The Islamic Republic government is among those governments that seriously and continuously violate the human rights and rights of religious, spiritual, and ideological minorities. Furthermore, through various forms of pressure and discriminatory actions, it creates difficult conditions for these minorities. The extent of these pressures ranges from depriving them of social and citizenship rights, such as the right to education, to long-term imprisonment and even mass executions and killings.

One of the mass killings that the Islamic Republic has committed during its rule has targeted the Christian community. During these mass killings, several Christians have been brutally murdered by the Islamic Republic through different methods, such as hanging and stabbing. The project of massacring Christians began about a week after the Islamic Republic came to power. This unprecedented haste in eradicating Christians, who are officially recognized as a religious minority according to the Islamic Republic’s constitution, is a clear indication of the regime’s hatred and animosity towards the Christian community and other minorities.

Seyyed Hossein Soodmand Radk

The conversation with Mrs. Arian Soodmand, daughter of Mr. Hossein Soodmand, will continue.

When and how did the pressures and security confrontations with your father, Hossein Soodmand, begin?

We had a two-story villa house in Mashhad with a basement. My father converted this basement into a church with the permission of the Islamic Republic. This church, called “Mashhad Divine Community Church”, was legally established by my father. We installed a sign with the name “Mashhad Divine Community Church” on the door of our house. After Mr. Khomeini’s death, they took the permission from my father, closed the church, and removed the sign from our door. Then they kept my father in detention. Our phone calls were monitored. Once when my father was on furlough from prison, he told us not to say anything because they even knew our most private conversations, including those with my spouse. They had bugged our house. When my father became a martyr, without our permission, they sold our home phone, which was registered under the name of Mashhad Divine Community Church, and our phone service was completely cut off. We were not allowed to

Do you remember the dates of your father’s arrests?

I do not remember the date of my father’s first arrest. But I remember that after the death of Mr. Khomeini, my father’s arrest became very serious and the pressure increased. Almost after his fortieth death anniversary, my father’s arrest and release happened repeatedly and they were very upset that why the church did not hold a ceremony for Mr. Khomeini’s fortieth anniversary. Finally, they forced my father to hold a ceremony for Khomeini’s anniversary. But my father’s last return to prison was after the end of his furlough in early or mid-November 1990, and he never returned again.

Given that you were only a 9-year-old girl at the time of your father’s execution, surely unimaginable hardships were imposed on you and your family. Tell us a little about the days without your father and in prison, about the days of execution and after that.

Hardships and difficulties for me began when I was seven years old. My mother was blind and my father had much greater responsibilities compared to other men in the house; taking care of us (the children), taking care of household chores, and being with my mother. My father and my paternal grandparents helped my mother a lot with household chores and raising us. But before my father’s martyrdom, in 1967 when I was seven years old, my mother had a car accident. In this accident, she suffered a severe head injury and developed schizophrenia. This is a severe and debilitating illness that makes a person very withdrawn and reclusive. From then on, my mother became homebound and struggled with depression and schizophrenia. She didn’t do any work after 1967 and my father and grandmother did all the household chores. My father was a homemaker, he also helped us with our studies, and he was a priest who managed the church (the church was on the ground floor of our

What was written as the cause of your father’s death on the death certificate?

Dizziness with a rope

Some people, for various reasons, do not have a favorable view of the clergy from any religion and believe that they are all one-dimensional individuals who look down on others and do not do much positive work. How was your father?

Not as their daughter, but as someone who lived with my father and saw how he lived, I must say that my father was a priest and I often compared him to other priests to see how they lived. In my opinion, my father had a very different life compared to other priests. He chose a blind person as his life partner; this was a very special choice and it stemmed from his equal view and perspective towards all people and social classes, where being disabled did not make a difference to him. One prominent memory that remains in my mind is that in the early days, my father brought a 30-year-old hermaphrodite to the church and served and taught them. That person often came to our house and seemed to see my parents as their own. I remember whenever priests or others from Tehran came and saw a hermaphrodite in the church, they would say, “At least don’t let this person enter the church when we are here.” It was as

You said your mother was a teacher for disabled people. Please explain a little about it.

My mother and father were very active individuals in the community and had a degree in French language. They were employed in education and taught in elementary school to disabled individuals who were either blind or in a wheelchair. They also worked in a disabled shelter. Although I am not an expert in this field, I know that they taught basic movement and object recognition skills to mentally disabled individuals, as well as teaching them how to identify colors, placing objects inside other objects, and so on.

Did all of these injustices, pressures, and security measures result from the will of the government?

The pressures that were imposed on us and the church had no effect on our faith and the other members of the church. Our faith remained strong. Perhaps there was fear, but it was temporary.

At the end, if there is a point, please mention it.

In the end, I want to say that we live in a world where not only Christians, but many people with different beliefs and convictions are under political and social pressures in their regions of residence all over the world, and are judged unfairly by their surroundings. But my pain is not from the rulers, but from the people who share your religion and thoughts, or sometimes even those closest to you in life, who leave you alone in the toughest situations imposed by your opponents. I ask all those who sing for peace, not to leave each other alone in the toughest situations.

Thank you for the time you have dedicated to the peace line.

Footnotes:
1- Here, the purpose of addressing issues related to bisexual individuals is not to belittle them, but to point out their exclusion from society due to prevalent misconceptions.
2- Haik Hovsepian Mehr, Tatavoush Mikaelian, and Ravanbakhsh Yousefi, who were mentioned in this conversation, are all victims of serial killings. Additionally, Edward Hovsepian Mehr is the brother of Haik Hovsepian Mehr.

“من دوست دارم که همیشه با تو باشم”

“I love to always be with you.”