Christian converts released on bail in Iran

An Iranian court has agreed to temporarily release three Christian converts on a large sum of bail.

According to Mohabat News agency, the three Christian detainees who were arrested in Shiraz were released after 36 days in custody and uncertainty.

Mohabat News says these three Christian detainees were each asked by the Revolutionary Court to pay bail in the amount of 100,000,000 Toman (approximately $USD100,000) each, and were temporarily released on March 14.

Meanwhile, knowledgeable sources report that the court has refused to release other Christian detainees on bail there.

The freed Christian detainees were Ms. Sharifeh Dookh, Masoud Golrooyan and Nima Shokouhi, who is 17-years-old. They now must wait until they are summoned for their next hearing.

The other Christian detainees in Shiraz are Mojtaba Houseini, Homayoun Shokoohi, Mohammad-Reza Partoei (Kourosh) and Vahid Hakkani.

Mohabat News says the other Christian detainees were transferred to Adel-Abad prison in Shiraz and Fariba Nazemian was transferred to the women's ward of the prison.

The news agency says that no precise information is available on their health condition at present. It was said that they were transferred to the custody centre of the Intelligence office of Shiraz which is also known as Pelak-100, for further interrogations.

The agency goes on to say that informed sources told Mohabat News that these Christian's cases are not being treated according to legal procedure.

The agency reports that some judicial authorities have indicated that no bail would be accepted for those who are still being held in prison and their trials might be held sometime in April.

The news agency says that following a raid by security authorities on the home of a Christian convert which had been allocated to house church gatherings, numerous Christian converts were arrested in Shiraz. According to the published report, after prior identification, security authorities raided a house church gathering on February 8, arresting and mistreating Christians who were present. The detainees then were transferred to an unknown location.

Prior to this incident, on May 11, 2008, Mojtaba Houseini and Homayoun Shokoohi were arrested on a charge of being Christians and each received a five-year suspended prison sentence of which one year remains.

Mohabat News goes on to state that since Christmas and the New Year, security authorities terrorised Christians in various cities of Iran and arrested a number of them in the cities of Ahwaz, Shiraz, Kermanshah and Esfahan to date.

In addition to house churches, the wave of these security treatments has now reached members of official churches as well, the agency said.

On February 10 this year, two churches, the Protestant Church of Emmanuel and the Evangelical Church of St Peter in Tehran were asked by the Ministry of Intelligence to cancel all their Church services in Farsi. Prior to these cancellation orders, the AOG central church of Tehran was forced in 2009 by security authorities to shut down their Farsi service on Fridays.

Furthermore, Hekmat Salimi, pastor of the official Anglican Church of St. Paul, together with other members of the church in Esfahan, was arrested in an organised raid by security authorities. However, it is reported that after these arrests, services at the St Paul church continue to be held.