Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide

by Paul Marshall

  Ruhollah Rowhani

  In 1985, Ruhollah Rowhani was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, with an additional year of internal exile in the village of Najafabad, because of his Baha’i faith. Rowhani, by this time a fifty-two-year-old father of four, was imprisoned in September 1997 and kept in solitary confinement for the rest of his shortened life. He was charged with apostasy for allegedly converting a Muslim to the Baha’i faith, a “crime” that even Khomeini had not called apostasy. In addition, the woman whom he was accused of converting asserted that she had not converted and that she had been raised a Baha’i. She was never arrested or charged. Rowhani was denied a lawyer and any legal proceeding at all. On July 20, 1998, his family was told that they could see him for one hour, the first time that he had breathed fresh air in three months. The next day, they were called to the prison to collect his body. Despite their appeal for more time to enable other relatives to attend the funeral, they were given only one hour to bury him. From the rope marks on his neck, it appeared that he had been hanged—the first Baha’i executed since March 1992.46

  Baha’i Open Letter to President Khatami

  In November 2004, for the first time, the Baha’i community wrote an open letter to then-President Khatami calling for an end to their persecution. It criticized government measures aimed at keeping Baha’is out of universities, including the false registration of Baha’i students as Muslims. It also highlighted passages in the Qur’an and Islamic law forbidding violence and supporting religious freedom and pointed out that Iran is bound to respect freedom of religion under the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and associated covenants, to which it is a signatory. It concluded with a call for “immediate action to ensure the emancipation of the Iranian Baha’i community.”47

  The Baha’i community in Yazd submitted a copy to government authorities. Shortly thereafter, the government attacked Baha’is throughout the country and launched a campaign of vilification in the media. On March 8, 2005, one Baha’i who had distributed the letter received a three-year prison sentence; another was tried in absentia and given a one-year sentence.48 Authorities also arrested Baha’is who distributed copies in other cities. On May 16, 2005, nine Baha’is “were charged with ‘creating anxiety in the minds of the public and those of the Iranian officials.’ ”49

  Attacks on Baha’is have also spilled over onto those who defend them. In March 2006, Shirin Ebadi, an outspoken human rights lawyer, who was awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting women’s and children’s rights in Iran, received death threats in a letter signed by an extremist group, the dysphemistic “Association Hostile to Apostate Baha’is.” The association told her, “We are warning you for the last time, if you continue, you will pay for committing treason against your country and Islam.”50

  Christian Converts

  Christianity has a long history in Iran: the Church of St. Mary in the northwest is considered by some historians to be the world’s second oldest surviving church. Today, there are over 300,000 Christians, most ethnic Armenians: the Armenian Apostolic Church has 110,000 to 300,000 adherents, the Assyrian Church of the East about 11,000, the Chaldean Catholic Church about 7,000. Protestants include Presbyterians, Anglicans, the Assyrian Evangelical Church, and the Assemblies of God.51 Despite this long history, and the Iranian constitution’s recognition of Christian minority rights, the Islamic Republic often portrays Christianity as sympathetic to the West, and thus the regime interferes with and discourages Christian religious practices.

  Since the beginning of 1979, the government has persecuted Protestants with close surveillance, forced exile, and even the prosecution, execution, or murder of converts and church leaders, especially if they are thought to be connected to conversion. Church leaders have been pressured to sign pledges to refrain from evangelizing Muslims and even to prevent Muslims from attending church. Reportedly, leaders of the Assyrian, Armenian Orthodox, and Presbyterian churches have signed the statement. The Assemblies of God and Brethren churches have refused.52 Authorities keep copies of membership cards for evangelical congregations, which participants must carry, and conduct identity checks outside congregational centers. Church leaders must inform the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance before admitting new church members, and worship services are permitted by the government only on Sundays.53 In the mid-1990s, authorities, especially agents of SAWAMA, closed down the 160-year-old Iranian Bible Society and all Christian bookshops; prohibited the printing of Bibles or other Christian literature in the Farsi language; banned Christian conferences; shut down Protestant churches in Gorgan, Mashhad, Saari, and Ahvaz; and targeted converts.

