Two Iranian Christians Sentenced for Involvement in ‘Zionist Christianity’
by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Two Christians in the northern Iranian city of Rasht had their sentences upheld after losing their cases in an Iranian court of appeals.
Zaman Saheb Fadaei and Fatimeh Bakhteri received sentences of eighteen and twelve months in prison in September for “propagating house churches,” “promoting Zionist Christianity,” and “spreading propaganda against the regime,” with Fadei having been dragged to Evin Prison, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry’s notorious torture chamber, last Summer.
According to a 2016 UK Home Office Report, “almost 71 kinds of tortures are reported by political prisoners who were personally victims of these brutal methods” at Evin Prison. What is more, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports that 60% of the Christians arrested in Iran are languishing there.
In a speech in early May, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi acknowledged the spread of Christianity in his country, which celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Islamic revolutionary takeover in February.
“It is not the job of the intelligence community to find the roots of these conversions. But it’s happening right before our eyes,” he said before an assembly of Islamic clerics and seminary students in Qom.
Iran is number nine on Open Door’s USA’s World Watch List 2019 for the worst persecutors of Christians worldwide, yet is reported to have one of the highest rates of conversions to Christianity.
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