According to official statistics, there are three hundred thousand Christians living in Iran. Some are Assyrians and some are Armenians, but there is no data on the number of native-born Muslims who have converted to Christianity. Currently, many of these converts either practice their religion secretly or are imprisoned, or have left the country to escape heavy punishments.

In order to better understand the Iranian government’s view towards Nokishan Christians, it is necessary to pay attention to the Islamic punishment law, which has prescribed death penalty for apostasy (returning from Islam). This law discusses two types of apostates:

Natural apostate: Someone who has one Muslim parent and after reaching maturity, converts to Islam and then turns away.

2. National apostate: Someone who has non-Muslim parents but embraces faith during adolescence and then turns away from it.

In both cases, the punishment for apostasy is death, but the national apostate has a chance to repent and be granted a three-day grace period after the issuance of the verdict and recommendation for repentance. If they do not repent, the death sentence will be carried out.

Here we take a look at the biographies of several Iranian Christians who have been killed from the beginning of the revolution until now.

These adventures began in 1979…

Aristotle Kashish, a traveler, was assassinated in February 1979 in his office in Shiraz. He is the first Christian to be killed after the revolution.

Bishop Hassan Dehqani-Tafti lost his mother at the age of five and with the consent of his family, he was placed under the care and education of one of the members of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. At the age of 18, he was baptized and took on the responsibility of being the Bishop of the Diocese of Iran. In October 1979, he and his British wife were attacked by five unknown armed men in their bedroom in Isfahan, but none of the bullets hit him. However, his wife was injured in the incident. A week after the attack, he left Iran to attend a meeting of the Anglican bishops in Cyprus and when he tried to return, the committee members prevented him from doing so. In May of the same year, his secretary was shot and severely injured.

Behram Dehghani Tafteh – Born in 1995, he returned to Iran in the summer of 1978 and started teaching economics and dramatic literature at the girls’ college in Damavand, located in north Tehran. Behram wanted to fulfill his military service through this path. In addition to teaching, he also worked part-time as a translator for the Nabk news agency. In January 1980, Behram Dehghani took a two-day trip to England.

Therefore, according to the regulations of that time, he handed over his passport to government officials 5 days before his flight in order to retrieve it at the airport on the day of his flight. However, at the airport, he was told that his name was on the “blacklist” and he was not allowed to leave the country. Bahram, who had no reason for such obstruction, was deeply saddened by the fact that his freedom had been taken away and tried to find out the reason for his passport being confiscated by going to government agencies. However, he received no response. He was only told that the problem was in Isfahan. When he went to Isfahan, he was told:

“We have no problem with you, but your father causes trouble. Tell him to hand over the church’s property to us.” Bahram protested against this injustice, but he was warned, “Be careful! You might get arrested too.” Later, his trip to England to attend his sister’s wedding was also prevented, but he continued teaching at the college. A few weeks later, on May 6, 1980, while Bahram Dehghani was returning from teaching at Damavand College, a few people stopped his car, took him to a secluded street near Tehran prison, and then shot him and threw him out of his car.”

Priest Hossein Soodmand was born in 1951 in a religious family in Mashhad. During his military service, he converted to Christianity through his friendship with a young Christian. He then married a blind Christian woman, and they had four children together. He had established a church in his home in Mashhad, which led to his arrest. After his temporary release, church leaders asked him to leave the country with his family and take charge of a church in Greece, but he declared that God had called him to serve in Iran. A few weeks later, he was asked to report to the Mashhad judiciary authorities, but there was no news for almost two weeks until his family was informed on December 3rd, 1990 that he had been imprisoned and hanged in the prison yard of Mashhad for his Christian faith, and buried in a mass grave on the outskirts of the city.

In 1969, Bishop Haik Hovsepian took over the leadership of the Church in Gorgan.

In 1982, he served as the overseer of the Assembly of Iranian Church Leaders. Bishop Haik played a key role in promoting cooperation and unity among Protestant churches in Iran, emphasizing the principle of unity within the church as the body of Christ.

After learning about the execution order for the priest Mehdi Dibaj, he made this news public in the media. The global publication of this news led to the release of the authorities of the Mehdi Dibaj government from prison. However, a few days later, the bloody body of Bishop Haik, who had been brutally murdered with stab wounds, was found in the outskirts of Tehran.

