Iran arrests 16 Christian converts
Published: Wednesday, July 30, 2008
01:23GMT—9:23PM/EST
IRAN – CHRISTIANS – BAHA’IS
Washington, 30 July (IranVNC)—The Christian Persian-language News Network yesterday reported that Iran’s security forces on 26 July arrested 16 Iranian Christians who had converted from Islam, in Malekshahr, on the outskirts of Iran’s central city of Esfahan.
ADN Kronos International confirmed that the 16 individuals – six women, eight men and two teenagers – were arrested. The individuals were reportedly assisting in a conversion ceremony in a private house that had been made into a church.
In April, ten Muslim converts to Christianity in Shiraz were arrested.
According to the Christian Persian-language News Network, Iranian officials had previously cautioned church officials against aiding in conversions.
“Security forces in Malekshahr Esfahan have warned the officials of the city’s Episcopalian church that they must prevent those born as Muslim from entering the church, and that they must not help Muslims change their religion,” the report wrote.
Under Islamic law, conversion from Islam is punishable by death.
Iranian officials have not yet confirmed or denied this news.
Also yesterday, the American television news network, CNN, quoted the Baha’i International Community as reporting a rise in arson attacks this summer on homes and cars belonging to Baha’is in the Iranian provinces of Kerman, Esfahan and Fars.
According to this report, Iran has seen a rise in arson attacks on Baha’i houses since the arrest in May of the seven leaders of the country’s Baha’i community.
“Such arson attacks would be a natural outcome of the government’s most recent campaign to vilify and attack the Baha’i community, disparaging them and their beliefs in the press with a spate of anti-Baha’i articles in the government-run press and arresting several of the community’s leaders on still-unspecified charges,” CNN quoted Human Rights Watch Middle East Director Sarah Leah Whitson as saying.
According to Bani Dugal, principal representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations, there have been at least 12 cases of arson targeting the property of Baha’is during the last 15 months, including the house of a family in Kerman on 18 July.
“Their only hope is that enough voices of protests are raised around the world to compel the government in Iran to put an end to this violence,” the Baha’i World News Service quoted Dugal as saying.
Sources: Christian Persian-language News Network website, Baha’i World News Service, CNN, ADN Kronos International
© IranVNC 2008. All rights reserved.
(Original article written in Persian.)