government does not recognize carries much lighter penalties.
Iranian Christians , members of traditional churches, are under strict government surveillance, and the construction or renovation of their places of worship face legal restrictions. But the government particularly represses evangelical Christians, and those who have converted to Christianity. Christian missionaries and house church pastors are often tried on unfounded charges related to national security, or apostasy, or illegal house churches. The government also specifically publishes material against them throughout Iran online and in the press. While Iranian authorities have been raiding house churches for decades, arresting hundreds of worshippers and church leaders, they have also increased punishments against them in recent years.
In May 2017, four evangelical Christians, three of whom were citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan, were each sentenced to 10 years in prison for activities related to evangelical Christianity and house churches.
The following month, Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who had already served a prison sentence for apostasy, was tried along with three others for their house church activities. Each of the four Christians was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Nadarkhani also received a two-year banishment sentence.
In July 2017, Victor Bet Temrez, a pastor of the Assyrian Pentecostal Church, was tried along with three other co-religionists and each sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.
In December, two members of the “Church of Iran” were sentenced to eight years in prison each on false security charges. They were first arrested in 2012 during a security forces raid on a Christian worship service.
In August 2017, Maryam Naghash Zargaran, a Christian convert, was released from prison after serving a four-year sentence. However, as she was leaving prison, she was ordered to pay a fine of 50 million tomans for insulting prison hospital staff. She also reportedly faced a six-month travel ban upon her release.
The U.S. State Department’s Religious Freedom Report says that the Islamic Republic continued to campaign against the Jewish community in 2017 for its closeness to Israel, or perceived proximity to it, although not as aggressively as in previous years. Senior clerics continued to make anti-Semitic remarks in mosques, and Iranian state television aired numerous anti-Jewish programs.
In December 2017, two synagogues in the city of Shiraz were attacked and sacred texts were vandalized. Discrimination against Iran’s 15,000-20,000-strong Jewish community has created a climate of intimidation against them.
In recent years, members of the Zoroastrian community, estimated to number between 30,000 and 35,000, have also come under increasing pressure and discrimination. Following the May 2017 city council elections, pressure on Zoroastrians increased, and the membership of a Zoroastrian citizen on the Yazd city council was suspended by order of the Guardian Council, based on statements by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati that non-Muslims could not run for office in cities with a Muslim majority. The Iranian parliament passed a resolution in 2017 that specifically acknowledged that religious minorities could hold office, but the Guardian Council rejected the resolution, and the debate on the issue dragged on into 2018.
Although the Iranian government considers followers of the Yarsan (Ahl al-Haqq) sect to be Shiites, it practices widespread discrimination against them in education, employment, and election participation. Their population is estimated to be over 1 million.
In the May 2017 elections, 28 out of 30 Yarsani candidates running for the Hashtgerd City Council were barred. A month later, they wrote to Hassan Rouhani asking him to clarify their constitutional status, but as with previous letters, they received no response.
As of the end of 2017, Mohammad Ali Taheri , a university professor and founder of a spiritual movement called Halgheh Erfan, remained in prison after five years in prison. Dozens of his supporters were also arrested in July and August 2017, and human rights organizations estimate that more than 300 have been arrested since 2010. Many of them were released after a period of interrogation.
In recent years, the Islamic Republic has imprisoned a number of lawyers who have defended Baha'is and Christians in court, or they have fled the country.
Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraei, a writer and human rights activist who was convicted of blasphemy in 2016 for writing an unpublished story, was briefly released from prison in February 2017 but was quickly rearrested on charges of failing to return to prison on time. She remained in Evin Prison at the end of the reporting period.
In October 2017, a poet and human rights activist named Reza Ekvanian was sentenced to three years in prison and forty lashes for insulting the twelfth Imam in his poems.
The Islamic Republic government strictly controls and extensively censors freedom of expression in matters related to religious beliefs.
Throughout 2017, many young people were convicted of blasphemy online.
In February 2017, courts in Iran sentenced Sina Dehghan and Mohammad Nouri to death on charges of publishing anti-Islamic material on social media.
In April, three young men were each sentenced to 12 years in prison for posting their political and religious views on the social media platform Telegram.
In June of that year, Iranian authorities announced that they had reached an agreement with Telegram to block “anti-religious” content.
According to numerous reports, leaders of religious minorities, especially Baha'is, have come under attack from pro-government hackers.
In the case of women, Iran’s penal code has worsened the conditions for supporting violence against women, including honor killings. The blood money for the murder of a Muslim woman is half that of a Muslim man. Under this law, the murder of a woman by her father or paternal grandfather carries a light sentence.
The Islamic Republic's authorities also continue to strictly enforce women's veiling ; regardless of their beliefs or religion, women must be covered from head to toe or face imprisonment and fines.
In 2017, the US State Department repeatedly condemned violations of human rights and religious freedom in Iran.
Source: Voice of America
