Article 18<\/a> reported that at least one of the Christians was tortured physically.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Iranian government has closed Persian-language churches and harassed Christians by attacking their homes and house churches, Mohabat stated. Christians are routinely accused of promoting \u201cZionist Christianity,\u201d \u201cmembership in groups opposed to the regime\u201d to \u201cdisturb national security,\u201d and \u201cattracting Muslims to house churches.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGovernment courts have repeatedly imprisoned Christians on such charges without providing evidence or documentation,\u201d Mohabat reported. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Islamic courts handed down six times more prison time to persecuted Christians in 2024 than the previous year, according to Article 18. Iranian courts last year sentenced 96 Christians across the country to 263 years in prison for practicing their faith \u2013 compared with 22 Christians sentenced to a total of 43 years in 2023, the group stated in its annual report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The increase in years of prison happened largely as cases from a 2023 crackdown on home churches finally worked their way through the Iranian legal system at the same time courts handed down lengthy sentences to five Christians, according to the report, entitled, \u201cThe Tip of the Iceberg.\u201d Four converts were sentenced to 10 years each in prison for \u201cengaging in missionary activities\u201d and \u201cconducting activities against national security.\u201d Another Christian was given a 15-year prison sentence for \u201cundermining national security and promoting Zionist Christianity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least 139 Christians were arrested last year on issues related to their faith. Those arrested increasingly found themselves charged under Article 500, amended in 2021 to include longer prison sentences. The Iranian judicial system also handed down nearly $800,000 in fines in an attempt break the backs of \u201cdissident\u201d church groups, according to the report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Article 18 cautioned that religious freedom violations in Iran are actually much greater than is publicly known. Article 18 and other advocacy groups analyzed data following the release of more than 3 million case files from the Tehran judiciary that were heard between 2008 and 2023. The files were obtained and released in 2024 by the \u201chacktivist\u201d group Edalat-e Ali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Iranian government has long denied persecution of Christians as it portrays itself as a respectable player on the world stage, and the analysis of the judicial files is seen as a \u201csmoking gun\u201d to be used against the regime\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iran ranked ninth on Christian support organization Open Doors\u2019 2025 World Watch List (WWL) of the 50 countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. The report noted that despite persecution, \u201cthe church in Iran is growing steadily.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An appeals court in Iran has upheld the prison sentences of five Christian converts convicted of \u201cpropaganda\u201d related to their Christian activities, according to organizations monitoring the country. Branch 36<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[124,109],"class_list":["post-8600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rights-watch","tag-featured-small","tag-rights-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8602,"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8600\/revisions\/8602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iranreport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}