Christian convert Ghazal Marzban (43) began a hunger strike on 19 September in Evin prison to protest against being denied access to a Bible and being threatened with death for apostasy.

Ghazal, who is a Catholic, previously went on hunger strike on 25 May in protest against her sentencing but ended it after eleven days at the request of friends who expressed serious concern about her deteriorating physical condition. She had been sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison on charges of “propaganda against the state” and “gathering and collusion against national security”.

According to Article 18, Ghazal has been told that only Iranians born into Christian families have the right to possess a Bible in prison, not converts.

A British prisoner is understood to have requested a Bible on Ghazal’s behalf, but was also refused. The prisoner in question is believed to be Lindsay Foreman, who was detained with her husband Craig Foreman in January 2025 while passing through Iran on a motorbike journey from Europe to Australia. They were each sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment on espionage charges.

It has also been reported that a judge ordered Ghazal to sign a letter of repentance and record a video recanting the Christian faith, or face capital punishment for apostasy.

Background

Ghazal was first arrested in November 2024 after protesting against the harassment she had endured since converting from Islam to Catholicism in 2017. She spent two months in Evin Prison on charges of “propaganda against the regime by chanting slogans”.

Ghazal is an Islamic law graduate and after converting she was prevented from taking the bar examination and told to leave the country. Her husband, who is also a convert, has been unable to access the medication required to manage Parkinson’s disease.

In January 2026 Ghazal was rearrested after intelligence agents raided her home in Tehran and confiscated her Bible and other Christian literature. She was brought to a Ministry of Intelligence detention centre where she was detained incommunicado for a month. In May the notorious Revolutionary Court judge Iman Afshari sentenced her to nine years and eight months in prison.

On 14 July Ghazal was beaten after she protested against overcrowding in the women’s ward of Evin Prison. She suffered a fracture of the left hand that left her in severe pain.

In August the Persian-language HRANA news agency published a letter in which Ghazal wrote that she had been brutally raped in a Ministry of Intelligence detention centre during a brief detention on 17 May 2023. She said that after her arrest in January 2026 she was forced to endure a further “torturous” 22 days in the same facility, fearing all the time that “the terrible incident would happen again”.

(Article 18, BBC, Human Rights Activists News Agency)

Photo: Article 18