The meeting of the European Parliament focused on the Christians of Iran

The European Parliament held a meeting on the situation of Christians, focusing on Iran, on the occasion of the publication of the annual report of the Open Doors World Christian Organization.

In the summary of this meeting, it was announced that the government of Iran has been shutting down Persian-speaking churches for decades and harassing them by attacking house churches and Christian homes.

At least Christian converts are accused of "acting against national security" for attending house churches. The government of Iran has repeatedly sentenced Christians to long-term imprisonment with such accusations and without providing any documents.

On the other hand, according to reports received by international institutions, the national uprising and protests of the past few months, which started to prevent the continuous violation of human rights and protest against the discrimination against minority groups in Iran, have caused the Iranian regime to put more Christian prisoners under physical and mental pressure.

The regime is also using government-affiliated Assyrian and Armenian religious institutions as a new tool against Christian converts. Recently, the former representative of the Assyrians had called evangelical Christians a cancerous tumor.

Meanwhile, among persecuted Christians, Assyrians and Armenians can also be found in prison along with Christian converts. The government has repeatedly claimed that Armenians and Assyrians have full freedom to perform their religious ceremonies and citizenship rights, while they face severe and structural discrimination and many of them have left Iran. Armenians and Assyrians who participated in church services and meetings with Christian converts have been targeted by the security forces many times.

In a recent report by Open Doors, last year about 4,500 Christians went to prison, of which 80 were in Iran.

In this year's report of this organization, Iran was recognized as the eighth "anti-Christian" country in the world.

 

_{Source: HRWF}