By Christian Today
Five Christians charged with blasphemy are to stand trial in a lower court in Iran. They were first arrested in June last year on charges of apostasy, holding political meetings, and committing blasphemy and crimes against the Islamic Order.Pastor Behrouz Sadegh-Khandjani, Mehdi Furutan, Mohammad Beliad, Parviz Khalaj and Nazly Beliad are due to appear before the court in two weeks, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
The Revolutionary Court in Shiraz found the five men guilty of crimes against the Islamic Order and sentenced them to one year’s imprisonment.
They served eight months of their sentence before being released in February on bail.
Their lawyer has appealed the one-year prison sentence and a decision is pending. It had been presumed that the other charges against the men had been dropped but a source close to them confirmed that they are to stand trial for blasphemy.
CSW’s national director, Stuart Windsor, said he was “dismayed” by the charges levelled against the group.
“The international community must press Iran not only to rescind the unjust punishments to which these Christians have already been subjected, but also acquit them at the upcoming trial,” he said.
CSW said the situation for Christians in Iran was worsening, with churches finding it difficult to hold meetings and many considering leaving the country.
Amid the crackdown on Christians, the UN human rights council voted on Thursday to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran.
The council noted "the lack of cooperation on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran" over ongoing and recurring human rights violations as well as an increase in executions this year.
The council noted "the lack of cooperation on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran" over ongoing and recurring human rights violations as well as an increase in executions this year.
Meanwhile, U.K.-based human rights group CSW is also drawing attention to Yousef Nadarkhani, the leader of a church network in Rasht, who was arrested in 2009 after he objected to the practice of forcing Christian school students – including his own children – to read the Quran. He argued that the Iranian constitution gives parents the right to raise children in their own faith.
He was sentenced to death for apostasy. As there are no articles in the Iranian legal code criminalizing apostasy, the judge based his ruling on texts by Iranian religious scholars.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has urged the Obama administration to demand that Iran release the Christian pastor.
USCIRF Chair Leonard Leo said Nadarkhani's case was "evidence that there is no transparency or justice in Iran’s so-called legal system for religious minorities."
Nadarkhani remains in prison and his fate is uncertain as he awaits the outcome of an appeal filed at the Supreme Court last December. A hearing is due to take place in the next two months.
Windsor of CSW called on Iran to guarantee religious freedom for all its citizens.
“We are concerned that the judgement handed down in Pastor Nadarkhani’s case did not follow due procedure under Iranian law," he said. “As a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Iran has an obligation to uphold international standards of religious freedom for all its citizens, to follow due process and refrain from arbitrary judicial rulings based on open-ended legislation.”
The covenant was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1966. The provisions include the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
Christians are recognized as a "protected" religious minority in Iran but the government severely restricts freedom of religion as the fourth article of the constitution states that all laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria. According to U.N. figures, out of the 67 million people living in the country, only 300,000 are Christian.
8 comments:
Before we start getting posts talking about how Islam is persecuting Christians etc., let me just mention that this has nothing to do with Islam. This is a political action dressed up in religious debate. Islam teaches tolerance and love and righteousness. Everything else we hear and read about is either the misguided ramblings of extremists or political actions against the west dressed up in religion. To say this has to do with Islam would be as offensive to true Muslims as it would be offensive to true Christians to say that all Christians today support the Jewish holocaust and slavery, and condone the murder of those who disagree with them. There is a minority of Christians who do agree with that, but they are a minority and are extremists and do not understand or represent the Christian faith.
Let us make no mistake - this story is about politics - pure and simple. Not religion.
Graeme Randall
Former Australian East
Are we reading the same article Graeme?
"Christians are recognized as a "protected" religious minority in Iran but the government severely restricts freedom of religion as the fourth article of the constitution states that all laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria."
You wrote: "Before we start getting posts talking about how Islam is persecuting Christians etc., let me just mention that this has nothing to do with Islam."
All laws and regulations in Iran must be based on Islamic criteria....
Thanks for keeping us up-to-date, on target and on a wide and divergent number of topics Sven!
Active officer
USA East
Exactly!! and as I said - Islam is about tolerance, understanding, love etc. A judgement or policy that denies one the right to worship as he or she sees fit, that persecutes a religious minority etc., has nothing to do with Islam, and is against the policies of a true Islamic Government. As I said, this story has nothing to do with Islam persecuting Christians - it is a political story.
Graeme Randall
Former Australian East.
Thirty years ago the pro-Western Iranian constitutional monarchy was overthrown and the nation became the Islamic Republic of Iran, ruled by a non-elected religious Supreme Leader who is addressed as "Ayatollah. Iran is a fundamentalist religious regime and where women are educated and can legally vote but can be subject to arrests, beatings, and imprisonment, a country where youth who use Facebook ostensibly reelect political candidates with an 11th-century concept of divine right law. It is both nationalistic and cosmopolitan, theocratic and modern, fundamentalist and socialist; a secular democracy waiting to happen. Human rights activists and other perceived agitators are sometimes subject to beatings, arrests, torture, and disappearance.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a religious institution with no secular concept of law. Those who convert from Islam to another faith may face execution for apostasy. Religious minorities are routinely subject to widespread persecution.