  In the 1990s, many evangelical, especially Pentecostal, church leaders were targeted in a campaign to destroy their leadership, and several of those more recently targeted by the regime have been their children. Pastor Hossein Soodmand was hanged on December 3, 1991, after two months of imprisonment and torture. He left behind his wife, Mahtab, who was blind and four children ages ten to fifteen. The authorities did not allow her a final visit with her husband, and she suffered a complete breakdown.54 Presbyterian elder Robert Manaserian and Reverend Edmun Sergisian, of the Presbyterian Church in Tabriz, were tortured, as was Soodmand’s successor in Mashad, Mohammad Sepehr.55 On August 21, 2008, Soodmand’s thirty-five-year-old son, Ramtin Soodmand, was arrested, as were four other Christians.56 Reverend Mehdi Dibaj was arrested in 1979 and 1983 and, without trial or charges, spent ten years in prison, several of them in solitary confinement, and was tortured and faced mock executions.57 His wife, who was threatened with death by stoning unless she denied her faith, divorced Dibaj and married a fundamentalist Muslim.58 Dibaj was released on January 16, 1994, due to international pressure and internal lobbying. However, on July 5, 1994, his body was found in a forest west of Tehran, and his family’s request for an independent autopsy was rejected. Twelve years after Dibaj’s murder, on September 26, 2006, authorities arrested his daughter, Fereshteh Dibaj, and her husband, Reza Montazami, at their home in Mashhad, where they operated an independent church.59

  Just three days after Dibaj’s release, his friend Haik Hovsepian Mehr, secretary-general of the Assemblies of God and Chairman of the Council of Protestant Ministers of Iran, disappeared in Tehran. The police subsequently claimed that they discovered his body in the street and, being unable to identify it, buried him immediately in a Muslim cemetery.60 In 2001, it was revealed that Saeed Emami, Vice Minister at the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security (SAWAMA), had ordered Mehr’s murder along with other activists and authors.61 Mehr’s positions were taken over by Rev. Tateos Mikaelian, who disappeared on June 29, 1994. His body was found shot in the head execution-style.62

  Recent Cases Involving Christian Converts

  As with other religious minorities, persecution of converts has increased in recent years.63 In May 2008, there were ten arrests in connection with converts, including Mohsen Namvar, who had been arrested in 2007 and tortured for baptizing Muslim converts. He was arrested again in May 2008 and so severely tortured that he continued to suffer fever, severe back pain, high blood pressure, uncontrollable shaking of his limbs, and short-term memory loss. He and his family have subsequently found refuge in Turkey. Eight other converts were also arrested that month in Shiraz and later released.64

  On July 26, 2008, Ministry of Intelligence and National Security agents attacked a house-church in the town of Malak, in the suburbs of Isfahan, arresting eight men, six women, and two children. The detainees included a couple in their sixties, who were savagely beaten and had to be taken to intensive care in Shariati Hospital in Isfahan. They died shortly thereafter. On August 9, 2008, a Christian Kurd, Shahin Zanboori, was arrested in the southwestern city of Arak. To obtain information on other converts, Zanboori says police hung him from the ceiling and beat his feet. His arm and leg were broken during interrogations.65 One young woman convert, who used the pseudonym Caty, was beaten so severely by her family that she is at risk o
f permanent disability from spinal injury.66

  In recent years, arrests of Christian converts seem to have accelerated. In the wake of ten Christians’ arrests in Tehran in January 2009, one source in that city said that “there are more arrests, of Christians as well as Baha’i, in the last several months among them than in maybe the whole 30 years before.”67 According to one Tehran pastor, arrests follow a predictable pattern of leaders being thrown in prison, beaten in order to obtain information on other converts, and then released after a few weeks.68 The summer of 2009 saw a wave of arrests of Christians. Ten Christian converts were arrested in Shiraz in June 2009, eight were arrested in Rasht on July 29 and 30, and twenty-four were arrested in Amameh on July 31. Seven of the latter group were jailed in Evin prison until September 2, when they posted deeds to their houses as bail and were released.69

