Iran’s Supreme Court has agreed to a retrial for Joseph Shahbazian (58), an ethnic Armenian house church leader who is serving a ten-year prison sentence for holding church services in his home. He has been in Tehran’s Evin Prison since August 2022.

The Supreme Court made the ruling on 25 February but it was not communicated to Joseph’s lawyer until 13 March and no date was set for an appeal court to hear the retrial.

Judges Ghasem Mezyani and Majid Hosseini-Nik explained that, having considered Joseph’s case, the sentence of ten years was “not appropriate” as both the Revolutionary and appeal courts failed to “offer any evidence” to prove he was the leader of the group.

The only churches permitted in Iran are the historic Armenian and Assyrian ethnic minority churches, which are allowed to operate under tight restrictions in the Armenian and Assyrian languages only, not in Farsi (Persian, the official language of Iran, which is spoken by the general populace).

Converts from Islam are not recognised as Christians and are not permitted to attend churches for recognised Armenian and Assyrian Christians. They can only meet secretly in illegal house churches, which the regime describes as “enemy groups” with “anti-security purposes”. The authorities target converts who gather in house churches and also any Armenian and Assyrian Christians who, like Joseph, meet with them.

Article 18 reports that “At least a dozen Iranian Christians, including Joseph, are currently serving sentences of imprisonment or exile as a result of their membership or leadership of house-churches.”

Background

Joseph was arrested on 30 June 2020 in a raid on a Tehran house-church gathering of around thirty Christians in western Tehran’s Yaftabad district, during a two-day series of coordinated raids carried out by Revolutionary Guards on Christian homes and house churches in three cities. He was charged with “acting against national security by promoting Zionist Christianity“.

After three weeks’ detention, Joseph’s bail was set at the exorbitant figure of three billion tomans (approximately €140,000) – an unprecedented amount that was twice the previous highest bail demand for a Christian prisoner of conscience.

A Christian convert arrested in a raid on her home the day after Joseph, Malihe Nazari (pictured), also had bail set at three billion tomans. Malihe (46) is a leader of Tehran’s One-Hearted Women Church.

Neither family could raise the bail demand and pleaded for a reduction. On 22 August 2020 Joseph was released on a reduced bail of 2 billion tomans, while Malihe was released the following month on bail of around one billion tomans.

On 7 June 2022 Joseph was convicted of “forming and operating illegal organisations [house churches] with the aim of disrupting the security of the country”. He was sentenced to ten years in prison followed by a two-year term in internal exile in a remote province in the southeast of Iran and a two-year ban on travelling abroad or membership of any social or political group. Malihe was convicted of the same “crime” and was sentenced to six years in prison.

In his verdict on Joseph’s case, Judge Iman Afshari, head of the 26th Branch of the Revolutionary Court of Tehran, stated, “The papers of this case file indicate that this person, who considers himself an Armenian and has travelled abroad several times and attended a gathering in Turkey, having established a group to attract Muslims, and under the cover of religious programmes for prayer, has propagated Evangelical Christianity, and with illegal activities and unfounded claims has abused people’s inner weaknesses and attracted some of them to the membership of his group.”

Joseph’s appeal against his sentence was rejected in August 2022, along with Malihe’s, and on 29 August 2022 he was summoned to Evin Prison to begin serving his sentence. He was given 24 hours to hand himself in to the prison authorities, which he did at around midday the following day.

Malihe also began serving her sentence in Evin Prison on 30 August, but she was not part of the retrial bid.

Read Joseph Shahbazian’s Prisoner Profile.

(Article 18)

Photo: Article 18