Iran's media war against Christianity

According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, the Iranian government is actively using the media to incite "public opinion" against Christianity and other religions.

According to this commission, the Iranian government uses official media, government-related media and social media to spread "lies and false beliefs" about religious minorities in order to turn public opinion against these communities.

The Religious Propaganda in Iran report attributes the effort to a "systematic campaign to deny freedom of religion or belief to groups that do not conform to the government's unique interpretation of Jafari Shia Islam."

For example, the government describes some Christians as "evangelical Zionists" and uses vague national security charges to target Christian converts.

According to USCIRF, Iranian government propaganda regularly refers to Christian converts as members of a "Zionist" network.

Officials say the reference to Zionism in this context does not refer to specific allegations of ties between Christian converts in Iran and the Israeli government, but to "a broader conspiracy in which evangelical Christians around the world promote political views that are to serve the Zionist ideology."

The report also points to what USCIRF calls Iran's "disinformation campaign against Christian converts," which officials say seeks to distinguish Christian converts from Armenians and Assyrians as recognized religious minority groups.

Hojjat-ul-Islam Kashani, one of the Muslim clerics who works as the secretary of the Islam and Christianity Dialogue Forum, told the Iranian media: "What is being promoted as Christianity today is not traditional Christianity, but evangelical and colonial Christianity."

 

_{Source: CP}