In Depth:  Mohabat News

Christian prisoner Rasoul Abdollahi was conditionally released on 18 February, after serving 15 months of a three-year sentence.

This was said to be for conspiring against the Islamic regime and for evangelism in Rajaei-Shahr prison in Karaj.

Iranian security authorities raided a house-church in southern Tehran, on April 18, arresting those in attendance.

Human rights sources named five of those arrested as Nazi and Maryam Asadi, Ehsan Sadeghi, Vahid Safi and Amin Mazloomi. Those reports indicate that plain-clothes security authorities raided Ms Asadi’s house, where a house-church service was being held. The authorities were armed and carrying walkie-talkies. They terrified those in the house church and began searching the rooms. They eventually transferred all in attendance to an unknown location using two white vans.

A Christian prisoner in Ward 350 of Evin prison, Farshid Fathi, was transferred to Taleghani hospital on April 20, after Revolutionary Guards beat him in prison.

A group of Revolutionary Guards and intelligence officers raided Ward 350 of Evin prison on April 17 and beat tens of prisoners. A number of these prisoners were injured and transferred to medical centres outside the prison.

Prison authorities in Central Prison in Karaj, searched Behnam Irani’s cell on March 5, and confiscated his Bible and several Christian books.

A knowledgeable source told a human-rights activist reporter: ‘Four soldiers, one Revolutionary Guard officer, and Mr Seyyed Parviz Rezvanian, deputy chief prison officer, raided Behnam Irani’s cell and searched his and his cell mates’ belongings, only to take away Mr Irani’s Bible and Christian books. Some of the confiscated books belonged to the prison library, and were given to Mr Irani by prison officials themselves. As they took away Mr Irani’s Bible and books, they promised to return them to him shortly, but they never did’.

Davoud Alijani, a Christian convert and minister at the Assemblies of God Church of Ahwaz, who had been imprisoned, was granted 20 days of remission and released on January 13, after 257 days in jail, and his wife was released in early February.

Based on the accusations of ‘proselytising Muslims’ and ‘propagating against the Islamic regime through evangelism’, the Revolutionary Court of Ahwaz sentenced four Christian detainees to one year in prison. One man was taken to prison to serve his sentence as he went to the court. The three others were summoned to the court and transferred to Sepidar prison from there.

An appeals court has acquitted Mostafa Bordbar from all charges relating to belonging to a house church, and he was released from Evin prison in Tehran on November 3.

He had been arrested on December 27 2012 during a Christmas celebration in Tehran together with about 50 other Farsi-speaking Christians. These Christian believers had gathered in a house in northern Tehran to worship the Lord and celebrate Christmas.

On August 21, security authorities arrested three Iranian Christians in Karaj, two of whom are Farsi-speaking and the other an Iranian-Armenian.

According to the report, on August 21 Ebrahim Firouzi and Sevada Aghasar went to visit Masoud Mirzaei in his office in an insurance company in Karaj, when plainclothes security authorities raided the office and arrested all three Christians. Ebrahim Firouzi was on temporary bail at the time, due to serve the remainder of a one-year prison sentence before being exiled to a remote border town for two years.