ICC Note: As Iranian Christians are about to celebrate the Persian New Year, there is a feeling of despair as dozens of Christians remain in prison. Evangelical Churches and Christians are facing an intense crackdown, as bad as at any other time in the history of the Islamic Republic. While some names are known, unfortunately many Iranian Christians suffer persecution without ever being able to share their story.
03/19/2014 Iran (FCNN) – As Iran and Iranians across the world prepare to celebrate Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, there is much despair in the country. The great excitement and euphoria surrounding the election of President Rouhani, followed by the much-anticipated agreement and easing of tension with the West, is now giving way to sadness and disillusion. Evangelical churches and Christians are facing the harshest crackdown in the history of the Islamic Republic.
Today news was released by the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) about the current situation regarding Pastor Saeed Abedini.
For the past week and a half, he has undergone various tests and received much needed nourishment. This had been a very positive development and much needed reprieve for Pastor Saeed. Today, that all changed. This morning Iranian guards lashed out violently against Pastor Saeed and an elderly relative who had been able to visit him in the hospital. Pastor Saeed was pinned down and shackled. His elderly relative was roughly handled and expelled from the hospital.
The guards stated that they had a court order banning visitors and instructing that he be shackled at all times. Hospital doctors also told Pastor Saeed that he must leave the hospital and return to prison. They are refusing to provide him with anything more than mere pain medication. They have denied him surgery – the only treatment that will help. They have even denied him test results.
While this is what happens to an American passport holder for whom the US Senate, the White House and the foreign ministers of so many countries intervene and President Rouhani’s government nods in favour, it would not be hard to imagine what is happening to many Iranian Christians incarcerated in prisons from Zahedan to Tabriz, from Mashad to Abadan and for whom no foreign power intercedes!
There are also no words for Pastors such as Rev. Leonard Keshishian, Rev. Vartan Avanessian, Rev. Robert Asserian and Rev. Armik Shahnazari, who have been forcibly deported from Iran. In the latter’s case it was a move out of desperation, while Pastors Vartan and Robert were kindly offered the alternative choices of becoming ‘spies’ for the regime or imprisonment. This reflects a wider policy that effectively amounts to the enforced deportation of the Christian community, as we have seen already take place in Iraq and Syria.
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