by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Cracking down on Christianity it perceives as a threat to its authoritarian power, Iran’s Islamic regime last year arrested a record number of Christians across the country, targeting Bible distributors in particular, the Christian Post (CP) reports.
In a joint annual report published Monday, the Christian advocacy groups Article 18, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Open Doors, and Middle East Concern said Iranian Christians had been among other minority religious communities targeted by the government and that they had faced a surge of arbitrary arrests that came in “waves” across numerous Iranian cities including Tehran.
The arrests were arbitrary, according to the report’s authors. “The arbitrary nature of these arrests is illustrated by the fact that arrestees who were eventually coerced into signing commitments to refrain from Christian activities no longer faced further legal action,” the report reads. Notably, a third of those arrested had multiple copies of the Bible, CP reports.
A few Christians were arrested before June last year, but this number shot up to over 100 arrests in three months over the summer, with a "rash” of arrests coming over Christmas 2023, the report said. In addition to imprisonment, the authorities carried out floggings and imposed forced labor among those they arrested.
"By the end of 2023, at least 17 of the Christians arrested during the summer had received prison sentences of between three months and five years, or non-custodial punishments such as fines, flogging, and in one case the community service of digging graves, on charges of 'propaganda against the state,'" the report said.
In a statement to the Christian Post, Steve Dew-Jones, news director for the UK-based Article 18 Christian persecution watchdog, said he believed the spike in arrests last year was directly connected to the anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini: the 22-year-old was arrested in Sept. 2022 for wearing her hijab improperly and died after being beaten up in police custody. "We do believe it was deliberate," Dew-Jones told CP. "The regime has its methods for staying in power, and they're pretty ruthless.
Iran ranks 9th on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.