Iran: Christians forced to have lessons with clerics to return to Islam
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Iranian government authorities have ordered a group of ten Christian converts to undergo compulsory lessons with Muslim clerics who will try to make them see they were “misled” into the wrong faith and lead them back to Islam, Christian Persecution (CP) report.
The ten Christians from the city of Dezful had been interrogated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in November, and had been cleared of criminal wrongdoing: it was found they had not carried out “propaganda against other groups” and were only guilty of “apostasy,” which is not a criminal offense in Iran.
Nevertheless, the believers were told they must attend lessons with Islamic clerics who will “guide them back onto the right path,” Christian Persecution reports. The forcing of these lessons is “a clear breach of their rights under the international covenants to which Iran is a signatory,” Christian Persecution noted in its report.
Iran ranks nine on the Open Doors USA Watch List 2022 of top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted. “Converts from Islam to Christianity are most at risk of persecution, especially by the government and to a lesser extent by society and their own families,” the Christian advocacy group Open Doors USA said in a website statement about Iran.
“The government sees the growth of the church in Iran as an attempt by Western countries to undermine Islam and the Islamic regime of Iran,” Open Doors said.
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