The Shi'ite Leopard: Iran's Religious Persecution
by Denis MacEoin
October 25, 2015 at 5:00 am
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6671/iran-religious-persecution Despite promises of amelioration from Iran's current President, Hassan Rouhani, the situation for Christians has not improved at all.
Rouhani, came to power as a proponent of human rights and reform, and has been considered a reformer and moderate in the West ever since. He made countless declarations of his intention to pursue a human rights agenda and guarantee equal rights for all Iranians: Every one of those promises has been broken, yet the U.S. continues to put faith in Rouhani as an honest broker.
"Christians continue to be arbitrarily arrested... [They] disappear for weeks at a time... Detainees are sometimes told they must to convert to Islam or their families will be killed." -- Ruth Gledhill, journalist
Even though many Sufi Muslims are fervently pious in their devotion to the faith of the Shi'a, clerics in Qom declared Sufis to be apostates and attempted to expel them from the town and to take over their religious centre.
The document organized the methods of oppression used to persecute the Baha'is, and contained specific recommendations. When Iranian judges offer the Bahai's life in exchange for abandonment of faith it is a clear admission of a purely religious motive.
Why do so many Western states and the UN condemn Israel while bending over backwards to accommodate every demand Iran makes in its bid to build nuclear weapons, expand its terrorist influence, and threaten the West?
In the wake of the infamous nuclear deal with the hard-line Iranian regime, countries around the world, led by U.S. President Barack Obama, are busy trying to bring the Islamic Republic, so long sanctioned and held at arm's length by decent people, in from the cold. Business deals beckon, great claims are made of coming dialogue and a slackening of the tensions of the Middle East. We are told that war has been avoided.
But has the Shi'ite leopard, overnight, truly changed its spots? It still executes more people per capita than China, it still supports and conducts terrorist activities in several countries, its leaders still preach hatred for America, Israel, and the West. In reality, nothing has changed, yet the theocratic, human-rights-denying regime is now to be everybody's best buddy.
An important indicator of Iran's unfitness to be counted among the nations as a legitimate actor must be its treatment of its many minorities, above all its religious minorities. As with Saudi Arabia, the theocratic character of the state is most clearly exposed when it comes to its treatment of religions and sects that are not held by the majority. A strict interpretation and application of Islamic law unfailingly leads to disrespect for and harshness towards non-Muslims.
Iran's current president, Hassan Rouhani, came to power as a proponent of human rights and reform, and has been considered a reformer and moderate in the West ever since. During his election campaign, he made countless declarations of his intention to pursue a human rights agenda. On April 11, 2013, he said: "All Iranian people should feel there is justice. Justice means equal opportunity. All ethnicities, all religions, even religious minorities, must feel justice." In a Press TV interview that August, he repeated that his administration would guarantee equal rights for all Iranians: "no authority should differentiate between various ethnicities, religions, minorities and followers of different faiths." Every one of those promises has been broken, yet the U.S administration continues to put faith in Rouhani as an honest broker.
Twelver Shi'ism, which has been the official faith of Iran since the 16th century, has itself been a persecuted religion wherever its adherents have lived under Sunni rule. It was imposed on the population of Iran by the Safavid dynasty (1502-1736), and during the nineteenth century, its clerical hierarchy grew steadily more powerful. Despite setbacks in the twentieth century, the clerical elite came to supreme power during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Since the Shi'a are a minority in the Islamic world overall, they are deeply conscious of a need to clamp down on any other religious movements that might threaten to destabilize their rule.
Ironically, Iran is also home to a variety of religious communities, the most notable being the Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Sufis, and the indigenous Baha'i religion. Jews, who had lived in Iran for some 2,500 years, numbered between 60,000 and 80,000 in 1978; after the revolution the following year, two-thirds of the community went abroad. The 2011 census showed less than 9000 Jews left in Iran. It has just been reported that the last synagogue in Borujerd, once home for a significant Jewish community, had to close because there was not a minyan, a minimum prayer quorum of ten men.
Iran's regime has tried to portray itself as tolerant towards Jews, but its fanatical hatred for Israel and Zionism has often exposed the community to accusations of espionage, arrests, and executions. Outwardly, Iranian Jews are not particularly molested, and are represented by a single Member of Parliament. They operate synagogues and ritual baths, celebrate festivals, and are granted the status of dhimmi people: protected by an Islamic government in return for discriminatory debasing requirements. The tolerance, however, is apparently skin deep, with anti-Zionism lying near the surface.[1]
The second of Iran's dhimmi faiths, Christianity, has not fared as well. The total number of Christians in Iran (of all denominations) has been estimated at between 200,000 and 250,000. Ninety percent of these belong to long-standing indigenous churches, for Armenians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans. They do not seek converts and are relatively unmolested. But churches that have links to foreign countries are treated harshly. According to Minority Rights International:
"The Protestants, and particularly evangelical groups, face the most difficulties from amongst the Christian communities in Iran. Human Rights Watch estimated their numbers at around 10,000-15,000 in 2002. Churches have been closed down, the use of Persian in sermons banned, the publishing of Bibles restricted and Muslims strictly prohibited from attending sermons, with previous converts from Islam being put under particular surveillance. A number of Christian leaders have been killed or found murdered since the early 1990s: Assemblies of God Minister Bishop Haik Hovsepian Mehr was found stabbed to death in 1994; Reverend Mehdi Dibaj, pastor of the Church of the Assemblies of God, a convert from Islam 41 years previously, was released from prison in January 1994 but found dead by the authorities on July 2 that year; Reverend Tateos Michaelian, found murdered in July 1994; pastor Mohammad Bagher Yusefi, disappeared and was found dead in 1996, and pastor Ghorban Dordi Tourani was found dead in 2005.
Respected religious affairs journalist Ruth Gledhill has argued that, despite promises of amelioration from the current President, Hasan Rouhani, the situation for Christians has not improved at all. By the end of 2014, over 90 Christians were behind bars. Gledhill writes:
"Christians continue to be arbitrarily arrested and interrogated because of their faith. Some face 'severe physical and psychological torture' during detention, and simple prayer or Bible study meetings are regarded as political activities that threaten the national security of Iran.
...
"Christians disappear for weeks at a time while they are interrogated. They are held in solitary and questioned nightly, for hours at a time, beginning just after midnight. A key goal of the security services is to find and remove any New Testaments from the homes of Christians. Detainees are sometimes told they must to convert to Islam or their families will be killed."[2]
Despite such threats, it has been claimed by some missionary organizations that thousands of Iranian Muslims are converting to Christianity, resulting in a growth rate of 20% per annum. Mohammed Zamir, a church leader in the UK for expatriate Iranians, has stated that hundreds of thousands of Iranians are converting to Christianity, out of control of the authorities. These claims need to be taken with a pinch of salt. The longest-lasting and most indigenous faith in the country is, of course, the ancient Zoroastrian religion, founded by the Iranian prophet Zardosht (Zarathustra, Zoroaster) somewhere between 1700 and 500 BCE, but traditionally dated to around 600 BCE. Until modern times, the religion has remained largely confined to Iran and India (where Zoroastrians are known as Parsis, having moved to the sub-continent from Iran from the 8th to 10th centuries to avoid persecution by the Muslim newcomers).[3] Although the Qur'an mainly speaks of Jews and Christians when it refers to "the people of the book" (Ahl al-kitab), one verse (22:17) speaks of the Magis (al-Majus): "As for the believers [the Muslims], those who follow the Jewish religion, the Sabaeans, the Christians, the Magians, and the idol worshippers, God will decide between them on the Last Day."
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