  On March 5, two Christian converts, Maryam Rostampour, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, 30, were jailed in Evin prison on charges of “acting against state security” and “taking part in illegal gatherings.” On August 9, they appeared in court, where the judge asked them to return to Islam and, when they refused, ordered that they be returned to their prison cells “to think about it.” Authorities failed to provide needed medical care for Esmaeilabad, who suffers from spinal pain, an infected tooth, and severe headaches. The two women were acquitted of “anti-state activities” on October 7, but charges of apostasy and propagating Christianity, to be handled by a different court, remained pending. They were released without bail, an unusual development in such a case, on November 18, 2009 and, in May 2010, were acquitted of all charges. However, they were told that if they continued with Christian activities, they would be punished, and, on May 22, they fled the country.70

  The crackdown continued into 2010. Seven Christians were arrested in Shiraz on January 11, 2010, and, with the exception of one not born Muslim, told they had committed apostasy.71 On February 2, 2010, Pastor Wilson Eisavi of the Assyrian Evangelical Church in Kermanshah, was arrested, tortured, and charged with baptizing Muslims. He was released temporarily, but his church has been compelled to close.72 In mid 2011, evangelical pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was sentenced to death for apostasy.

  The Jewish Community

  Jewish history in Iran dates back to the Babylonian Exile, but after the establishment of Israel in 1948, many Iranian Jews immigrated to Israel. As of 1979, about 80,000 remained, but of those, around 20,000 emigrated within months of the Islamic Revolution. By the late 1980s, the population was estimated to be about 20,000 to 30,000. Although the Iranian constitution in principle recognizes Jews as a legitimate religious minority and grants them the right to practice their faith freely, since the revolution, they have been one of Iran’s most persecuted minorities.

  Since the Islamic Revolution, about thirteen Jews have been executed, most accused of spying for Israel or the United States. Another fourteen have disappeared, allegedly while in the custody of the Revolutionary Guards, and at least four have been murdered, probably by groups such as Ansar. The government has never seriously pursued the perpetrators of these murders. Hundreds of other Jews have been arrested on vague charges and live under constant surveillance. The regime has often killed or imprisoned Jews based on accusations that they have supported or engaged in espionage for Israel. Zionism is a crime, and Zionists are treated as traitors and criminals.73 The regime has long promoted anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.74 Ahmadinejad has also, famously, called for Israel itself to be “wiped off the map.”75 The Islamic regime has created conditions in which the Jewish community and its representative in Parliament practice self-censorship and are extremely reluctant to speak about their situation.

  While few Jews have been charged explicitly with blasphemy or apostasy, the regime’s loose use of these and related terms indicates that Jews are persecuted, in part, as guilty or potentially guilty of religious crimes. In the case of Habib Elqanian, this was made explicit. Elqanian, a Jewish community leader, was executed on May 9, 1979. Apart from espionage and support for Israel, the charges against him included: “(1) Friendship with the enemies of God; hostility towards the friends of God.… (4) Spending funds and benefits which have been derived from the exploitation of Iranians to construct belligerent usurper Israel, which is against Islam and God. (5) Corruption on earth in the form of destroying society’s human resources. (6) Fighting against God, the Prophet, the Representative of the Twelfth Imam, and against our disinherited people. (7) Obstructing the way of God and the way towards happiness for all the disinherited people in the world. Obstructing Islamic and human values. (8) Corruption on earth.…” Amnesty International notes that the charges include the only instance known “of a non-Muslim being charged with a Qur’anic offence. Part Three of the indictment against him reads: ‘Taking into consideration [the text of parts one and two of the indictment] and applying specified and unspecified verses of the Holy Qur’an…and other words transmitted by the Tradition of the saints it is requested that the defendant be sentenced to death and that his property and that of his family be confiscated.’” The government Tribunal ordered the confiscation of the defendant’s property and that of his immediate family, and he was executed within hours of being sentenced.76

