The judge told the Christian convert it was “a disgrace” that he was “even breathing the air in this sacred courtroom.” Moments later, he handed down a ten-year prison sentence.
This case, from 2020, was not an isolated one. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, Christian believers from a Muslim background are treated as national security threats and subjected to official persecution.
Since the start of mass anti-government protests in Iran on December 28, the Iranian regime has killed thousands of protestors and subjected the entire country to a communications blackout.
Even in times of peace, however, Christians in Iran face systematic persecution from the government. And since Iran amended its penal code in 2021, the persecution has escalated.
According the organization Article 18, which documents the persecution of Christians in Iran, at least 139 Christians were arrested, 80 detained, and 77 formally charged because of their beliefs or activities in 2024.
The same year, ninety-six Christians were sentenced to a combined 263 years in prison – a sixfold increase from 2023, when 22 Christians received a total of 43.5 years. Courts also imposed nearly $800,000 in fines and 37 years of internal exile.
Since late December 2025, protests have erupted in more than 80 Iranian cities; the US-based NGO Human Rights Activists in Iran HRANA confirmed at least 34 protesters killed and over 2,000 arrests in the first ten days, and by mid‑January reported at least 2,403 protesters killed. The World Iranian Christian Alliance warns that these demonstrations stem from “a systematic absence of justice” and urges the authorities to respect human dignity, end the branding of peaceful citizens as “rioters”, and refrain from violent repression.
Pregnant Christian woman sentenced to 16 years in prison
Reporting suggests that this increased persecution continued through 2025. In March 2025, Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced three converts: Narges Nasri (37), Abbas Soori (48), and Mehran Shamloui (37) to more than 41 years in prison combined for house church involvement and Christian activity.
Narges, who is pregnant with her first child, received the harshest punishment: 16 years, including ten years for “propaganda activities contrary to Islamic law,” five years for membership in an “opposition group” (a house church), plus one year for social media posts supporting the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement.
All three women were also subjected to huge fines – $3,500 for Narges and Abbas and $2,750 for Mehran – and deprived of “social rights,” such as membership in political or social groups, for over a decade. Narges and Abbas are also banned from living in Tehran province or leaving Iran for two years after release. Their appeals were rejected in April 2025.
In another case in September 2025, five Christian converts had their sentences upheld, totaling more than 40 years’ prison time combined. Their alleged crimes included traveling to Turkey for Christian training, participating in house church meetings, enrolling in online Christian courses abroad, and sharing Christian content. Each received approximately eight years in prison, with one receiving an additional 17 months for “insulting the leadership.”
The legal machinery
More than 70 percent of the charges against Christians in 2024 were filed under the amended Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code. The amended Article 500, adopted in 2021, punishes “propaganda that educates in a deviant way contrary to the holy religion of Islam… through mind control or psychological indoctrination, or making false claims” with up to five years in prison, or ten years if the person received financial or organisational help from outside the country.
The actual numbers are likely much higher. The Article 18 report authors note that Iran’s vague national security provisions and laws against “propaganda contrary to the holy religion of Islam” enable quiet prosecutions that rarely reach public view. This picture is borne out by leaked judiciary files: data from the Tehran courts covering July 2008 to January 2023 reveal 327 cases against Christians in that region alone, of which around 90 percent involved converts and 58 percent had never been reported publicly before.
Surveillance and segregation
Converts to Christianity, who are seen as “apostates” from Islam, bear the brunt of the Islamic Republic’s persecution. But Iran’s historic churches also face harassment and intimidation, and their constitutional “recognition” does not guarantee equal rights.
While Iran’s Armenian and Assyrian Christians are formally acknowledged as minorities, they operate under strict conditions. They are barred from holding services in Farsi, the national language, and are forbidden to evangelize Muslims; the Farsi-ban is precisely to prevent Farsi‑speaking Iranians from understanding their worship or joining their communities.
When churches get accused of crossing these lines, the punishment is severe. Armenian Christian Hakop Gochumyan was sentenced in February 2024 to ten years in prison for “engaging in deviant proselytising activity” through alleged leadership of a “network of evangelical Christianity.” His conviction reportedly rested exclusively on possessing seven Persian-language New Testaments and visiting two Armenian Churches and a Persian-language house church while on holiday in Tehran.
Because recognized churches are prohibited from admitting converts or using Farsi, converts gather in informal house churches. These house churches have become the primary focus of repression. Activities such as attending or leading a house church are deemed by authorities to be criminal acts threatening national security, carrying sentences of up to ten years’ imprisonment. Security forces frequently raid these meetings, seize Bibles, and detain participants.
This crackdown is supported by digital espionage. A July 2024 joint submission to the UN Human Rights Council reported that intelligence officers were using spyware, likely installed on confiscated mobile phones during detention, to track the owners after their release. The surveillance particularly targeted areas with high concentrations of religious minorities, such as Urmia in West Azerbaijan Province, ensuring that the community remains under constant, high-pressure scrutiny.
Despite the intensifying crackdown, the church in Iran continues to grow. As David Yeghnazar of Elam Ministries observed, “Iranians have become the most open people to the gospel.” For the regime, this may be precisely the problem.
