Gatestone Institute
• often uses it [the charge of ‘acting against national security’] against converts instead of the charge of apostasy… in an attempt to avoid international scrutiny.” — Morning Star News, July 13, 2017.
• Not only does Iran persecute its Christian minorities, but it also tries to coerce them to embrace Islam — despite Rouhani’s boasts before the UN that “Iran does not seek to… impose its official religion on others…”
• “Rouhani wants to prove that he is a good Muslim by persecuting Christians….The authorities are trying to eradicate Christianity, just as the Islamic State group, but smarter.” — Iranian Christian living in hiding, BosNewsLife, September 7, 2017.
• “If a prisoner’s case got [international media] attention, they stopped torturing or raping them because they knew the world was watching….” — Mohabat News, October 23, 2017.
In a speech before the United Nations on September 20, 2017, presumably as a way to support his claim that Israel is “a rogue and racist regime [that] trample[s] upon the most basic rights of the Palestinians,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani repeatedly portrayed his government as dedicated to “moderation and respect for human rights,” adding:
“We in Iran strive to build peace and promote the human rights of peoples and nations. We never condone tyranny and we always defend the voiceless. We never threaten anyone…”
One need only look to Iran’s Christians — who form 1% of its entire population — to test these claims. Unlike the persecution other Christian minorities experience in Muslim majority nations — which often comes at the hands of Muslim individuals, mobs, or professional terrorists — the primary driver of Christian persecution in Iran is the government itself.