  Zoroastrians

  Though Khamenei has referred to them as kaffers (infidels), Iran’s Zoroastrians are recognized as a religious minority under Article 13 of the 1979 (amended 1989) constitution; and, as a “people of the book,” a “heavenly religion,” with secondary dhimmi status, they have some protection and receive somewhat better treatment than some other religious minorities. Also, since Zoroastrians usually do not seek converts, they generally do not suffer from the individual and communal repression that the regime visits on people suspected of “proselytising” Muslims.77 However, in 1978, Khomeini described the Shah’s regime as an “anti-Islamic regime that wishes to revive Zoroastrianism.”78 They, too, are regarded as unclean; have fewer legal rights than Muslims; are barred from the higher ranks of the executive, legal, or judicial branches of government, as well as, of course, groups such as the Council of Guardians; and must take exams in Islamic theology in order to gain higher education. Government agents frequently plaster their temples and schools with portraits of Shia dignitaries in place of depictions of the Zoroastrian prophet, Zarathustra, even though Zoroastrian monuments are often protected because of their place in Iran’s cultural heritage.79

  In November 2005, when members of Iran’s minority religious communities were pushing discreetly for less discrimination against their members, Khamenei’s aide, Ayatollah Ahmed Jannati, Chairman of the Council of Guardians and an advisor to Ahmadinejad, denounced non-Muslims as “animals who roam the Earth and engage in corruption.” In response, Kourosh Niknam, the Zoroastrian member of the legislature, rebuked him, saying, “Non-Muslims not only are not beasts, but if Iran has a glorious past and a civilization to be proud of then all Iranians owe those to the people whose ancestors lived here before the advent of Islam.… Those who sully the Earth are humans who do not show respect for the other creatures of God.” Niknam was ordered to be tried by a tribunal of the Revolutionary Courts on charges of failing to show respect toward Iran’s leaders and of disseminating false information. He escaped with a warning that this time Muslims were being tolerant but that they might not be so in the future.80

  Sunni Muslims

  Sunni Muslims, totaling approximately six million, compose the largest religious minority in Iran and pose a problem for the authorities, since the government maintains that Shia Islam is the basis of the regime and, indeed, of all human relationships. The regime generally does not use the same repressive tactics against Sunnis that it uses against other minorities, since this might harm Iran’s relations with other Islamic countries. However, Shia zealots who practice widespread discrimination against Sunnis have not been restrained, nor has anti-Sunni violence been punished. On April 27, 2010, the government banned Sunnis from holding prayers at state un
iversities and military camps and earlier forbade communal Friday prayers held in homes in Isfahan, Shiraz, Kerman, and Yazd.81 The situation of Sunni minorities is further complicated by the fact that they tend to be ethnic minorities such as Turkmen, Arabs, Baluchs, and Kurds, living in the southwest, southeast, and northwest. The line between ethnic persecution and religious persecution can be blurred, and so-called ethnic attacks may include forms of religious repression and vice versa.82

  After Ahmadinejad became president in 2005, a number of mass demonstrations and uprisings took place among Sunni minorities, and all were severely sup pressed by security forces. Arab Iranians in Khuzestan demonstrated peacefully between September 2005 and January 2006 to protest economic deprivation and discrimination. Seven were killed when security forces repressed the demonstrations, and thirteen were executed after a one-day trial on charges of having taken part in bombings.83 On July 6, 2005, Kurdish activist Shivan Qaderi was killed in Mahabad by security forces. He had been dragged behind a car, and, when photographs of his mutilated body were spread on the Internet in August 2005, there were massive demonstrations and rioting in Iranian Kurdistan. Protesters demanded that Qaderi’s murderers be arrested and tried; at least seventeen people died when government forces responded by firing live ammunition. Authorities also detained other prominent Kurdish journalists and activists.84