A most strategic nation, rich in history and culture, Iran has been captive to revolutionary Islam, and ruled by a belligerent Shi’ite theocracy, ever since the Islamic Revolution of February 1979.
However, the Islamic Revolution has backfired, resulting in mass disillusionment not merely with Islamic rule but with Islam itself. Mass disillusionment with Islam has also triggered a revival of interest in Persian culture, which pre-dates Islam and is creative and dynamic.
In 2020, the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN, a secular non-profit institute in the Netherlands), surveyed 50,000 Iranians (90 percent of whom were inside Iran). GAMAAN found that only 32 percent of all Iranians still consider themselves to be Shia Muslim. While 78 percent of respondents said they still believe in God, around half have rejected their Islamic religion, while six percent have converted to another faith, including 1.5 percent who now identify as Christian.
GAMAAN Survey [pdf in Persian] https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/GAMAAN-survey-on-religiosity-in-Iran-Persian.pdf
Analysis [article in English] https://articleeighteen.com/news/6701/
Persecution of religious minorities is severe and escalating. While Armenian and Assyrian Christians are permitted to keep and observe their Christian religion (as dhimmis), they are not permitted to worship in Farsi (Persian language) or to proselytise Muslims. Severe criminal penalties apply. Armenian and Assyrian pastors who have crossed this line have been imprisoned, driven into exile, and even assassinated.
Responding to the fact that Christianity is growing at an unprecedented rate among ethnic Persians, the Islamic regime is escalating its persecution of Christians while insisting (to avoid sanctions) that no-one is ever imprisoned on account of their faith. Christians who refuse to succumb to intimidation (including threats, beatings, home raids, loss of job, denial of education, short-term administrative detentions etc), will find themselves before Revolutionary Courts facing charges of threatening national security. The less influence the West has, and the more influence China has, the less Iran will need to bother with such pretence.
On 18 February 2021, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani signed into law two controversial amendments to Iran’s Penal Code. The amendments affect Articles 499 and 500, the articles most commonly used in the prosecution of converts. Previously, Article 500 set a sentence of three months to one year for anyone found guilty of “propaganda against the order of the Islamic Republic of Iran or propaganda for the benefit of groups or institutions against the order”. The amended Article 500 provides for https://www.article19.org/resources/iran-parliament-passes-law-to-further-choke-freedoms-and-target-minorities/ up to five years’ imprisonment for “any deviant educational or proselytising activity” by members of so-called “sects” that “contradicts or interferes with the sacred law of Islam” through “mind-control methods and psychological indoctrination” or “making false claims or lying in religious and Islamic spheres, such as claiming divinity”.
As human rights lawyer Hossein Ahmadiniaz laments, https://articleeighteen.com/news/7872/ “The law should protect citizens ... But in Iran the law has become a tool to justify the government’s violent treatment of converts and other unrecognised minorities.”
Additional news source specialising in Iran: London-based, Article 18 https://articleeighteen.com/
