One of the Iranian Church Officials: Pressure on Christian Converts Has Increased During the Rouhani Era
Following the arrest of at least six Christian converts in the city of Rasht, an Iranian church official told VOA that pressure on Christian converts has increased since Hassan Rouhani came to power.
Behrouz Sadegh Khanjani, an official of the Iranian Church, said in an interview with Voice of America on Tuesday, February 27, that currently, about 117 Christian converts are in detention, 13 of whom are members of the Church of Iran, and four of them, namely Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, Saheb Fadaei, Mohammad Reza Omidi, and Yaser Mosaybzadeh, have been sentenced to 10 years in prison and 2 years in exile in Sistan and Baluchestan.
According to Mr. Khanjani, the remaining nine people are also banned from visiting and have only been able to have a brief phone call with their families once.
Hossein Kadivar and Khalil Pourdehghan on February 21, Abdolreza Ali Haqnejad on February 22, and Mohammad Vafadar, Mohammad Eslamdoost, and Kamal Nomaniyan on February 26 were six Christian converts who were arrested by security forces last month in the city of Rasht, the capital of Gilan province in northern Iran.
Mr. Khanjani told VOA that the charge that judicial authorities usually attribute to Christian converts is "acting against national security," and most lawyers who work on cases involving Christian converts or other religious minorities are usually threatened by the Ministry of Intelligence.
According to Mr. Khanjani, the only lawyer currently handling the case of Christian converts is Vahid Meshgani Farahani, who, according to available information, is also "under pressure" from the Ministry of Intelligence.
Behrouz Sadeq Khanjani, an official of the Iranian church, says that the Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to unify society. In fact, even if a group of 12-Imam Shiites do not believe in the sovereignty of the jurist, they are considered outsiders and are dealt with.
Mr. Khanjani recalled that since the beginning of the 1979 revolution, many Christian converts have been subjected to violence, and since 2009, pressure on Christian converts has increased, such that Persian-speaking churches have been closed one after another and more than two thousand Christian converts have been arrested in Iran. Pastor Hossein Soedmand was one of those who was sentenced to death for apostasy in the 1960s and was executed.
In recent years, the United States has protested in human rights reports about widespread violations of the rights of religious and ethnic minorities in Iran, and in a tweet on the occasion of Cyrus Day, the US State Department spokesperson called on the Islamic Republic to learn from Cyrus about his leadership and stop the prosecution of Baha'is, Christian converts, Gonabadi Dervishes, and other minority groups in Iran.
Source: Voice of America
