UPDATE: Amil Imani: The Islamic Republic of Iran Reality Check
The Iranian people are calling for help and much of the world either turns a
deaf ear or feels it has its own priorities to worry about. Then, the horrors
keep playing out, unabated, in the streets, prisons and dungeons of the Islamic
Republic of Iran. A reality check.
And who, in the world community and in the UN, speaks for Christians?
Amid a violent crackdown on protestors and a purge of opponents within the
Iranian government, more than 30 Christians were arrested in the last two weeks
near Tehran and in the northern city of Rasht.
Two waves of arrests near Tehran happened within days of each other, and
while most of those detained—all converts from Islam—were held just a day for
questioning, a total of eight Christians still remain in prison.
On July 31 police raided a special Christian meeting 15 miles north of Tehran
in the village of Amameh in the area of Fashan. A Compass source said about 24
Christians, all converts from Islam, had gathered in a private home. In the
afternoon police squads in both plain clothes and uniform raided and arrested
everyone present.
"Many people stormed the villa, and in the same day they took everything,"
said the source, a Christian Iranian who requested anonymity.
All present were taken by private car to their residences, where police took
all their passports, documents, cash, CDs, computers and mobile phones, and from
there to the police station.
"There were many cars so they could take each person with a car to their
house from the meeting," said the source. "Think of how many cars were there to
arrest them. And they took all their books, PCs, CDs mobile phones,
everything."
While most of them were released the same evening, seven of them – Shahnam
Behjatollah, and six others identified only as Shaheen, Maryam, Mobinaa, Mehdi,
Ashraf and Nariman – all remain in detention in an unknown location. They have
no contact with their family members.
Police have questioned each of their families and told them to prepare to pay
bail. In the case of Behjatollah, for whom police had a warrant, authorities
showed his family the official order for his arrest and told them they "knew all
about him," according to the source. Behjatollah is 34 years old, married and
has a 6-year-old daughter.
The second wave of arrests of some of the same Christians near Tehran took
place on Friday.
"They brought the released members for interrogation to the secret police
again, to get more information about their movements," said the source.
In Rasht, a total of eight Christians belonging to the same network were
arrested on July 29 and 30 in two separate rounds of arrest. Seven were
released, while one, a male, remains in the city's prison. Compass sources were
unable to comment on the conditions of their arrest.
Two Women Asked to Recant
On Sunday two Christian women appeared before a judge who asked them if they
would deny their newfound faith and return to Islam.
Maryam Rostampour, 27, and Marzieh Amirizadeh Esmaeilabad, 30, have been held
in the notorious Evin prison since March 5 accused of "acting against state
security" and "taking part in illegal gatherings." In a short court session, the
judge asked them if they were going to deny their faith and return to Islam,
reported the Farsi Christian News Network (FCNN).
As both women refused to recant their faith, the judge sent them back to
their prison cells "to think about it," according to a source who spoke with
family members.
"When they said, ‘Think about it,' it means you are going back to jail," said
the source. "This is something we say in Iran. It means: ‘Since you're not
sorry, you'll stay in jail for a long time, and maybe you'll change your
mind.'"
The source said the first goal of judges in such cases is usually to make
"apostates" deny their faith through threats or by sending them back to prison
for a longer time.
"This is what they said to Mehdi Dibaj, who was in prison for 10 years and
martyred in 1994," said the source about one of Iran's well-known Christian
martyrs. "The charge against them is apostasy [leaving Islam]."
FCNN reported that in the last five months the women have been unwell and
have lost much weight. Esmaeilabad suffers from spinal pain, an infected tooth
and intense headaches and is in need of medical attention. None has been
provided so far.
With a draft penal code that may include an article mandating death for
apostates in accordance to shariah (Islamic law) expected to be reviewed once
again this fall when the parliamentary session begins, experts on Iran fear
things may get worse for the country's converts from Islam.
Dr. Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, a senior fellow with the European Foundation for
Democracy, wrote in www.Iranpresswatch.org last month that false hopes have
arisen from a statement by the chairman of the Majlis Legal Affairs Committee,
Hojatoleslam Ali Schahroki, that a provision for mandatory death penalty for
apostates had been stricken from the bill. The Council of Guardians and Iran's
Supreme Leader, he wrote, have the final say on capital punishment for leaving
Islam.
"Recent political events in Iran have ushered in a new phase in the emergence
of a totalitarian dictatorship," he wrote. "Pressure on Iranian Christians is
growing just as foreign powers are being blamed for rioting that broke out due
to the electoral fraud. The argument on the influence of foreign powers is well
known to Iranian Christians."
Fury
Public allegations that detainees have been tortured, abused, killed and most
recently – according to a top opposition official – raped in custody have fueled
fury in Iran and spurred powerful conservative Ali Larijani to comment that a
parliament committee would investigate the reports, reported The Associated
Press.
At least four senior Intelligence Ministry figures were fired in an effort to
purge officials who are opposed to the crackdown on protestors and opposition
following last month's disputed presidential elections, the AP reported
yesterday.
Iranian sources said that the long-standing rift in the government between
liberal and conservative factions is widening and becoming more apparent, and
the two sides are in a battle of words and ideas in mass media for the first
time in Iran's history.
"Everything is in the newspaper," the Christian Iranian source told Compass.
"We have never had such a thing … the point is that now all these old problems
that were inside the government between liberals and fundamentalists are coming
out, and we can see them on TV, radio, newspaper, the public media in the
country. It isn't something we're guessing anymore. It's something you can see
and read."
The source said the crackdown on protestors and recent mass arrests are the
sign of a weak government trying to show it is in control of a country roiled by
discontent.
"Everyone now is saying is that the government is having problems inside so
they have lost the control," the source said. "So what they did in the last
couple of weeks is that they arrested people … minority religions, Baha'i and
Christians."
On July 31, a Christian man traveling overseas from the Tehran International
airport was stopped for questioning because he was wearing a black shirt, a
Compass source said. The colors black and green have become associated with
opposition to the government, and those wearing them are suspected of
ideologically agreeing with the protestors.
The authorities found his Bible after a questioning and searching. He was
taken to a room where there were others waiting, all wearing green and black
shirts. Authorities confiscated his passport and have opened a case against him
for carrying the Bible, said the source.
Although there has been no mention of Christians being tortured in the most
recent arrests, an increase in executions of persons under the commonly
fabricated charges of drug abuse and trafficking bodes ill for the future of
those in Iranian prisons. As detainees are allowed neither legal counsel nor
communication with their families, their conditions are nearly unknown.
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