Five Iranian Christian converts who were detained
late last year will reportedly begin trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court this
week, according to a human rights group following the case.
The five men were among seven arrested in October
when security forces raided an underground house church in the city of Shiraz
during a prayer session. They will be tried at the Revolutionary Court in
Shiraz’s Fars Province on charges of disturbing public order, evangelizing,
threatening national security and engaging in Internet activity that threatens
the government, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a religious
persecution watchdog group.
“Judging from recent cases, it is likely that, at
the very least, those detained may face lengthy prison sentences,” said CSW
spokesperson Kiri Kankhwende.
According to Kankhwende, the crackdown against
Christian converts and house churches parallels a general increase in
repression against many, including journalists, religious and cultural
minorities and others as the government is leading up to June’s presidential
elections.
“There has
been a noticeable increase in the harassment, arrests, trials and imprisonments
of converts to Christianity, particularly since the beginning of 2012,"
Kankhwende said. "Any movement that differs from or offers an alternative
to orthodox Shia Islam, and any persons who chooses to follow an alternative
belief system, are interpreted as a challenge to the very state itself.”
“House churches are growing because the converts
have nowhere else to go,” said Tiffany Barrans, international legal director at
the American Center for Law and Justice, “When you’re a convert to Christianity in Iran, you
can't go worship at the church on the corner, because conversion is not
acceptable. If they were allowed to go to an official place of worship, there
wouldn't be a house church movement,” Barrans said.
Barrans and the ACLJ are also the U.S.-based family
attorneys for Pastor Saeed Abedini, held in Iran’s notoriously brutal
Evin prison since September 2012 as his wife and two young children fear for
him at their home in Idaho.
More than a decade ago, Abedini worked as a
Christian leader and community organizer developing Iran’s underground home
church communities for Christian converts who are forbidden from praying in
public churches. He was arrested in 2005, but released after pledging never to
evangelize in Iran again. When he left his wife and two kids in Idaho last
summer to return to Iran to help build a state-run, secular orphanage, Iranian
police pulled him off a bus and imprisoned him.
After months of imprisonment without any notice of
charges, Abedini was sentenced at the beginning of this year to eight years in
prison, as his family and attorneys continue to pressure the State Department
and other public and private groups to facilitate his release.Under Shariah, or Islamic law, a Muslim who converts to Christianity is on a par with someone waging war against Islam. Death sentences for such individuals are prescribed by fatwas, or legal decrees, and reinforced by Iran’s Constitution, which allows judges to rely on fatwas for determining charges and sentencing on crimes not addressed in the Iranian penal code.
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