A few days after the release of Pastor Dibaj on January 19, 1994, he was kidnapped on the way to Mehrabad airport and was brutally stabbed 26 times, resulting in his death. His body was handed over to his family 12 days later at the coroner’s office. He had been the leader of the Protestant Church (Assembly of God) in Iran for many years.

The priest Tatous Mikailian was born in Tehran in 1932. He married Juliet in 1965 and became the father of three children.

He was a member of the Council of Evangelical Churches in Iran, a writer, translator, and researcher, and some considered him the most prominent translator of the Iranian Church in modern times. Throughout his life, he translated more than 60 books in the fields of spirituality and ethics. In addition to serving the Evangelical churches, after the martyrdom of Bishop Haik, he also took on the leadership of the Council of Protestant Church Youth in Iran.

On June 29, 1994, I left my house to meet someone who had introduced himself as a Christian and a priest, but he never returned. He was kidnapped and killed.

Newspaper.

Hot password print.

Holland (number 16)

Tir (month of the Iranian calendar).

Port statement.

Reflect yourself.

He had written it three years ago.

Priest.

Mikayelian.

That at the invitation of one.

Christian group.

For visit.

I have come to the Netherlands.

He had said: “The ruling regime…”

Iran is one.

Dictatorship.

Religious and…

Same as.

“Naziehast” means “she is cute.”

Dibaj was born on August 5, 1934 in Isfahan, which corresponds to the 14th of Mordad, 1313 in the Persian calendar. At the age of 14, he converted to Christianity and was immediately expelled from his father’s house. He went to Tehran and was taken in by a Christian family.

After some time, at the suggestion of evangelical leaders, he went to Beirut to study Christian theology and then traveled to India and Switzerland for advanced courses. He also stayed in Afghanistan for two years and upon returning to Iran, taught English at a technical college in Babol. In 1985, he was arrested but due to his insistence on his Christian faith and refusal to deny Christ, he was summoned to the court in Sari for trial in 1993. He presented his famous defense in court, which was also published in the London Times. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to death for apostasy. In response to this sentence, Bishop Haik Hovsepian, who was leading the Iranian churches at the time, made the world aware of this issue and shortly after, under international pressure, the authorities released him without any explanation. As a result, he was released from prison in January 1994 after 9 years and 27 days of captivity.

Mehdi Dibaj was kidnapped on June 24, 1994, while he was on his way home from attending his daughter’s birthday party at the beautiful Kalisa Garden in Karaj. He was taken by unknown individuals to the outskirts of Tehran and brutally murdered with knife wounds.

On the body, there was a handwritten note by Tatous Mikayelian, on which the address of the body’s location, Dibaj, was written. Within three days, two priests were murdered.

Mohammad Bagher Yousefi, also known as “Ravanbakhsh”, was a priest who opened his eyes to the world in 1964 in the city of Amirkola, located in the province of Mazandaran. During his military service, one day he heard the message of the Gospel in Persian through one of the Christian radio stations. He contacted the officials of that radio station and asked them his questions. They introduced him to Father Dibaj and he converted to Christianity. Later, he married with Ester Rahmaniyan from the Christian community of Nokishan in Mashhad and served in the church of Gorgan.

During the absence of the priest Dibaj, who was imprisoned for converting to Christianity, he took care of his two sons who were 14 and 16 years old at the time. After some time, he went to the city of Sari with his family and became the pastor of the Mazandaran province. On September 28, 1996, at 6 am, he left his house to perform a prayer ceremony. That same evening, his family was informed that his body had been found hanging. The government declared his death a suicide.

Qurban Dordi Turani was born in 1952, corresponding to 1331 in the Iranian calendar, in a Turkmen family in the city of Gonbad-e Kavus (a city on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea) in Iran. He was one of eight children in the family. Years later, as a result of his friendship with a Russian Christian, he converted to Christianity and was disowned by his family. He faced multiple attacks and threats in the Turkmen port city due to his beliefs, and ultimately, in November 2005 (2 Azar 1384), he was arrested by an unknown group. They beat him and tortured him with a knife until he passed away. Then, they left his bloodied body in front of his house.

Mohammad Jabari and Mohammad Ali Jafarzadeh were killed in May 2007, and Abbas Amiri was also killed in 2008 in the city of Isfahan. He had participated in the Iran-Iraq war as a Basiji for many years and was injured there. Abbas Amiri’s wife also died three days after her husband’s murder due to injuries from being tortured by security forces.