Christians face ‘scapegoating,’ arrests in Iran amid unrest

A joint annual report launched this week highlighting rights violations in Iran warned that 254 Christians have been arrested within the Muslim nation final yr due to their religion, and that Iranian Christians more and more face “scapegoating” as they’re blamed and focused amid political tensions.

The report, launched Thursday and titled “Scapegoats: Rights Violations Against Christians in Iran,” was compiled by the nonprofits Article 18, Open Doorways, CSW and Center East Concern, and opens with an outline of the extreme repression in opposition to Iranians of all beliefs in response to the political protests that broke out in opposition to the hardline Islamic regime in December.

“The response to those protests has been horrifying, with reports of many thousands killed, including several Christians, and every Iranian — regardless of their religious background  — affected,” the report’s government abstract learn.

Arrests reportedly noticed a “sharp increase” within the wake of Iran’s 12-day struggle with Israel final June, after which 5 Christians have been charged with espionage and given a mixed sentence of 40 years of imprisonment. State media additionally launched a video report displaying the confiscated New Testaments of Christians who have been arrested after gathering in Turkey for non secular instruction.

The report famous that whereas its focus is on the plight of Christians in Iran who’ve been swept up into the oppression, all Iranians have been subjected for practically a half-century to a authorities that “not only consistently fails to uphold human rights for its citizens, but brutally quashes dissenting voices, opinions or beliefs.”

The report mentioned many of the Christians arrested for his or her religion in Iran final yr have been charged underneath a portion of the Iranian penal code that criminalizes “propaganda contrary to the holy religion of Islam,” and that 43 of them have been nonetheless serving their sentences by the top of 2025, and 16 others have been in pre-trial detention. The variety of Christians who have been sentenced to imprisonment, exile or pressured labor reportedly greater than doubled from 25 in 2024 to 57 in 2025. 

“And although fewer Christians were sentenced in 2025 than the previous year — 96 compared to 73 — the combined total of their sentences (280 years) was higher than in 2024 (263 years), conveying a trend towards harsher sentences,” the report mentioned.

The report additionally described the poor therapy of Christian prisoners in Iran, pointing to what it described as a “shocking moment” when a pregnant Christian lady was sentenced to 16 years in jail on Worldwide Girls’s Day.

One Iranian-Armenian Christian was “prevented from attending his mother’s funeral when she died two months after his re-arrest,” and one of many Christians who was sentenced with him suffered a stroke in solitary confinement. One other Christian lady reportedly developed an an infection after falling out of a bunk mattress and being returned to jail too quickly.

The nonprofits expressed solidarity with Iranians looking for accountable authorities as an alternative of repression, noting that for practically 50 years the regime has systematically violated human rights and suppressed dissent because the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

“The road ahead for Iran appears far from clear, but as we release this latest annual report of rights violations committed against Christians in 2025, we stand with the people of Iran in their call for leaders who will act on their behalf, rather than repress them,” it mentioned.

The Feb. 19 launch of the report marked the forty seventh anniversary of the killing of the Rev. Arastoo Sayyah, an Anglican pastor who was the primary Christian murdered for his religion in Iran after the Iranian Revolution.

In line with the Open Doorways US 2026 World Watch Listing launched final month, which profiled the highest 50 nations the place Christians are persecuted, Iran ranked tenth-worst and was slapped with an 87 out of 100 on the nonprofit’s persecution rating.

In a inhabitants of greater than 92 million, there are solely about 800,000 Christians in Iran, in response to Open Doorways, which famous they’re “heavily and systemically repressed, as the authorities seek to root out what they see as a threat from the West to undermine their Islamic rule.”

The report dropped amid heightened geopolitical pressure relating to Iran, with President Donald Trump reportedly having been briefed on a number of strike choices in opposition to the nation as U.S. army models proceed to reach within the Center East.