Iran: Summary of Concerns and Recommendations

This briefing is an assessment of recent and current trends in the area of religious freedom in Iran, particularly focusing on the Christian community, and also including the Baha’i community. This document highlights the increase of persecution against Christians and churches towards the end of 2011 and throughout 2012, and the varying types of persecution they face.

Summary of concerns

Iran witnessed a steep rise in the persecution of religious minorities during 2011, which increased further in the early months of 2012. The most worrying aspects of this campaign of repression include: waves of arrests and detentions; regular raids on church gatherings; harsh interrogations; physical and psychological torture (including demands for recantations of faith and for information on the identities of fellow Christians); extended detentions without charge; violations of due process; convictions for ill-defined crimes or on falsified political charges; economic targeting through exorbitant bail demands, and the threat of imminent execution of a house-church leader for apostasy. The targeted persecution has been undergirded by a proliferation of anti-Christian rhetoric from senior official figures.

This persecution, which broke out following the systematic infiltration of church networks, initially targeted Christians belonging to the unsanctioned house church networks. However, it is increasingly impacting those from sanctioned churches. Both evangelical Christians and Christians from the traditional Armenian or Assyrian churches, which conduct services or activities in Farsi, appear to be viewed as a threat to the Islamic integrity of the nation, and increasingly exist in an atmosphere of uncertainty. The last Farsi speaking churches have been ordered to end these services. Furthermore, the opening months of 2012 witnessed arrests of leaders from official churches and a sharp upsurge in detentions of converts from Islam, often following raids on private homes.

During this period, repression and harsh rhetoric targeting the Baha’i community has also continued, as has the crackdown on civil society.

Download full report 265KB PDF