A human rights group said that six Christian converts were arrested in one month in the northern city of Rasht.

According to the report, two Christian coverts identified as Hossein Kadivar and Khalil Pourdehghan were detained on January 29 in a house church.

Another man identified as Abdolreza Ali Hagh Nejad was detained in his home on February 10.

Three other men were arrested on Friday February 15 in a church congregation held in a home. They were identified as Mohammad Vafadar, Mohammad Islamdoust and Kamal Na’manian.

They were all taken to unknown locations.

In another development, security forces called the wife of detained pastor Yousef Nadarkhani and threatened that if she left Rasht, she would be detained.

In a December 2018 report, the Telegraph reported that 114 Christian converts were detained in the span of just one week according to Christian charities.

According to Iranian law, evangelism, missionary work and converting to Christianity can be a crime meriting a sentence of more than 10 years imprisonment.

There is officially no crime known as apostasy in the penal code (although there was a law about it prior to 1994). The last known execution for this crime was in 1990. However, despite there being no official civil law of apostasy, judges may still convict a defendant of that crime if they rule based on religious fatwas.

Reports indicate that the distribution of Christian literature in Persian is currently illegal in Iran.

Source » irannewswire