It is reported that Iran has launched a new crackdown on Iranian Christians this month after the re-arrest of the two men.
According to a February 10 report on the website of the UK-based NGO Terms, which seeks to protect Iran's religious freedom, “two Christians in the 60s were released in prison in six years. He was then released after being released on charges related to their leadership. The house church was re-arrested.”
The Intelligence Agency of the Iranian regime re-arrested two Christians, Nasernabad Golthep and Joseph Shabazian, and imprisoned both men in the brutal Evin prison in Tehran. Gol-Tapeh is reportedly on a hunger strike against “illegal re-arrest” Article 18, defending on behalf of persecuted Iranian Christians.
Iran has the world's fastest growing church despite its lack of buildings.
A huge mural of Iranian supreme leader on Motahari Street in Tehran on March 8, 2020. (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)
Article 18 stated that “many other Tehran Christians have also been arrested and remained detained at the same time.”
Iranian-Americans and Iranian opponents are urging the Trump administration to highlight the ubiquitous Iranian administration's human rights violations while imposing punitive measures on Tehran's secretariat.
“Iranian Christians are being persecuted by the Islamic regime by the Islamic regime. The Trump administration puts the greatest economic and diplomatic pressure on the administration,” Iranian expert Alileza Nader told Fox News Digital. “We should publicly emphasize their plight.”
According to Christian advocacy groups, German-Iranian political scientist Wahid Wadat Hag, a leading expert in Iranian religious minorities, told Fox News Digital. Opendoors 2025 Annual Report“Christian discrimination in Iran remains very serious, earning 86 out of 100 points, ranking ninth in the worst country for Christian persecution.”
He said, “The government sees Christians as a threat to national security, believing that Christians are affected by Western countries to undermine Islam and the regime. As a result, Christians have been severely affected, including arrests. He said he faces a violation of religious freedom. [and] A long prison sentence. ”
Iranian students continue to protest over the 19-year-old's murder on campus on the second day
A girl from the St. Sadeus Monastery in Cardoran, Iran, illuminates a candle. (Adis Easaghlian/Middle East Images/AFP Getty Images)
Wahdat-Hagh continues, “People leaving Islam to follow Christianity are the most vulnerable. They are rejected from legal recognition and are often targeted by security forces.”
One Iranian Christian who fled from Iran to Germany to practice faith free from persecution is Sheena Vojaudi.
She told Fox News Digital that “the key growth of Christianity has deeply surprised the Islamic Republic, a theocratic dictatorship, as beliefs about Islam continue to fall in Iran. Environment. International human rights groups often consider Christian converts to be political prisoners of conscience, meaning that even after arrest and release, they continue to be at risk of re-arrest and severe punishment.
The dire situation for Iranian Christians has urged Mai Sato's Special Rapporteur on Iranian Human Rights to ring the alarm bell in a video presentation hosted by Article 18. “Concerns calling for our continued attention,” she said.
Iranian proxy engaged in “invisible jihad” against Middle Eastern Christians, report warning
A recent US State Department report on religious freedom in Iran (2023): “The government continues to regulate Christian religious practices. Farsi's Christian worship is prohibited, and official reports and state media are It continued to characterize private Christian churches in the home: “illegal networks” and “Zionist propaganda agencies.”
The number of Christians in Iran is difficult to identify due to the widespread oppression of the faith. According to a report from the State Department, the Iranian regime's statistics centre claims that at the time of the 2016 census, 117,700 Christians are recognized.
An Iranian female prisoner sat in a cell at Tehran's Evin prison on June 13, 2006. (Reuters/Morteza Nicobazzle)
Boston University's 2020 World Religion Database Note Iran has around 579,000 Christians, while Article 18 estimates there are between 500,000 and 800,000. Open Doors reports 124 million.
The Trump administration reimposed the biggest economic pressure campaign against the Iranian administration in early February, overturning Tehran's willingness to build nuclear weapons and stop the spread of Islamist terrorism.
Vojoudi, an associate fellow at the US-based Institute for International Strategy, told Fox News Digital: Not only by prosecuting it on the international stage to violate one of the most fundamental human rights, religious freedom.
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“This is important not only to the security of Christian converts, but also to reaffirm the value of freedom and human dignity that these countries claim to support.”
Multiple Fox News digital press questions for Iran's Foreign Ministry and the United Nations mission in New York were not responded. Fox News Digital asked whether the government would release Iranians who were imprisoned simply because they were practicing the Christian faith.
