Religious freedom campaigners have warned that a new law aimed at countering foreign espionage in Iran may actually be used to further suppress the rights of Christians.
Iran is already ranked the 10th worst persecutor of Christians worldwide by Open Doors. However the situation is believed to have worsened since the outbreak of hostilities with Israel and the US, and may deteriorate even further.
Christians are sometimes suspected of holding pro-Israeli or pro-American sympathies. Earlier this month Iran declared a number of Persian-language Christian broadcasters to be “hostile” actors and declared severe punishments for anyone caught watching them.
Now United Christian Activists (UCA), a global group of Christian Iranians and religious freedom campaigners, has warned that a new Iranian law aimed at “countering the infiltration of foreign intelligence services, governments or entities” could be used against Christians.
While the law has not yet been passed, UCA warns that the published text of the bill as it stands raises a number of serious concerns, including that proposed legal definitions are currently so broad that they could potentially be used against Christians in Iran communicating with Christians outside of Iran, or even those receiving theological education from abroad.
Even communicating with Christian family members abroad, or praying with them, could potentially fall foul of the law.
UCA notes, “Although, according to the published text of the proposed bill, matters of a purely personal nature are exempt from the restrictions contained in Article 8, this exemption does not fully address concerns regarding how ‘personal and family communication’ may be distinguished in practice from ‘religious or organisational communication’.”
The group added, “We do not claim that the published text of the proposed bill explicitly targets Christians or their family communications. Our concern relates specifically to the risk that broadly interpreted provisions could, in their implementation, transform legitimate family and religious communications into matters of security concern.
“This concern cannot be disregarded in light of the documented use of national-security-related charges in cases involving some Christian converts in Iran.”
The UCA called upon the international community to stand up for religious freedom in Iran and to “take timely and effective action regarding the legislative process and the potential consequences of this proposed bill”.