-Iran: Gay Teens Executed by Hanging
-Iran: "Unchaste" 16-Year-Old Girl Executed?
-Iran Executing Mentally Ill Girls
IRAN IS ISLAMIC
ISLAM RULES IN IRAN
IRAN DOES AS ISLAM IS IN IRAN!
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I was made aware of someone praying for me yesterday. I should have been at an appointment but due to illness had to ring and send my apologies. However, someone in the group recognised I was missing, asked after me, was told I was ill and the enquirer promised to pray for me at her prayer times that day. She is a Muslim, non of the Christians offered to pray for me ... today I feel much better. So should I say 'Allah be praised'?
Active UKT
The Church in Iran has suffered so many terrible attacks, particularly recently. The Church there, in the cradle of Christianity, has almost been eradicated.
Those Christians who remain are living in terror - most of those who can
are fleeing the country. If Christians can't stand up for their
persecuted brothers and sisters, it's a sad and sorry thing for the Body of
Christ, and a betrayal of our Brothers and Sisters who are not able to make their voices heard about this. (To be fair, the religion mentioned is
not the only persecutor of Christians, but it is a major one.) Just visit
www.opendoorsuk.org & barnabasfund.org/UK
Both also produce a wide range of literature; ironically one of the most
recent deals with the dangers of people in the West, even Christians,
denying the fact of persecution, and believing that the religion mentioned is a "live and let live" kind of outfit as regards other people's religion - so VERY WRONG. People need to realise it, because it's happening in this country too, both openly, (though it's rarely reported) and insidiously creeping into our lives and culture.
Not enough space so I can't be more precise here - just see the website, books, etc!
Former, UKT
I fully realise that people are persecuted and killed in the name of Allah. Man do I know it. I realise the religious persecution etc. I know that gays, christians, un-chaste women etc etc etc. are murdered and persecuted every day in the name of Islam. But that doesn't mean that it is the Islamic faith that is doing it.
The Jewish Holocaust was perpetrated in the name of God, and supported by the church - but does that mean that true Christianity supported it? The same with Slavery, child prostitution, murdering gays etc. etc. etc.
It is the practices, teachings, and ignorance of extremists which tend to tar the whole faith with the one brush. It fosters hatred, misunderstanding, ignorance etc. None of these are right in any faith or religion. The Ayatollah took power as a political move couched in religious ideologies. His actions, and those of subsequent governments, are political, not religious. They just dress it up as religion. How many of us would say that Hitler was a great man of God for what he did? Yet he and so many of his followers did such horrendous things in the name of God. Yes, some did (as do some in Iran) believe that it truly was/is God telling them what to do - but they are extremists who don't know what they are talking about and who do not represent the faith - who are pawns of the political power brokers.
We need to realise that not everything is about religion. That there are sometimes deep political motives for actions - which get dressed up as religion because nothing divides and inflames hatred and violence like religion. Often people don't even realise the difference, or that they are being used as pawns in a political power struggle.
Articles such as this continue to be unhelpful and foster those same ignorance's, hatreds, etc etc etc. Just as we would be offended and try to put someone straight who attacked Christianity on the basis that they believed Hitler was a typical man of God, so do many Muslims despair at what is happening in the Middle East, and try to put people straight.
The problem is, this kind of ignorance and misunderstanding tends to breed fundamentalist extremists. When one is attacked on the basis of a lie, or a misunderstanding, or a wrong stereotype etc., one automatically lashes out as a response. This will not stop until we all put aside our ignorance's and misunderstandings and hatreds etc., and truly try to understand each other - in truth.
Just a few thoughts
Yours in Christ
Graeme Randall
Former Australian East
I applaud Sven for posting the news article on Iran. Graeme, and others perhaps, should remember the controversy that followed his posting articles dealing with homosexuality. The point is, read it, consider, converse, accept or reject. Free press?!
From a Jan 2011 newspaper:
"Armenians and Assyrian Christians have certain rights and are recognized under the Iranian Constitution, but converting, or more specifically, the act of turning from Islam, is punishable by death. To leave the Islamic faith or to attempt to convert others away from the faith warrants capital punishment under Sharia Law. Under this law, a Muslim who becomes Christian is called a mortad, meaning one who leaves Islam. If the convert attempts to convert others, he is called a mortad harbi, or a convert who is waging war against Islam. Killing such a person is deemed a good deed and is the obligation of all Muslims, both according to the fatwa and reinforced in the Islamic Republic’s penal code."
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